Catalina

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use, sexual content, death, mental illness, and disordered eating.

When Catalina was admitted to Harvard, one of her high school teachers warned her to approach the experience “with humility.” She followed this advice for the first three years, keeping her “dignity intact” by cultivating a polite “invisibility.” Now, however, Catalina wants “to accept [her] razzle-dazzle coming-of-age at the most famous school in the world” (40).

Catalina generally struggled to make friends at Harvard, but she quickly became close with Delphine Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican girl from Texas who is studying pre-medicine. The Latine students at Harvard usually make Catalina feel “self-conscious”; she imagines that they share all of the same pains and struggles, but Delphine is different. Her mother also died when she was young, and she and Catalina have matching tattoos, belly button piercings, and necklaces. However, their relationship is also turbulent and full of arguments. In one instance, Delphine, who is also a Jehovah’s Witness, decided to stick to the Witness’s policy of neutrality by not voting in the 2008 presidential election. Catalina, for whom voting was not an option, took Delphine’s decision to sit out personally and attempted unsuccessfully to change her friend’s mind.

Although Catalina has a full scholarship, she is still required to make a “symbolic” contribution toward her tuition. Because she has no financial resources, Harvard offered her a personal loan and a volunteer position in the university’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. The museum is named after George Peabody, who donated the funds to “[promote] arts and culture” (43). Catalina muses that he “kind of” achieved this goal; much of the museum’s collection of South American artifacts was donated by “a Swiss biologist who believed that Black people were a physiologically and anatomically distinct species” (43). Because of these “great men,” Catalina has a cushy job where she can enjoy the air conditioning and the museum’s beauty.

One day, while sitting at the front desk, Catalina receives an email announcing that one of her essays has won the William Yandell Elliott Prize and inviting her to a celebratory reception. Catalina loves “prize money almost as […] [much as] standardized tests” (44). She researches, learns that Elliot was Henry Kissinger’s mentor, and is even more satisfied. Kissinger is her favorite Harvard alumnus, and Catalina grew up hearing stories about him from her grandfather. She often imagines that there is “a storage container” in her brain filled with “many little Henry Kissingers,” who she has “condemned […] to running on a treadmill to generate power for [her] little body” (45). Catalina gets her energy for things like flirting and going to parties from this army of tiny Kissingers.

Catalina hurries outside to call her grandmother and notices a cute boy on the museum’s front steps. She briefly tells Fernanda about the boy she is watching and then spills the news about the writing prize and complains that she has “absolutely nothing to wear” to the reception (46). Fernanda promises to find her a dress so that she “won’t die,” and they hang up as Catalina approaches the museum steps. The boy is in front of her, and he asks Catalina what her mother said. Catalina knows that the boy wants her to be “impressed” with his Spanish, but she feels no curiosity. She tells him only that her mother is dead. He introduces himself as Nathaniel and reminds her that they shared a class together during their freshman year. This jogs Catalina’s memory, and she asks Nathaniel to tie her shoe; her dress is too short to kneel in after she “impulsively” hacked off the hem in an attempt to avoid sweating.

Nathaniel is surprised but ties Catalina’s shoe and follows her inside, where she prints a pass for him to work with a collection supervised by the anthropology professor, Dr. Deborah Murphy. Nathaniel is studying anthropology, and Catalina identifies herself as a literature major. Their conversation is interrupted by a group of schoolchildren. Catalina asks Nathaniel to stay, telling him that she is “bored and [he’s] not boring” (48). He tells her that she is good at “flirting effectively” but that he has to leave.

One of Catalina’s best friends, Kyle Johnson, is Black and Jewish, “like Drake.” They met freshmen year in a poetry seminar where Kyle left his brand-new copy of Ezra Pound’s Cantos untouched in protest of the poet’s antisemitic views. Just a few weeks after they met, Kyle became the first Harvard classmate with whom Catalina shared her undocumented status. Catalina’s freshman year was a “different time,” and being undocumented was not something anyone was discussing publicly. Late one night, she sent Kyle an email with the subject line “A Big Thing” (50). She told him that she was born in South America, that her tourist visa expired when she was a child, and that there was now “literally not a single way” to change her status (51), even with the help of the best immigration lawyer Harvard could find. She hoped that Kyle wouldn’t be “politically disturbed” by her confession. Kyle assured her that her immigration status wasn’t a problem and encouraged her to “become the face of immigration reform” (52).

