Moraga’s coming of age was through her sexuality and the moments when she had to take on responsibilities whenever her mother needed assistance with translating documents to Spanish. This reminds me of my coming of age moments where my sister and I had to do something similar to what Moraga had to do with her mother. My mother has been a legal resident in this country for many years, and for many years she attended English courses. She showed progress when she was admitted to the second level of English learning classes. From there on, my mother could not move beyond the second level. I like to think that her inability to proceed with understanding the English language was because of the stress she underwent raising three kids.

My coming of age moment was not when I found out that my mother was not progressing, but instead it came every time my mother had me accompany her to look for work. My mother needed application translation and I would be the one to fill in the blank spaces for her. During the time when I sat there, I felt as if the people at the factory would automatically deny her work because of her lack of understanding the English language. Why would they hire someone that can’t even fill out an application? I also felt embarrassed, because 1) I felt insecure about what I was doing and 2) people eyed us as we sat together filing it out. I had the feeling of complete awareness of my situation, which was of a poor working class family and an illiterate mother.

The same used to happen to us whenever we would go to the grocery store. When the cashier did not speak Spanish, we would have to translate for my mother or actually cut out the food stamp dollars out of the package. The yellow, the pink, the green, and the blue money of the poor. As a kid, I knew that money made us different. People stared at us every time we tore the colorful money out of the booklet as if we were performing a magic trick. I knew that I did not want to do that for long-to feel embarrassed. Not about the government assistance, but having to be embarrassed of my mother. I think back at our times now, and I feel upset that our life brought me embarrassment. Unknowingly, I probably worsened the situation for my mother as she might have had coming of age moments as I was.