Which member of Beatriz's family acclimated to life in America the fastest in the novel, When We Left Cuba?

The youngest of the Perez sisters, Maria serves as an example of how displacement affects each member of the Perez family differently. Since they immigrated to the United States from Cuba when Maria was just starting high school, she acclimated to the new country the fastest. While the rest of the family pines for Cuba and mourns the current state of their beloved homeland, Maria is caught up in the American friends she’s made since the move, and she thinks of herself as an American citizen.

When the results of the 1960 Election are announced, it is Maria that watches and tallies the votes on the screen, radiating a kind of American patriotism the rest of the family seems to be missing: “Perhaps by virtue of her youth, she has acclimated the easiest to our life here, even as we have all worried about the toll it would take on her” (142).