Return to Sender Summary
Julia Álvarez

Return to Sender Overview

Return to Sender is Julia Alvarez’s middle grade novel about illegal immigrants in the United States. It was published in 2009, and it is set in the United States in 2005. The novel is told from two different perspectives: the third person perspective following an American boy named Tyler and the first person perspective of a Mexican girl named Mari who tells her story through her letters and diary entries. In the novel, Mari’s family comes to work on Tyler’s family’s farm in Vermont. Mari’s mother, Mrs. Cruz, is missing for much of the novel after trying to immigrate back into the United States after returning to Mexico to visit her dying mother. By the end of the novel, Mrs. Cruz is back with her family, and the whole family has been deported to Mexico but plan to return to the United States legally in ten years. Key themes make the claims that cultural holidays can be unitive, Mexican people have a strong work ethic, Immigration officials are not all evil, Some laws are unjust, and Friendship can transform people.