How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Yolanda is with John, who wants to marry her. They play rhyming games. John tells her that she needs a therapist, and she says they both should see one. She no longer trusts him. Yolanda believes that John believes too much in the real world and not enough in the world of words. She does see a therapist, and one day she finds a pro-con list that John made about whether he should be with her. She is upset that he had to decide whether to love her. He kisses her as she tries to say no. On another day, the two have difficulties understanding each other.

When Yolanda decides to leave John, it is because she wants to stop having her self separated into head, heart, and soul. She wants the parts of herself to be connected. She no longer feels like her name is Yolanda; she feels like she is Joe, the nickname John gave her. Yolanda quotes and misquotes authors, and her therapist recommends that she be admitted into a psychiatric facility, and her parents oblige. Yolanda starts to fall in love with her therapist, Dr. Payne, but she does not tell him. When her parents question her about her love for John, Yolanda tells them that she and John did not speak the same language.