I've noticed a theme of the color white in this story. The writer explained at the beginning how her mother did not want her to be tanned because it was frowned upon in their heritage and that being pale and white was preferred. She then described her mother's cheeks as pure and white. Then continued to use the color white for the food they cooked. Here she talks about angels and clouds which are both white and pure. She relates her mother to an angel to seem as a symbol of purity and light. The color white in this story is consistently related to things good.

What's interesting here is the transition from the beginning of the story and the writer's thoughts on cooking. In the beginning she seemed almost as if cooking was a bother and she just wanted to go play outside with her friends and be in that "Barbie" stage as she called it. Yet here, she describes cooking as her sense of "escape" from school. Cooking seems as though it is her and her mother's way of bonding and that her mother really wants her to appreciate it as much as she does.

The writer seems as though she is disregarding her mother in general so far in the story. Her mother seems like she does not want the writer (her daughter) to enjoy being an "American" kid as much as the writer wants to and would rather her daughter respect her heritage more.