In their junior year, Kyle nominated Catalina for a secret arts and letters society called the Signet. Catalina claims that he nominated her because he thought she was a good writer but also because he wanted to remind Harvard’s “artsy kids” that he wasn’t “loyal” to them. Catalina only attends some of the Signet’s required meetings, but the other members like her “urbane” vibe, and she is “happy to be misread” (50). The Signet had a clubhouse that hosted daily lunch with “really nice food.” Members could bring guests, preferably alumni, who always saw Catalina’s presence as “proof” that their “donations […] were being put to good use” (52-53). Over lunch, Catalina made friends with Ms. Lily Rose Brinckerhoff, a European woman with an “untraceable” accent who came to lunch every Wednesday. One day, she commented on Catalina’s “gorgeous complexion” and asked if she was Spanish. Catalina told the woman that she was born in Ecuador, and Ms. Brinckerhoff immediately launched into a story about an Ecuadorian assistant she used to have, offering up the woman’s name in case Catalina knew her. There is an “anxious, insecure, and very awkward way” in which white people talk to Catalina about South America, and she never knows what to say to their stories of “vacations to Machu Picchu or Rio de Janeiro” (54).

Catalina often fantasizes about taking Ruby Sandoval, Harvard’s first Latina tenured professor, to lunch at the Signet. Professor Sandoval is “an absolute star on campus” with her nose piercing and “perfectly tailored Italian leather pants” (54-55). As a “lifelong teacher’s pet,” Catalonia assumed that she would “charm” Sandoval when she took her intro to cultural theory class (55). However, she found her to be unreceptive to her charms and was surprised to realize that they “had nothing in common except […] the most important thing” (55).

Catalina sometimes secretly dreams of being “a boy reporter on the eve of a revolution” (56). She laments that people like her are destined to die “inglorious[ly],” and she is frustrated by this injustice. Catalina had long fantasized about the Colombian journalist Abél Morrison and eagerly signed up for his class, entitled El Ejército, La Policía, y El Narco (“The Army, the Police, and the Drug Traffickers”). Like most other classes that Catalina took to learn about her “ancestry,” Morrison’s class was held in the anthropology department. Anthropology was full of white students who were “proud when they drank a brown person under the table” or “could handle the hottest chile pepper” (57). The department also had a number of Latine students, and Catalina experiences their diversity as a “revelation.” They are united only by their shared identity as “descendants of annihilated peoples” and the desire to learn about this lost past (58).

On the night of Catalina’s 21st birthday, she and Delphine go out for drinks. Although Catalina is now 21, she still doesn’t have any ID besides her Ecuadorian passport, so they go to a college bar that won’t check. Seeing Delphine with her hair down is like “a miracle.” The product of an Afro-Latino father and a green-eyed, pink-cheeked Puerto Rican woman, Delphine “was the most beautiful girl at her [high] school” (60), but she didn’t fit in with any of her Texas school’s social groups. Now, she complains to Catalina about her roommate’s noisy and “creepy” sex, and Catalina brings up Nathaniel Wheeler. Delphine reminds Catalina that Nathaniel’s father, Byron Wheeler, is a famous director whose recent documentary short film used sounds collected from the Colombian jungle and received a seven-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival.

Back in Catalina’s dorm room, the girls stalk Nathaniel on Facebook. However, when Delphine asks Catalina if she likes him, she blurts out that the DREAM Act is going to be debated in the Senate. When Catalina was in seventh grade, her grandfather told her that she was undocumented but assured her that a law would be passed soon allowing her to become a citizen. The DREAM Act, which stands for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, has been in and out of the Senate for years, and Catalina no longer has any optimism. She is afraid of speaking out, worried that becoming “an undocumented poster girl” would ruin her chance of being “an exceedingly serious and important capital-A artist” (65). However, she also feels compelled to show her support for the bill. A group of Dreamers has planned a vigil in front of City Hall, and she asks Delphine to go with her.

