Summer of the Mariposas

Early in the novel, Juanita informs her sisters, “Did you know that seventy percent of men aren’t as attached to their female children as they are to their sons?” (10). This admission of rampant sexism sets the tone for gender dynamics in the rest of the book, as men leave their families and bring trouble to their communities while women are left to pick up the pieces. Gabriel Pérdido, the dead man, turns out to be a wanted drug dealer and absentee father who brings pain and shame to his family. In many ways, the body of the dead man represents the dead weight of toxic masculinity. The Garza sisters begin their journey thinking they are searching for their father, Ernesto, but they later realize that they began the journey to leave him behind—to be a clan of confident, culturally aware women who know and rely on their own power.

When they meet their grandmother, Abuelita Remedios—one of several kindly maternal figures who help them throughout the novel—the Garza sisters still believe they are on a quest to find their father and bring him home. Abuelita Remedios disabuses them of this notion while also freeing them from the internalized misogyny that leads them to blame themselves for his absence: “Sometimes, men leave, for whatever reason […].