Chapter 9 Summary

Two days after her fifty-third birthday, Sofi's washing machine breaks and, fed up with never having anything done to fix the problems all around her, she decides to run for mayor of Tome. She asks her neighbor to be her campaign manager, saying Tome is only getting worse and worse. For generations, the people of Tome have lived off the land, but the land keeps getting smaller because they have to sell it to survive; yet without the land, they have nothing to live on. Many people are moving into Tome, but they are mostly gringos, buying the land, while those who have been here for generations are being forced out by poverty.

Sofi's neighbor thinks she is crazy at first, but Sofi accuses her of being a conformist, which Esperanza had described as "people who just did not give a damn about...