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Valeria Luiselli
Manu is a sixteen-year-old boy from Honduras who has recently migrated to the United States in the aftermath of his grandmother’s death. The main reason he left Honduras, though, was because members of the Barrio 18 gang were threatening to kill him, waiting for him outside his school and following him home every day. One day, the gang chased him and his friend, and though Manu escaped, his friend was shot and killed. That night, Manu called his aunt Alina and she told him not to leave the house, quickly making arrangements for a “coyote” to take him to the United States. Manu first meets Luiselli after arriving in New York. With his immigration hearing coming up, he answers the questions Luiselli asks him, all intended to help match him with a pro bono lawyer. Because he has a copy of a complaint he filed with the police in Honduras, he’s able to prove that he sought protection but was ultimately ignored. Because this is such a strong piece of evidence, a high-powered law firm agrees to represent him, asking Luiselli to act as his translator and interpreter. In this role, she gets to know Manu better, learning that he wants to drop out of school in Hempstead, Long Island, since it’s packed with members of MS-13 and Barrio 18. However, his lawyers tell him he can’t drop out because his chance to gain permanent residency in the United States is contingent upon his enrollment as a student. He admits that Barrio 18 recently beat him up and that MS-13 saved him, which means they now expect him to join them. In spite of this, he has refused to do so, saying he won’t join a gang because he has to look out for his cousins. By the conclusion of Tell Me How It Ends, Manu has joined a church, forged relationships with anti-gang mentors, and started attending events put on by the nonprofit organization founded by Luiselli’s students at Hofstra University.
Manu López Quotes in Tell Me How It Ends
The Tell Me How It Ends quotes below are all either spoken by Manu López or refer to Manu López. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
Between Hempstead and Tegucigalpa there is a long chain of causes and effects. Both cities can be drawn on the same map: the map of violence related to drug trafficking. This fact is ignored, however, by almost all of the official reports. The media wouldn’t put Hempstead, a city in New York, on the same plane as one in Honduras. What a scandal! Official accounts in the United States—what circulates in the newspaper or on the radio, the message from Washington, and public opinion in general—almost always locate the dividing line between “civilization” and “barbarity” just below the Río Grande.
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Chapter 4
Quotes
But not all schools are complying. For months now, Alina has been trying to find a different school for Manu. The two girls are not as vulnerable to gang coercion, she thinks, provided that they keep to themselves. But she tells me that Manu can no longer go unnoticed. For a while he was admitted to a school in Long Beach, but then they told him his English wasn’t good enough and that he needed to take language classes first. Other schools said he didn’t meet the eligibility criteria, or that he’s missing some document or another, or that there’s simply no space.
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Manu López Quotes in Tell Me How It Ends
The Tell Me How It Ends quotes below are all either spoken by Manu López or refer to Manu López. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
Between Hempstead and Tegucigalpa there is a long chain of causes and effects. Both cities can be drawn on the same map: the map of violence related to drug trafficking. This fact is ignored, however, by almost all of the official reports. The media wouldn’t put Hempstead, a city in New York, on the same plane as one in Honduras. What a scandal! Official accounts in the United States—what circulates in the newspaper or on the radio, the message from Washington, and public opinion in general—almost always locate the dividing line between “civilization” and “barbarity” just below the Río Grande.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4
Quotes
But not all schools are complying. For months now, Alina has been trying to find a different school for Manu. The two girls are not as vulnerable to gang coercion, she thinks, provided that they keep to themselves. But she tells me that Manu can no longer go unnoticed. For a while he was admitted to a school in Long Beach, but then they told him his English wasn’t good enough and that he needed to take language classes first. Other schools said he didn’t meet the eligibility criteria, or that he’s missing some document or another, or that there’s simply no space.
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