“¿A’ca’o qué, comadre?” Sofi said, hands on her hips, ready to take anyone on. And here she thought that the comadre would be excited about her news, ready to help out, considering she hadn’t had a decent crop in three years! That kind of attitude was just the reason why things never got better around there.

“¿A’ca’o qué? ¿A’ca’o qué? What d’you mean, a’ca’o qué, comadre? You can’t just decide one day, like today, that you are going to be mayor of a place and that’s that, and everyone’s gonna listen to you and say, ‘Yes, Mayor Sofi, just command us’!”

“It’s not ‘imagination’ that I’ve always had, comadre, it’s faith! Faith has kept me going,” Sofi said, truly exasperated with the fact that la comadre had not taken to her idea as she had anticipated. “But you … you have always been a … a …!”

“A ¿qué? Tell me! What have I always been, Sofi?” la comadre demanded, ready to get up and leave right then and there if she didn’t like what that crazy comadre of hers had to say about her.

“A conformist!” Sofi said, folding her arms and staring point-blank into her comadre’s eyes.

“A conformist? A conformist?” la comadre said, looking like she was about to hyperventilate. Then she got hold of herself and turned to Sofi, “And what does that mean?”

“That’s what my ’jita la Esperanza used to call people who just didn’t give a damn about nothing! And that’s why, she said, we all go on living so poor and forgotten!” Sofi responded.

“Well, what ARE we supposed to do, comadre? All we have ever known is this life, living off our land, that just gets mas smaller y smaller. You know that my familia once had three hundred acres to farm and now all I got left of my father’s hard work—and his father’s and his father’s—is casi nada, just a measly ten acres now, nomás, comadre! Barely enough for my family to live on!”

“And I have even less,” Sofi said, sad to remember that even the tiny bit she had inherited had been sold out of Domingo’s recklessness.

“And now we have los gringos coming here and breeding peacocks …,” la comadre complained. “Now, I ask you, what can you do with peacocks? Do these New Yorkers eat them, like in fancy restaurants or something?”