Surrounded by the other Dreamers, Catalina feels overwhelmed with love for them and fearful at the hopeful way they talk about the DREAM Act. She “stopped believing so, so long ago” and thinks that the others are “stupid” for holding onto their hope (66). Later that week, she watches C-SPAN on mute during class as the DREAM Act is filibustered. That night, she dresses up for the award reception, where she sees Nathaniel. Nathaniel introduces Catalina to his thesis advisor, Dr. Murphy. Dr. Murphy is known for her work with the khipu, a recording system used by the Inca. In Incan communities, khipus used a series of complicated knots to record all kinds of important information, and people known as quipucamayocs were responsible for creating and reading the khipus. In pre-Columbian times, the Incan king would kill the quipucamayocs and destroy their khipus when he conquered a group of people, therefore giving himself power over their memories and narrative. The Spanish repeated this pattern. Now, archaeologists and anthropologists worldwide study the few remaining khipus, but their meaning remains largely mysterious. Most researchers hope to find a “rosetta khipu” that might crack the code for reading them. Because of Dr. Murphy’s scholarship, Harvard is “a hotbed” for khipu research, and the Peabody is preparing a large khipu exhibition for the spring.

Nathaniel wastes no time in telling Dr. Murphy that Catalina is from Ecuador. As the words leave his mouth, Catalina feels dread and denial. She listens to Dr. Murphy describe Ecuador as “stunningly beautiful” and gives a vague answer about “family drama” when asked why she hasn’t been back to visit. Instead, Catalina asks Dr. Murphy how she developed an interest in the Andes. Dr. Murphy describes celebrating a child’s birthday with a family in a remote Andean village that made her “fall in love with fieldwork” (70). Catalina struggles to keep a smile on her face. She excuses herself, gathers her prize money, and goes home.

In all the romantic comedies Catalina has seen, one of the perspective lovers warns the other not to fall in love with them. Catalina decides to try this line on Nathaniel. She is eager to “experience heartbreak,” which she reasons is “probably even more famous than love” (71). When she tells Nathaniel not to fall in love with her, he replies that he doesn’t want to be “a trope in someone else’s story” (72). Catalina is hurt by this, but she agrees to go with him to a classmate’s birthday party. She wants “him to have to wait for [her]” (72), so she tells him to pick her up at 10 o’clock.

Catalina feels like Cinderella getting ready for the ball as she puts on a polyester chiffon dress and puts “loads of rosehip Herbal Essences conditioner” in her hair (74). She comes downstairs exactly seven minutes late, and Nathaniel complements her appearance. Catalina isn’t sure what to do with his attention now that she has captured it. Being “an object” is “powerful” but also “boring.” To fill the silence, Nathaniel begins telling Catalina the story of Eva Peron’s corpse, which was embalmed and then lost, only to be discovered 15 years later in an Italian crypt. Catalina understands why Nathaniel is “hopelessly drawn to [her] continent” but notes his conspicuous lack of Latine “friends, not ethnographic subjects” (76). After briefly asking Catalina about her grandparents, Nathaniel tells her about his thesis research. He explains how khipus work and details the ethnographic study of a village in the Peruvian highlands that he has planned. He is sure that the khipus constitute a written language, not just an accounting system. When Catalina asks what the knots feel like, Nathaniel tells her that you can’t touch them to keep them better preserved. However, “[i]f you’re trained, you don’t have to touch them to know” what the different fibers are (78). Catalina quietly doubts that this is true.

At the party, Nathaniel introduces Catalina to his friends. She watches the white students dancing and feels that they are “very brave.” She declines Nathaniel’s offer to dance, claiming that the music is “making [her] feel nothing” (79). Feeling “grumpy,” she excuses herself and hurries back to her room. She feels intense relief to be behind her locked door. The WikiLeaks scandal is happening, and Catalina can’t stop thinking about the 60-80% of Iraq War deaths that were civilians or how the Army recruited poor young people at her high school. At 3.00 am, Nathaniel texts Catalina, asking for a “proper date.”

