Homecoming

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of sexual harassment.

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. How did Alvarez’s portrayal of a family wedding as a site of class and cultural tension affect your reading experience? What emotional responses did the poem evoke in you?

2. “Homecoming” explores the uncomfortable intersection of celebration and exploitation. Which elements of the poem did you find most striking or memorable, and why?

3. Julia Alvarez examines complex power dynamics at a family celebration in “Homecoming,” similar to the way she explores family conflicts in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. If you’ve read both works, how do they compare in their treatment of cultural identity and family relationships? If not, how does “Homecoming” compare to other works that examine cultural displacement?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. The speaker in “Homecoming” returns to a place that feels simultaneously familiar and foreign. When have you returned to a place that has changed—or perhaps you changed—making it feel both familiar and strange?

2. The poem explores how the speaker’s education leads them to see their family’s exploitation of workers.