The speaker in "'Mericans" is Micaela, a young American girl visiting relatives in Mexico City. She and her brothers wait outside the church for their grandmother, who is inside praying. The older brother dozes in the sun; the younger one runs around shouting. They have been told not to leave, so they watch a procession of penitents approach the church. The speaker goes into the church for a while, then goes back outside. An American man and woman, tourists, take her brother's picture and are surprised he speaks English; he tells her they are "'Mericans."
The speaker in "Tepeyac" describes, in present tense, a typical weekday evening spent in Mexico City where she lives or is staying with her grandparents. She walks home with her grandfather from his shop, describing the places and people they pass. They count the steps from the street to their front door together and go in to their supper; from that house, she says, she will return to the U.S. Her grandfather will die, everything will change, and when she returns, years later, the house itself will seem different.