In November, Catalina watches “in horror” as Republicans sweep the midterm elections. The next day, she auditions for The Harvard Advocate, the university’s literary magazine. For the audition, the assembled students are given two stories and asked which one they would publish. The first is a “serious story” about two young men falling in love. The second is about a garden snake eating a puppy. Catalina feels “suffocated” by the obligation she senses to like the first story, and she becomes increasingly frustrated as students she imagines will become “corporate lawyers” argue for publishing the “serious story.” When it is her turn, she argues that they should publish the second story along with a coloring book and a CD of Raffi’s music to appeal to young people who lost their childhoods to being oversexualized. She does not move on to the second round of auditions.

Before Nathaniel takes Catalina on their “proper date,” he invites her to have lunch with his father, Byron. Catalina isn’t sure that she wants Nathaniel to be her boyfriend but decides that she will try to be a “good girl.” Their server, a Latino man “dressed like a penguin” (85), pours water, but Catalina takes the pitcher from him, pours her own water, and introduces herself to him. When the server leaves, Byron assures her that the staff makes “above the minimum wage,” but Catalina insists that she “like[s] to serve [her]self” (86). Appeased, Bryon launches into a “funny story” about how every “older Ecuadorian” woman he meets asks him to marry her daughter. He recounts a number of these incidents, and Catalina and Nathaniel laugh, agreeing with the comedy of the situation.

While Catalina is home on Thanksgiving break, her uncle Patricio, who raised her after her parents’ death, dies. She and her grandparents are in a situation that “happens to every undocumented person in America” (87): They have lost a loved one and have no hope of returning home for the funeral. Patricio’s death confirms Catalina’s grandfather’s fears that “he [can] not protect” or “provide” for his family” (88), and his mood gets progressively darker. The week that Catalina returns to Harvard to finish the semester, he gets into two fights, risking arrest and, therefore, deportation. He begins drinking heavily, and Fernanda begs her to come home and talk to Fransisco. Catalina comes home for the next two weekends, and her grandfather is unusually affectionate but “only as long as [she] remain[s] silent” (90). If she tries to bring up his drinking or melancholy, he storms off. On the bus back to Harvard, Catalina feels relieved but also guilty for that relief. Her grandparents “gave [her] everything,” but she feels “nothing for them,” and this makes her “feel evil” and “broken” (91).

Catalina is supposed to be studying for finals, but she cannot do anything but lie “motionless in bed” (93). She stops eating and starts “to enjoy the weakness that comes from self-deprivation” (93). Her grandmother keeps texting, begging her to speak to her grandfather, and Catalina ignores her calls. Adding to her “traumarama,” the DREAM Act goes for another vote. Catalina feels only “resentment that [she] ha[s] to feel something about it” (94). Crying in the Peabody, however, feels “extremely right,” and her museum shifts are the only responsibility that Catalina doesn’t bail on.

Catalina isn’t worried about passing her finals; she has been listening in class even if she hasn’t participated. However, she is struggling with a topic for her thesis colloquium and has stopped opening emails from Professor Sandoval. One day, Delphine insists on taking Catalina for coffee. She tells Catalina that she loves her but that she is “a hot mess” and needs to get herself together if she wants to graduate. Catalina tears up and tries “to recall the script” (96). She tells Delphine that she will make some appointments and find some help. She aces two finals but oversleeps for the third. The DREAM Act again fails to pass, and Catalina throws up when she hears the news, even though she hasn’t allowed herself to feel hopeful. That same night, she goes to the Signet holiday party with Nathaniel as her date.

Catalina is already drunk by the time Nathaniel shows up. She decides that she has waited long enough, and she kisses him until she tastes blood. Nathanial calls her “a silly little girl” (99), kisses her head, and leaves. Catalina falls asleep on the couch and wakes up vomiting. She covers the puke with a blanket and walks home in the dark, imagining “older women janitors, aunties and titis and titas” (101), cleaning up the mess from the party.