How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

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Summary

The Four Girls

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Summary The Four Girls

Yolanda's career as a poet and her trouble with men also get a positive spin when told by her mother. Though her mother is uncomfortable with the sexual or romantic content of her daughter's poetry, she seems to ignore this when she attends readings, and behaves as a proud mother would. Though Yolanda was unsuccessful as a poet, her mother still would assure strangers at her readings that she was brilliant and always had been, even since she was a child. The mother's inability to talk about Sandra's mental illness indicates the limits of her ability to transform negative experiences into funny family stories. She has nothing positive to say about Sandra's breakdown, and so this story is not repeated. The doctor at the hospital is the only one who hears the mother's perspective on Sandra's mental illness, and she does not tell the story proudly, but instead tragically. This omission indicates the limits of motherly pride, which will forgive rebelliousness, selfishness, or failure, but not insanity.

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