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Make Your Home Among Strangers: A Developmental Theory Analy

Yenifer Mora

College of Education, Northern Illinois University

HESA 522: College Student Development Theory

Dr. Carrie Kortegast

October 11, 2020

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Introduction
Make Your Home Amongst Strangers follows the story of a Cuban-American girl from

Miami, Florida named Lizet as she embarks on her first year of college. We witness her navigate

her various relationships while simultaneously trying to adjust to life in a new environment at

Rawlings College which is located in the state of New York. While visiting home during

Thanksgiving a young Cuban boy named Ariel Hernandez arrives to Miami after his mother died

during their journey from Cuba in order for them to gain asylum in the United States. The

movement to keep Ariel in the U.S. begins to shift her relationships as she struggles to figure out

her identity as a Cuban-American and what that means in regards to her life at college and at

home in Miami (Crucet 2015).

In this essay I will analyze Lizet’s development as it relates to her interpersonal

relationships with peers, family, and her romantic life. I will use the work of Jeffrey Jensen

Arnett to analyze Lizet’s relationship with her family, the work of Arthur W. Chickering and

Linda Riesser to analyze Lizet’s relationship with her boyfriend, and the work of Patricia M.

King and Marcia Baxter Magolda to analyze the ways in which Lizet develops within her

interpersonal relationships at school as well as the ways her development stayed stagnant

throughout this book. I will also discuss a few of the limitations that these theories hold when

looking at them through the lens of Lizet’s development.

Key Themes within interpersonal relationships

Family

One of the subplots in Make Your Home Among Strangers is Lizet’s family relationship

back in Miami. Her mother and sister struggle to come to terms with her departure and absence
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throughout the story seeing as her father also decided to separate from her mother during the

same time frame as her departure to college (Crucet 2015). For this developmental transition in

Lizet’s life, I will use Arnett’s theory of emerging adulthood to analyze the ways in which Lizet

handles this life transition and how she fits her new found sense of autonomy over her life within

her relationship with her family in Miami. Arnett (2011) describes his theory as “Emerging

Adulthood is a time of life when many different directions remain possible, when little about the

future has been decided for certain, when the scope of independent exploration of life’s

possibilities is greater for most people than it will be at any other period of the life course” (p.

150). We learn within the first few chapters that Lizet chooses to attend Rawlings College.

Choosing to attend college in and of itself shows evidence of emerging adulthood within any

person, however, as it relates to Lizet, her decision to explore a life outside of Miami shows her

desire to make her transition into adulthood. When breaking the news to her family amidst the

chaos of her sisters pregnancy, Crucet (2015) writes “It Should’ve been a family disaster except

it coincided with me announcing that I’d applied to out-of-state schools months earlier without

their knowledge and would be leaving at the end of the summer” (p. 29). Lizet ultimately makes

the decision to leave Miami, creating a strain in the relationship with her sister as her sister

struggles to raise her son and watch over their mother as their mother attends and organizes

protests for Arielle Hernandez (Crucet 2015). From there, we witness as Lizet begins to show

more evidence of emerging adulthood. Lizet struggles immensely with her mother’s participation

in protests, however, her greatest proof of emerging adulthood is when she decides she wants to

participate in an internship in California after promising her sister that she would stay the

summer to help with their mother (Crucet 2015). Arnett (2011) writes “Specifically, the two top

criteria for the transition to adulthood in a variety of studies have been accepting responsibility
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for one’s self and making independent decisions” (p.154). Lizet shows that she is beginning to

make independent decisions when Crucet (2015) writes “I walked away, back to where I’d come

from, grabbed my bag, then left that house and eventually that city, kept leaving, year after

year…”(p. 352). This begins Lizet’s transition into making her own decisions, separate from her

family and what they feel she should and shouldn’t be doing. The characteristic that is still a

work in progress at the end of the book is the characteristic of taking responsibility for one’s self.

Crucet (2015) writes “But why was I trying to explain it? What did that distinction mean to

anyone but me? Still, I tried to get it across; I wanted Mami to understand that I wasn’t leaving

just for a job, that this chance was much more than that” (p. 373). We would have been able to

confidently say that Lizet was taking responsibility for her own life if she had decided to leave

when told to, however, since she attempted to defend her decision for leaving instead of simply

accepting that her decision was hers and hers alone, she is not fully accepting responsibility for

herself.

