Motherhood

Garcia associates motherhood with struggle. There is no monolithic model of motherhood; Garcia presents each mother facing her own personal battle to fill the role of a ‘mother’, first through Carmen’s point of view as she pleads Jeanette to stay alive: “Jeanette, tell me that you want to live” (1). The intimate address sets the tone for Carmen and Jeanette’s fractured relationship, which is a narrative that Garcia returns to throughout the novel. The reader can understand the fraught mother-daughter relationship from both Carmen and Jeanette’s perspectives. Jeanette and Carmen both yearn to connect with each other, but are unable to move past superficial conversation. Carmen, though inwardly fiercely protective over her daughter, struggles to convey this to Jeanette, bringing her leftover meals as a more palatable display of love. Carmen avoids difficult topics of conversation with Jeanette, tiptoeing around issues of Jeanette’s...