Summary

Part II of the memoir begins with Chapter 5, “Even If I Kiss a Woman” (73). Hernández's mother and aunts frequently tell her not to date Colombian men. But when she gets a job at McDonald's at age 16, she develops a romantic relationship with Julio, a Colombian coworker. Her family disapproves. One day, she overhears her aunts and mother talking about a woman they know that has left her husband for another woman. Hernández finds this story “terribly romantic” (78). She loses her virginity to Julio and moves in with him when she turns 19. They break up shortly thereafter. In college, Hernández attends a feminist collective meeting where the women are asked to draw pictures of their vulvas. She is “enthralled” (81) by a lesbian couple she meets there. She begins dating women. Eventually, she tells her...