Behold the Dreamers: Chapter 58 Summary & Analysis

At work, Jende’s friends ask him repeatedly if he’s sure that he won’t miss America. He admits that he may miss football and cheesecake, but he wants no more of living in a roach-infested apartment. He wants, instead, to visit his family whenever he wants and to meet his friends at parties where they’ll have roasted fish and beer by the ocean.

Neni finds that, as the date of her departure comes closer, she can’t stop crying. She cries everywhere and feels no excitement at the prospect of reuniting with her family and old friends. She worries, in fact, that she’ll have too little in common with them now. For her children, her feelings waver between joy and sorrow—joy for the beautiful things that Cameroon can give them and sorrow for the things it can’t. They would lose the opportunity to grow up “in a magnificent land of uninhibited dreamers.” They would lose access to the adventures that only New York could offer a child.