Esperanza Rising: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

Everyone agrees that Miguel must have taken the money orders. Alfonso promises to repay the money, but Esperanza remains angry with Miguel for disrespecting all her hard work and stealing from her. Meanwhile, Mama gets stronger every day, and Esperanza’s work sorting peaches, plums, and nectarines allows her to eat a lot of sweet fruit. One day, Alfonso comes by the shed—Esperanza is worried that something has happened to Mama, but Alfonso insists that Mama is all right. He has received a message from Miguel, asking them all to meet him at the bus station in Bakersfield this afternoon.

Esperanza, Hortensia, and Alfonso ride down to Los Angeles in the heat to await Miguel’s arrival. When his bus finally comes, he steps off the bus looking tired and rumpled. He hugs his parents and then turns to Esperanza. Rather than apologizing for stealing from her, he tells her that he has “brought [her] proof that things will get better.” He turns around to help the last passenger on the bus off—it is Abuelita.

Esperanza can hardly believe her eyes. She is overcome with emotion as she embraces her grandmother and breathes in her familiar scent. Miguel admits that he took Esperanza’s money orders and used them to get back to Mexico so that he could bring Abuelita over the border.

Everyone returns to the camp, and though Esperanza asks for Mama right away, Josefina tells her Ramona is sleeping. Esperanza introduces Abuelita to everyone and shows her around, wondering what the old woman must think of the “sad conditions”—all Abuelita wants, though, is to be taken to her daughter. Esperanza shows Abuelita outside to where Mama is napping in the shade of a tree, a stack of crocheting materials at her side. Abuelita gently wakes her daughter, and the two embrace tearfully.

Esperanza retrieves her grandmother’s blanket from inside and shows her all the crocheting work she has done, then sits down with Abuelita so that they can finish the final stitches together. Abuelita talks about what has been going on all this time in Mexico. She reveals that she could hardly go to the market without Luis and Marco’s spies following her. Abuelita had been tormented for months by “premonition[s]” that something was wrong with Ramona, but because of Luis and Marco’s intense grip on the town, she had no way of finding out what was happening in America. One day, a nun brought Abuelita a note from Miguel, fished from the poor box—the note told of his plan to get her out of Mexico for good.

That night Miguel and Señor Rodriguez came to collect her from the convent and take her to the train station—Miguel stayed by her side the entire trip north. As Esperanza and Abuelita finish crocheting the blanket, she thinks of the “mountains and valleys” they have both traversed during their year apart.

A few weeks later, it is nearly Esperanza’s birthday. She asks Miguel to drive her out to the foothills at sunrise. At the top of a plateau, Esperanza looks out over the valley. She tells Miguel that if one lies down on the ground and waits patiently, one can feel the earth’s heartbeat. Together they lie down, and soon, Esperanza feels the familiar thumping in her ears. Esperanza closes her eyes and imagines herself floating and gliding over the earth, serene and unafraid. As she flies, she sees herself swooping over the valley and the camp, Papa’s rose blooms, and all of her friends and family. She imagines flying over a river—on the other side she sees an image of her and Miguel on the day of their train trip, as children, to Zacatecas. Back on the ground at last, Esperanza reaches for Miguel’s hand and holds it tight.

On the morning of her fourteenth birthday, Esperanza wakes up to all of her friends and family serenading her from beneath the window outside. Though there are no gifts for her to open, she enjoys a beautiful breakfast with everyone she loves. At the end of the meal, as dessert is served, Esperanza teaches Isabel how to crochet. Isabel is frustrated with her poor needlework, but Esperanza urges her friend to never “be afraid to start over.”