Stella Díaz Has Something to Say

“Do you want to boil the e-spaghetti while I go change mi ropa?”

Stella’s mom speaks in a mix of Spanish and English sometimes called “Spanglish.” This mode of speech highlights her embrace of cultural hybridity. Stella’s mom peppers her speech with Spanish words and Mexican pronunciations, but unlike Stella, she feels no embarrassment about this aspect of her identity. The word rendered here as “e-spaghetti” is itself an exemplar of cultural hybridity: an Italian word that, like pizza, has become global, now transformed again by the pronunciation rules of Mexican Spanish. In fact, espageti verde—spaghetti with roasted poblano chiles and crema—is a staple dish in many Mexican homes.

“I love Pancho, but I’m really glad I’m not a betta fish. I couldn’t be in a tank all by myself, without my family.”

Here, it is evident that Stella loves and values her family. As her feelings of social isolation increase later in the novel, she contradicts herself by comparing her situation to Pancho’s, in that they are both lonely. Stella often feels socially isolated because she comes from a culturally mixed background, so she doesn’t fully fit in fully with either her peers or her family. This highlights The Challenges and Rewards of Cultural Hybridity.

“At the beginning of this year, when I started getting interested in fishes, she showed me all these books on Jacques Cousteau, a famous ocean explorer. Now I love reading about him.”

This is the first mention of Jacques Cousteau, who becomes a significant figure in the novel. Cousteau was a French oceanographer, filmmaker, and author most famous for inventing the first SCUBA device.