Family/Community

One of the central themes of "Go and Come Back" is the importance of family and community in Isabo life. In fact, to the Isabo, family and community are the same thing; Alicia's village is made up of one large extended family and everyone is related to everyone else either by blood or by marriage. Alicia and the other villagers find it very strange that Joanna and Margarita would want travel so far away from their own families, and they find it even stranger that the two of them are not related to each other. Although they are familiar with the word "amigo" in Spanish, there is no word for "friend" in the Isabo language. To the Isabo there is only "caibo" (family) and "nawa" (outsider). The character who best shows how outsiders and family are thought of differently is Alicia's mother who for most of the...