Previous Next

Since I had turned fourteen . . . my mother had been more vigilant than ever. She acted as if I was going to go crazy or explode or something if she didn’t watch me and nag me all the time about being a señorita now. She kept talking about virtue, morality, and other subjects that did not interest me in the least.

Elena has these thoughts in the middle of the story as her mother accuses her of being “moony” over Eugene. As Elena becomes a teenager, growing up and developing romantic and sexual attractions, her mother begins to watch her closely. Her nagging reveals her anxiety about Elena becoming a woman, while Elena’s disinterest in concepts like “virtue” and “morality” shows a naivete that could get her into troublesome situations if she lets her emotions guide her actions. Elena’s lack of worry about grown-up things, combined with her interest in them, could result in her getting into situations for which she’s not ready.

That night, I lay in my bed trying to feel the right thing for our dead President. But the tears that came up from a deep source inside me were strictly for me.

In the final paragraph of the story, Elena lies in bed crying after Eugene’s mother refuses to let her come inside the house. Elena knows she should feel sorrow for the death of the president, and she tries, but she can’t help but focus on her own heartbreak. She grieves for her innocence in believing that she and Eugene could develop a relationship with one another despite the racial prejudice that pervades their daily life. This loss of innocence marks a painful part of Elena’s transition from childhood to adulthood. Throughout the story, adults focus on Kennedy’s assassination while young people focus on the developments of their personal lives, showing how adults and teenagers move through the world with different values. Although she tries to feel the “right thing,” Elena’s personal loss is more real to her than the death of the president.

Previous section The Relationship between Internalized Racism and the Allure of Whiteness Next section Eugene

Take a Study Break