Summary

Jennine Capó Crucet, now an English professor and author in her thirties, opens this non-fiction essay collection book with a piece titled "What We Pack," a reflection on the confusion that comes with being the first in a family to attend college. She is the daughter of Cuban refugees and is first-generation American. She describes how, all together, her parents, sister, and grandmother made the trip from her hometown of Miami to upstate New York to settle her into her dorm at Cornell University. She also describes with a comic tone how her family did not have a clue how to prepare her for college, how there were so many supplies they did not they would need—for example, shower shoes and a plastic soap holder—and how her whole family accompanied her to orientation week...