Romantic Partnership

I will use Arthur W. Chickering and Linda Riesser’s 7 vector model to analyze Lizet’s

relationship with her boyfriend, specifically vector 4. Chickering and Riesser (2011) write

“Development means more in-depth sharing and less clinging, more acceptance of flaws and

appreciation of assets, more selectivity in choosing nurturing relationships, and more long-

lasting relationships that endure through crisis, distance, and separation” (p. 145). From the

beginning of the subplot between Lizet and her boyfriend, we can assume that the relationship is

not going to last and that Lizet is entering a journey into shifting what she wants and expects

from a romantic partnership. Lizet and Omar go through periods of time without talking, they

fight (or at the very least get into an argument or get angry with each other) fairly often in the
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book, and Omar makes it clear he doesn’t like that she decided to go away for college (Crucet

2015). Omar and Lizet were able to work through bits of crisis such as Lizet’s parents’ divorce,

her sister’s pregnancy and the Ariel Hernandez debacle, but it was the separation and Omar’s

inability to let Lizet share in-depth about her life at Rawlings that ultimately made he choose to

end the relationship (Crucet 2015). Crucet (2015) writes “I loved Omar, but his reaction told me

that he thought of my going away for school as an experiment that could fail, or an adventure

that I might, at any time, give up” (p. 60). Omar never gave Lizet the support she needed while

away at Rawlings and ultimately blames her mother’s actions related to Ariel Hernandez on her

going away (Crucet 2015). Although Lizet did not find the type of relationship described in

vector 4, it can infer that she is truly developing this aspect of her identity in order to get to this

stage at some point in her life.

Peers

Lastly we will look at Patricia M. King and Marcia Baxter Magolda’s model of

intercultural maturity to examine Lizet’s interpersonal relationships with her peers. Throughout

the story, Lizet never makes any concrete and consistent friendships with folks at Rawlings. The

closest friendship she develops is with Ethen, and even then she consistently discusses the

boundaries they have in which they do not talk about their personal lives (Crucet 2015). The

reasoning for using King and Baxter Magolda is that Lizet makes a few attempts at immersing

herself in this different culture, but for the most part she keeps to herself at Rawlings. King and

Baxter Magolda (2005) write “In particular, this draws on the mature capacity to construct and

engage in relationships with others in ways that show respect for and understanding of the

other’s perspectives and experiences, but that are also true to one’s own beliefs and values” (p.

579). While at Rawlings, Lizet gets into a verbal altercation with a girl on her floor. The girl
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makes comments about Ariel Hernandez’s situation, and since Lizet’s mom was on TV

discussing what was going on with him, Lizet finds herself defending Ariel’s mother and arguing

with the girl from her floor (Crucet 2015). This altercation represents the way that Lizet has

failed to develop within this intercultural model. She was accustomed to being just another

Cuban-American living in Miami. Rawlings was the first place she encountered in which she

was not a part of the majority and made minimal effort to show “respect for and understanding of

the other’s perspectives and experiences” (Baxter Magolda & King 2005).

Limitations and Praxis

Although King as Baxter Magolda was used to show the ways in which Lizet failed to

show growth within intercultural maturity as it relates to interpersonal development, one could

say that a limitation in this theory is that it seems to view intercultural maturity from the

perspective of a student going to a non-white or outside of the U.S. setting. It does not

acknowledge a student such as Lizet; A student who is (assumingly) non-white entering a space

that is majority white. The way intercultural maturity shows in these students would assumingly

be different because these students shouldn’t be forced to accept differences with people who

could potentially cause harm to their communities. The best way to use intercultural maturity

model is to use it on students who make up a majority of the population at the school but

simultaneously tweak it if those students do not hold power on a macro scale in the larger

context of life. These limitations are shown similarly in Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Arthur W.

Chickering and Linda Riesser’s work as well. Although Arnett discuses that emerging adulthood

isn’t present in other parts of the world the way they are in the U.S., the reading does not discuss

how emerging adulthood comes to be in people who are not a part of the dominant culture in the

U.S. Emerging adulthood is a great basis to use with students, however, it is important to take
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into account the different ways students see this portion of their life as it relates to their specific

cultural background. This limitation is similarly shown within Chickering and Riesser’s seven

vector model, however, they do express that their vectors are not concrete and that they can be

developed differently amongst people. With the seven vectors, it is important to acknowledge the

way that a student’s culture influences the way they see certain milestones of development that

Chickering and Riesser outlines.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Make Your Home Among Strangers gives us a look into the emergence of

development in a young student just beginning their college journey. Although there are many

instances in Lizet’s journey that do not exactly align due to her Cuban-American identity, the

outline of most of the theories is still present in her story. We can use Lizet’s story and the

various theories of student development to guide us on establishing our own praxis to best serve

students in our future careers.

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References

Arnett, J. J. (2011). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through

twenties. In M. E. Wilson (Ed.) ASHE reader series: College student development theory

(pp. 149-164). Learning Solutions.

Chickering, A. W., & Reisser, L. (2011). Chapter 9: The seven vectors. In M. E. Wilson (Ed.)

ASHE reader series: College student development theory (pp. 139-148). New York, NY:

Learning Solutions.

Crucet, J. C. (2015). Make your home among strangers. First editon. New York: St. Martin's

Press.

King, P. M., & Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2005). A developmental model of intercultural maturity.

Journal of College Student Development, 46, 571-592. doi:10.1353/csd.2005.0060.