A Study Guide for Gary Soto's "Mother and Daughter"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Gary Soto's "Mother and Daughter", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781535868105

Book preview

19

Mother and Daughter

Gary Soto

1990

Introduction

Mother and Daughter is a short story by Gary Soto about what happens when Yollie, an eighth grader living in California, wants a new dress for her school's fall dance. One of the most prolific modern-day writers addressing Chicano experiences, primarily in his home state of California, Soto has produced an abundance of poems, novels, short stories, picture books, essays, and memoirs, many of which are written for youths of all ages. He is especially skilled at portraying the lives of individuals from humble backgrounds; as advertised on the book jacket of Baseball in April and Other Stories (1990), in which Mother and Daughter was first published, Soto draws on his own experience of growing up poor and Mexican-American in California's Central Valley.

With Yollie coming from a poor family, the question of resources is at the heart of Mother and Daughter, as Mrs. Moreno, her characteristically bubbly manner subdued, laments that money is too tight for a new dress. She might have the perfect solution—or the solution might be the perfect setup for a ruined night. A vignette that gets to the heart of the relationship between mother and daughter, Soto's story aims to leave Yollie, and the reader, in grateful spirits.

Author Biography

Soto was born on April 12, 1952, in Fresno, California, in the San Joaquin Valley, where he grew up along with an older brother. His grandparents were born in Mexico but came to America to do field and factory work, and his parents were born in Fresno. His father sought to follow in his grandparents’ footsteps but spent a fair amount of his time during Soto's youngest years doing labor as part of sentencing for stealing a car, along with an uncle, while drunk. When Soto was just five, his twenty-seven-year-old father died as the result of an industrial accident in which his neck was broken, and the experience emotionally hardened the young boy.

Media Adaptations

An audiobook version of Baseball in April and Other Stories, narrated by Stephanie Diaz and Miguel Gongora, was produced by Blackstone Audio in 2008, with a running time of two hours and forty-seven minutes.

Soto has written about the deprivation