The first part of the story reveals Clemencia as the daughter of the Mexican father and the Mexican mother who was born in the United States. Although the mother and the father share the same racial and ethnic background, they are categorized differently, a fact that Clemencia comments in the story: “But she was born here in the U.S., and he was born there, and it’s not the same, you know.” What Clemencia illustrates by this statement is a conflicting nature of being a Mexican born in the United States – whereas the Mexicans in Cisneros’ narrative base their identities on the basis of their shared nationality (i.e. their primary condition for being a Mexican is to be born in a place located within the borders of Mexico), the American characters
