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Josef: Antwerp, Belgium – 1939, 36 days
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Refugee, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Coming of Age
Injustice and Cruelty vs. Empathy and Social Responsibility
Hope vs. Despair
Family, Displacement, and Culture
Invisibility and the Refugee Experience
Summary
Analysis
Isabel and the others continue to paddle, getting closer and closer to shore. As the Coast Guard ship approaches, Lito confesses that when he was a young man, there was ship full of Jewish people from Europe trying to get into Cuba, and that he sent them back. He knows that the Jewish people were seeking asylum, just as they are now. He says they kept telling them “mañana,” but they never let them in. He wonders how many of them died because he was just doing his job.
Lito’s reveal that he was Mariano Padron, the Cuban officer who sent Josef and the St. Louis back to Europe, emphasizes why it is so necessary to have empathy toward refugees and those who are vulnerable. First, Lito now fully recognizes Josef and the others’ humanity, understanding that he likely caused many of their deaths. Additionally, he realizes now, as a refugee himself, the desperation of their situation and their need for aid from (former) government officials like him.
Themes
Lito continues, telling them that he kept waiting for things to get better in Cuba all his life, but that they never did. He tells Isabel to take care of Teresa and the baby, and that they need to keep rowing. Lito then stands up and jumps into the ocean. He cries out for help to distract the Coast Guard from reaching the boat. Isabel sobs as Lito yells goodbye, and the Coast Guard ship steers toward him to send him back to Cuba.
Lito’s sacrifice, to return to Cuba so that Isabel and the others can continue on, serves as a kind of retribution for sending the passengers of the St. Louis away. His story arc compels readers to recognize their own need to help refugees and face injustice directly, because they would want help if the situation were reversed.
Themes
