Chapter 5 encapsulates the shift Mauro and Elena experience from the happy optimism of imagining they would come to the United States as guest workers, make some good money, and quickly return home. Instead, they encounter unpleasantness at every turn. Houston, Texas, is unimaginably hot compared to the Andean climate they grew up in. The people who provide housing strictly limit their activities, and the work expected of them is backbreaking. Elena cannot bring herself to share the truth with Perla: “She didn’t want her mother to worry or ask what the point of going abroad was if one had to live in worse conditions than at home” (30).

Mauro has no grand scheme for accruing capital or finding better work. Despair gradually creeps in with first Elena and then Mauro saying that the time has come for them to return to Colombia. Elena then tells him she is pregnant.

The couple spends weeks debating whether to return to Colombia as their visas expire or to stay in Texas and continue working. They work their way through the list of possibilities that might allow them to remain legally, including marrying other legal residents: “There also existed the possibility of Elena and Mauro seeking citizenship by each marrying other people, since they weren’t already married to each other” (35).