Quote 7
One day I after we left a shop I said under my breath, I wish you wouldn’t do that, telling everybody I’m your daughter." My mother stopped walking. Crowds of people with heavy bags pushed past us on the sidewalk, bumping into first one shoulder, then another.
"Aii-ya. So shame be with mother?" She grasped my hand even tighter as she glared at me.
I looked down. "It’s not that, it’s just so obvious. It’s just so embarrassing."
"Embarrass you be my daughter?" Her voice was cracking with anger.
"That’s not what I meant. That’s not what I said." (II.1.58)
Waverly hurts Lindo when she tries to curtail her mother’s practice of showing her off. To Lindo, one of her worst fears is that Waverly is ashamed of her. This sentiment comes up again when Waverly is an adult and taking her mom to the beauty parlor (see Part Four’s "Double Face"). Lindo thinks to herself, "I am ashamed she is ashamed. Because she is my daughter and I am proud of her, and I am her mother but she is not proud of me."
Quote 8
I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from others, and eventually, though neither of us knew it at the time, chess games. (II.1.1)
A mother is a source of life lessons.
Quote 9
In my head, I saw a chessboard with sixty-four black and white squares. Opposite me was my opponent, two angry black slits. She wore a triumphant smile. "Strongest wind cannot be seen," she said. (II.1.76)
Waverly conceives of her mother as an enemy.