This sentence conveys a lot of vividness and imagery regarding how the character, the girl, is feeling as she is folding the empanadas. The fact that her mother is watching her closely goes to show that she really wishes for her daughter to grow up like her. Perhaps the mother when she was a child had to do the same and wanted to pass it on to her own child.

This is very interesting as the Asian culture for beauty is known for individuals to carry the notion of the "white skin" standard. Many individuals of Asian descent obsess over the notion that an individual with "white skin" correlates to beauty. The reason why her mother is scared of her to turn "dark" is an exact example of this beauty standard that most Asians have.