The Garcia Girlsí Dilemma: Caught Between Cultures
- The Initial Loss of Class and Race Privilege: From Upper-Class, Light-Skinned Elite of the Dominican Republic to poor, racialized immigrants
- "micks" calling them "spics," the hierarchy of immigration and race.
- The Experience of Racial Hatred v. The Ideal of Catholic Inclusivity & Race-Blindness
Caught Between Ideals of Female Sexuality
- The Virgin of Traditional Catholic Cultures v. the Sexual Liberation of post-1960's U.S.
- In the U.S., the Garcia Girls Move From Membership in the Light-Skinned Elite to being seen, at least by white males, as sexual exotics.
The Parental Contradiction: Be an AmericanÖBut only to a point.
- A Mom Who is not an American mom: "Girlfriend Parent."
- Dreaming of Adoption by Real American Parents Who Could Remove the Stigma of "Foreigner"
- Watching Papiís Loss of Status: How Immigration Disrupts Traditional Patriarchal Power, even within an elite family.
- Coming to reject the Machismo of "los primos": the cousins in the Dominican Republic
Lauraís (the mom's) American Liberation
- As a Consumer and Potential Inventor, Laura experiences kinds of freedom and power that were not open to the wife of an elite doctor in the Caribbean.
- At first, Better Language Skills Increase Her Power within Family.