The next reading strategy you will use helps to organize the text into smaller sections. This strategy is called chunking the text. Look at the stanzas of the free-verse narrative passage from Under the Mesquite. Do any of them fit together? Are there clear transitions in the story? How would you chunk the text? Focus on one section at a time. Write an outline of how you organized the text into smaller sections.


señorita

Mami said life would change

after I turned fifteen,

when I became a señorita.

But señorita means different things

to different people.


For my friends Mireya and Sarita,

who turned fifteen last summer,

señorita means wearing lipstick,

which when I put it on

is sticky and messy,

like strawberry jam on my lips.


For Mami, señorita means

making me try on high-heeled shoes

two inches high

and meant to break my neck.


For Mami’s sisters, my tías

Maritza and Belén, who live in Mexico,

señorita means measuring me,

turning me this way and that

as they fit me for the floral dresses

they cheerfully stitch together

on their sewing machines.

For the aunts, señorita also means

insisting I wear pantyhose,

the cruel invention that makes

my thick, trunk-like thighs

into bulging sausages.


When my tías are done dressing me up

like a big Mexican Barbie doll,

I look at myself in the mirror.

Mami stands behind me

as I pull at the starched

flowered fabric and argue

with Mami’s reflection.


“Why do I have to wear this stuff?

This is your style, not mine!

I like jeans and tennis shoes.

Why can’t I just dress

like a normal teenager?

En los Estados Unidos, girls

don’t dress up like muñecas.”


“Señoritas don’t talk back

to their mothers,” Mami warns.

When my aunts aren’t looking,

she gives me a tiny pinch,

like a bee sting on the inside

of my upper arm. “Señoritas know

when to be quiet and let their

elders make the decisions.”


For my father, señorita means

he has to be a guard dog

when boys are around.

According to my parents,

I won’t be allowed to date

until I graduate from high school.


That’s fine with me.

I have better things to do than think about boys—

like prepare for my future.

I want to be the first one in our family

to earn a college degree.


For my sisters, señorita means

having someone to worship:

it is the wonder of

seeing their oldest sister

looking like Cinderella

on her way to the ball.


But for me, señorita means

melancolía: settling into sadness.

It is the end of wild laughter.

The end of chewing bubble gum

and giggling over nothing

with my friends at the movies, our feet up

on the backs of the theater seats.


Señorita is very boring

when we go to a fancy restaurant

decorated with Christmas lights

for the upcoming Posadas.

We sit properly, Papi, Mami,

and I, quietly celebrating

my fifteenth birthday

with due etiquette because

I’m trying my best

to be a good daughter and accept

the clipping of my wings,

the taming of my heart.


Being a señorita

is not as much fun

as I’d expected it to be.

It means composure and dignity.


Señorita is a niña,

the girl I used to be,

who has lost her voice.