We Were Here by Matt de la Peña is about a boy named Miguel Castañeda, who gets sent to juvenile detention and then to a group home, where he is to write a journal about his daily life so, as he puts it, "some counselor could try to figure out how I think,"(5). In the group home (the Lighthouse) the counselor, Jaden, a white, surfer-like dude, is very welcoming and nice, but Miguel just ignores him. The next day, when Miguel is getting introduced to the other group home kids, Miguel gets in a fight with this psycho Chinese dude named Mong because he called all the group home kids b****s under his breath, then yelled it when Mong asked what he said, Mong spat at him, and then they were fighting. When they got pulled off each other, Mong spat on Miguel and Miguel attacked him again. When they finally stopped fighting, Jaden told Mong that if he fought anymore, he would go back to juvie and told Miguel that if he fought a lot more, he would probably lengthen his sentence. After that, the kids did their chores and Lester (the overseer) came by to pick up Mong, to bring him somewhere none of the other kids knew, later, Miguel found out it was to the hospital because of his kidney disease. Then, that night when Miguel is sleeping, he wakes up in the middle of the night because Mong is leaning over him, smiling, Miguel is very creeped out, but he goes back to bed. Since this book is the "actual" journal Miguel is writing (he is fictional) there is a gap between June 10th and June 21st where Miguel "just chills solo" during this time, basically ignoring everybody else. Nothing else really happens until July 3rd, when the same person that Miguel shared a room in with at juvie, Rondell, comes to the Lighthouse and has to share rooms with Miguel. Then, on July 9th, Miguel wakes up in the middle of the night with Mong leaning over him, again. Miguel asks him what he wants and Mong tosses him a letter addressed to Lester from the president of the San Jose group homes. The letter said that the state was going to increase the funding for the entire program which would affect the sentences of all residents. Miguel asked "so what?" and Mong told him that he was leaving in a week and asked Miguel to go with him, Miguel told him "probably not" and Mong gave him three days to tell him if he'd go, once Mong left, Rondell told Miguel that if Miguel was going with Mong, he had to take him too. Miguel decides to run away with Mong and Rondell, and on the night that they were going, Miguel stole the keys to the counselor's office and the safe inside the counselor's office, he snuck in and opened the safe to steal the cash in there. After Miguel, Mong, and Rondell got out, they waited for almost three days for Mong's cousin who was going to give them a ride farther down the coast. Turns out she was going to drive north, so Mong could visit his "gung gung" (grandfather) on the way Mei-li told a story about a Chinese singer who gave up singing for her family and moved to the US with her husband. They went to lunch together and when Mei-li got up to use the bathroom, Mong told Miguel and Rondell that he was leaving and they could leave with him or not, they chose to go with him, and they started heading south. They found a bus that took them as far as it would down the coast, to Davenport. Then after they ate some food on the beach, Miguel went farther down the beach to write in his journal, which he didn't do immediately, instead, he pulled out Mong, Rondell, and his files from the lighthouse, and read Mong and Rondell’s. It turned out Mong had been shot in the face when he was 14 by his dad and was diagnosed with a major kidney disease when he was 16, and Mei-li's story about true love had been about his mom and dad, Rondell had been held back in the 1st grade and then again in 3rd grade, he was arrested at eleven for assault, at eleven for grand theft auto, at twelve for assault, at thirteen for assault with a deadly weapon, and had a history of alcohol and substance abuse, once Miguel was done reading them he tore them up and buried them in the sand. They took another bus to Santa Barbara and wandered around for awhile, bought some new clothes and ended up stopping by a basketball court, they played for awhile and when they were about to leave, Miguel realized that someone stole their cash, he spotted the thieves sneaking out of the gym and they started chasing after them to get the money, they ended up having a fist fight on the street which Mong, Rondell, and Miguel won. One of the basketball guys asked if they had any transportation, they shook their heads and the dude said he would give them a ride, and Mong told the guy to go to Malibu beach. They spent the night on the beach and in the morning, Miguel woke up to Mong taking off his sweatshirt, shirt, socks and shoes down by the ocean, Miguel asked Mong what he was doing and Mong said he was going swimming, and he just went out to the ocean until Miguel and Rondell couldn't see him anymore, they never saw him again. From July 24th to July 27th Miguel and Rondell made their way down to the border, and on July 28th Rondell crossed the border over to Mexico, but Rondell came back a couple days later and he and Miguel were together again. Later on, Miguel and Rondell met a girl named Flaca, with her friends, they invited Miguel and Rondell to a party. At the party Miguel and Flaca almost had sex, but they got interrupted by the sounds of a fight. Miguel and rushed out and saw Rondell beating up this one guy even though he had already passed out. Miguel got Rondell to leave and they ran out as fast as they could, Flaca and her girls following them. After that, Flaca told Miguel to meet her at a ballpark at night and while he was waiting, he wrote in his journal to pass the time, but, he didn't pay attention and the money that was left, got stolen by one of Flaca's friends left with a note that said, "No hard feelings, Miguel. You guys did your thing getting this money, and now we're just doing ours by taking it for ourselves. You understand.-Jules P.S. Flaca wants you to know she really did like you." (280). Then Miguel sort of had an epiphany about the fact that since he did a crime he would be better off just serving his time, and he and Rondell tried to raise the money that they stole from Jaden, to give back to him by going to Miguel's by pretending to be on a basketball team that needs to raise money for their trip and also going to Miguel’s grandparent’s farm and working there for a while. The story ends with Miguel and Rondell showing up back at the lighthouse, and Jaden introducing them to the new group home kids.
