Importance of Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California is the final destination of Claudia and her family’s migration to the North. Her mother has been living in Los Angeles for three years by the time that Claudia and her sisters arrive. To Claudia the city is reminiscent of Guatemala City: “Skyscrapers and everywhere, unfamiliar smells, people dressed funky--just like Guatemala’s capital. I didn’t see Indigenous people wearing colorful cortes or huipiles” (111). She is also impressed with the technology and infrastructure of the city: “The road was immaculate, clean, and smooth. I didn’t see one pothole. Everything seemed to be even and flat. The car felt like it was gliding in midair” (111). Over the course of the third part of the memoir, Claudia struggles to adjust to Los Angeles life, which in the area where she lives and in the school that she attends is heavily influenced by Mexican-American culture.