Both of these themes — that of love-as-power and that of alienation — seem to proceed from the third and larger theme of the individual's conflict with a tradition that is both cultural and familial. Almost every female character in both books experiences the intensely potent force of this tradition influencing her to follow her Latino family tradition into marriage, when she would cease to "belong" to her father and begin to "belong" to her husband. Most of those who do not resist this force are portrayed as unhappy in the world they inhabit, from Esperanza's mother, who is "self-alienated" to the extent that she has not been able to utilize her artistic gifts and interests, to young women like Sally, Minerva, and Cleófilas, who are trapped in marriages to brutal men.
Those who do resist it are likely to remain partly (and unhappily) within the tradition, in that their relationships with the opposite sex are still power struggles. To the extent that they are successful in their resistance, they remain unhappily alienated from their own cultural roots and the feelings of loyalty they cannot eradicate. One such woman is Inés in "Eyes of Zapata," who left her father for Zapata and later gained a kind of independence from him (at least in a material sense, mostly because he ignored her for long periods), but who is still tied to her lover in their love-as-a-power-struggle relationship. Another is Clemencia, who heeded her mother's advice not to follow tradition, but who then became alienated from her mother and involved in a long, obsessive "love" affair with a married man (who, ironically, is attracted to her cultural identity as a "Mexican" but would never divorce his wife and marry her because of that identity). Tristán, of course, is separated from his cultural tradition by his homosexuality; he clings to what he can of it in his art, as a performer of traditional dances, and he both mocks and pays tribute to tradition by utilizing a kind of male "drag" — an exaggeration of the masterful, powerful, intensely masculine Latino persona.
The only characters who seem to be able to avoid the double-bind of love-as-power and/or alienation are those who find a strength within their tradition that allows them to exist as self-respecting individuals. One such is "Ixchel" in "One Holy Night," who has become (in her own mind) sort of an embodiment of the ancient mythos into which her lover — himself deeply alienated, to the point of probable insanity — initiated her. Raised in a very traditional household and apparently happy there, she easily made the transition into an older tradition — and is saved, by her lover's physical and effectively complete disappearance from her life, from having to reconcile the myth with mundane existence. "Ixchel" achieved independence, power, and a sense of centeredness, of being where she belongs, by in effect going into tradition and coming out the other side. Another apparently fortunate character is Chayo of "Little Miracles, Kept Promises," who has discovered a link between her familial/cultural tradition and a broader world-mythos that allows her to participate in the power of the virgin/mother goddesses (including, as she sees it, the Virgin of Guadalupe/Mother of Christ) and to be both independent and centered in her own place.