I think the theme of this book is you are who you are, and you've done what you've done. I think this is an important theme in this book because Miguel has some trouble throughout the book realizing that he can't change what he did. My first example of the theme is when Miguel is talking to Mong, on the beach in Malibu about his brother, Diego. "'I used to try and be just like my brother. In every possible way. Used to copy his clothes style and how he did his hair. Even copied the way he walked. But then I realized I was wasting my time. 'Cause no matter how hard I tried, Diego was always gonna be Diego and I was always gonna be me.'" (186). My second example of the theme which leans more to the "you are who you are" aspect is Miguel realizing that he and Rondell are homeless "We looked like we were d**m homeless or something-which I guess we were. I thought about that for a sec. And then that s**t really hit me. We were homeless. I was a homeless person." (290). My third example of the theme is when Miguel and Rondell are in Fresno working for Miguel's grandparents and neither his grandpa or grandma will talk to him or make eye contact, because of what he did. "I think none of us will ever get past what happened with me and Diego. Including me." (326). My fourth piece of evidence is when Miguel tells Rondell why he won't see his brother again. "'I killed my own brother, Rondell. My own brother. Dead, man. 'Cause of me.' It was the first time I'd ever said it out loud." (337). My last quote is not so much evidence as it is an explainer of how Miguel killed his brother, "This time our messing around isn't just messing around because I trip and fall with the knife and my head bangs on the cupboard door and when he goes to tackle me there's the knife and he falls on it and it goes in him." (340). These are my reasons that the theme in this book is you are who you are and you've done what you've done.
In We Were Here the almost constant changes of setting show how Miguel is constantly changing and adapting. At the beginning of the book when Miguel is still at the Lighthouse he is in denial about what he did and he just ignores everybody. A quote from the book to support that is when Miguel is new at the group home and Jaden is welcoming him, "Jaden came up to me and patted me on the back. 'What's up, bro? Welcome to the Lighthouse. Ha ha! That's what everybody calls it, bro. Because all the other houses on this street are old and brown and gray and ours is bright yellow like a lighthouse. Ha ha! Anyway, bro, you wanna meet the guys now or in the morning?' I didn't say anything back." (16). Then, when Miguel and his friends break out of the Lighthouse and they are staying on the beach it sort of represents a freer person and that is shown in this quote by Mong. He said this on the beach in Malibu when he and Miguel were talking about love, "'People only think of romantic love, but that's just one kind. Love can be anything. Since I was a little boy, staying here every summer, I've been in love with the ocean.'" (186). I think this story really showcases Miguel's changes with the changing setting. Matt de la Peña did a very good job with the juxtaposition of Miguel's changes and Miguel's thoughts of himself "just being a group home kid".
I would recommend We Were Here to other seventh grade readers depending on the reader. This book does have quite a lot of profanity and some mature ideas. It took some time for me to get into the book, but when I did it was pretty good. I liked how it is Miguel's point of view in some places, but I think that in other places it would have been better to have the author explain some things better than Miguel did. Since it is from a fifteen-year old's point of view, it is not very descriptive and I would have liked it to be more so. Despite that, it was a pretty good book overall.
How would you feel if you had to relocate to save a city that you have never visited in your entire life? Not very good, right? I don't think the Three Gorges Dam was worth all of the negative things it caused. First, even though it creates hydroelectric power, it causes water pollution. Second, the dam made 1.25 million people have to relocate. Third, it can create natural disasters like earthquakes and landslides. Last but not least, the dam has had a very negative environmental impact. Therefore, I think that the Three Gorges Dam was not worth all of the negative things it created. 
