1. Cisneros was the only daughter out of seven children. The author explains to us how she felt left out because her father would always tell everyone he was the father of seven sons, and who was looked down upon for being the only girl in the family. Cisneros also expresses her desire to go to college and her dad agrees because he hopes she will meet a man in college. She completes grad school, and still unmarried. Her father feels she has wasted her education. In the end of the story, after she has been a professional writer for 10 years and her father has grown more sick, he reads one of her works that has been translated in Spanish and enjoys it and even want copies for the whole family. In this way, he expresses that he is really proud of her and the dispute between them is resolved.
2. Towards the end of the story, her father starts to show acceptance in his daughter. Cisneros goes home for Christmas and brings with her a copy of a story published in an anthology of Chicano writing. She watches him read her story and nervously waits a reply from him. She says, “When he was finally finished, after what seemed like hours, my father looked up and asked: “where can we get more copies of this for the relatives?””(497) This shows that Cisneros was worried about what her father would think, not knowing if he would dislike it or admire it. Following that quote, she finally has approval of her father and she was proud to finally be recognized by her father. Cisneros writes, “Of all the wonderful things that happened to me last year, that was the most wonderful” (499). He felt proud because he wanted to share his daughter success with the whole family.3. Cisneros and her father can be similar in a way. They both are accepting. At the beginning, her father only wanted her to go to college to find a husband, and not for the success of it. She wanted to be noticed and treated equally but her father refuses to until he reads her published story. After all those times, she could’ve easily rejected her father for the times he was not supportive of her but instead she was very accepting. The author repeatedly shows that she will strive to receive acceptance from her father. At the end of the story, her father was accepting of her after she published a story. This story about her father is to encourage the readers to be patient with people who may be difficult, especially one’s that are close to us.
