Summer of the Mariposas

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-19

Chapters 20-22

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 16-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3

Part 3, Chapter 16 Summary: “El Nopal/The Cactus”

Before the Garza sisters leave Hacienda Dorada for home, Abuelita Remedios gives Odilia some seeds, saying, “from my garden to yours” (261). The group travels through Monclova, and Odilia notes how beautiful it is. Just as the girls are about to part from their grandmother, they realize they have not brought their papers with them and therefore cannot cross the border legally. The girls worry that if they go to the police, then Child Protective Services will get involved.

Odilia leads her grandmother and sisters into a nearby church and asks Tonantzin for help. They are whisked to a moonlit path and find themselves in front of Tonantzin. When Juanita asks if they are dreaming, Tonantzin replies, “Dreams are revelations” (272). Tonantzin tells the girls that the mother is the earth, every part of her is alive, and her faith in her offspring is everlasting. Tonantzin agrees to help the girls go home if they will give roses to the mother. Odilia assumes she means their mother. The Garza girls and Abuelita Remedios then find themselves by a misty shore.

Part 3, Chapter 17 Summary: “La Chalupa/The Canoe”

The sisters and Abuelita Remedios find themselves near the edge of a lake. Abuelita Remedios recognizes the legendary Aztec city of Tenochtitlan shimmering in the middle of the lake. The girls are approached by a native Mexican woman called Ixtali, who tells them that Tonantzin instructed her to help them cross the lake to go home. The girls soon see their old swimming hole and know they are home. After a tearful goodbye with their grandmother, the girls travel through the woods toward their house. Keeping their promise to Tonantzin, the girls pick luminous, otherworldly roses for their mother on the way home. However, Border Patrol trucks soon intercept them.

Part 3, Chapter 18 Summary: “El Corazón/The Heart”

The Garza girls are picked up by the police and the FBI and taken to an office at the International Bridge Customs Station. A kind FBI agent, Special Agent Gonzales, ensures them that all will be well. The girls are reunited with their mother, who kisses them and repeats, “I love you! I love you!” (288). Agent Gonzales drives them all home. When they pull up, they find an unfamiliar car parked in the driveway. Their mother grows worried but seems to know what is going on. She tells the girls, “Things have changed […]. Nothing’s ever going to be the same again for you...for me...for us” (292). When they open the door, they find their father, Ernesto, waiting for them with arms wide open. While the rest of her sisters eventually crack and go to him, Odilia resists. Odilia’s sisters ask their father to never leave again. He replies, “If it kills me, I will never again leave your side” (298).

Part 3, Chapter 19 Summary: “El Músico/The Musician”

Despite her father’s promises, Odilia still holds back, sensing that “something didn’t feel quite right” (299). Two pale girls emerge from Delia and Velia’s room, calling Ernesto “Daddy.” Their father soon reveals that he has returned with his mistress, Sarai, and her two daughters in tow. He announces that they will all be living in the same house. The Garza sisters and their mother stand up to Ernesto and his second family, rejecting him for good. Delia tells him, “You have that big old grin on the outside but inside you’re all hollow and empty” (306). Odilia agrees, telling her father that he has no heart.

No longer wishing for their father’s return, the girls live happily with their mother. Odilia plants and tends to the seeds that her grandmother gave her, and the girls work as a family to cook, clean, and play cards together.

Chapters 16-19 Analysis

The Garza sisters fulfill the true purpose of their journey: coming together as a family. Before they can do so, however, they must contend once again with The Artificiality of the Border. Having forgotten the papers that signal their legal status as US citizens, the sisters have no way to get across this artificial but heavily militarized line that bisects their world. They could contact the police, who theoretically could confirm their legal right to cross the border, but they worry doing so might get Child Protective Services involved, endangering their family. Since the core purpose of their journey was to knit their family together, any act that risks tearing that family apart is anathema.

Instead, they call on Tonantzin, the Aztec mother goddess who is synonymous with the earth, with nature, and with the long chain of mothers and daughters to which they belong. In this novel, Tonantzin is the ultimate expression of Solidarity Among Women, and her condition for helping the sisters is that they must perform another act of solidarity—giving roses to “the mother.” Odilia initially believes this cryptic phrase refers to her own mother, and she is happy to agree. Tonanztin shepherds them across the border, erasing this artificial obstacle that divides her community.

When the girls reunite with their mother, they realize that she never abandoned them, that her absence from the home was a sacrifice she made to support them in the only way she could. This recognition resolves the theme of Misunderstood Women. Like La Llorona, the Garza sisters’ mother never abandoned her role as a mother—it was only the power of patriarchal assumptions that made it seem that way. However, this familial happiness is interrupted by the arrival of their father and his second family. The sisters’ shared adventure gives them the wisdom to recognize their father’s betrayal. The girls realize that true family means a mutual exchange of loyalty and unconditional love. They disown their father for his selfishness. The motif of motherhood endures, with the Garza sisters’ mother reinforcing her commitment to her daughters.

The motif of cultural legacy is fully realized when the girls glimpse the majestic city of Tenochtitlan and experience life the way their ancestors did. Their guide, Ixtali, clarifies that this look into the past is a gift from Tonantzin to remind them of who they are and where they come from. The girls’ cycle of border-crossing, their hero’s journey, is nearly complete when they arrive at the banks of the Rio Grande transformed by these revelations about family, individual strength, and cultural legacy.