Judith Ortiz Cofer's autobiographical work Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood, is a collection of essays and poems that originate from Cofer's childhood memories. Cofer specifically comments on the impact his family in Puero Rico and the United States has had on his literary work and identity. In A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood, Cofer recalls the women in her family gathering for the afternoon ritual of story-telling during café con leche. Cofer's grandmother, Mama, tells the embellished story of the town character, Maria La Loca, who went mad after being left at the altar. It is a cautionary tale told to serve as a lesson to younger generations to be wary of love. The main focus of the essay lies in the powerful influence and expectations of mother surrounding women and their ultimatum to fulfill the roles of ideal housewives, which Judith seems to resist. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Throughout the story, Mama represents the powerful influence of traditional society surrounding the women of Judith's family. Judith states that Mother is the "matriarchal power" (Ortiz Cofer, 805) who commanded and commanded everyone's attention. This indicates the strong and dominant voice that mom has over the younger generations of women. The cautionary advice is intended to “teach each other… what it means to be a woman, more specifically a Puerto Rican woman.” (804) The story of Maria La Loca is intended for her mother's youngest daughter, Laura, recently engaged. Much to the dismay of Mother who "expressed serious doubts...she believed that marriage was not something men desired but simply the price they paid for the privilege of having children" (805). This emphasis is that the mother has been hardened to love and cannot trust the intentions of men. thus tells the story of Maria deceived and ruined by a swindler. Additionally, Mom braiding Judith's hair is a symbol of her making her into the right woman, which parallels the reasoning behind her embellished story. “…cunetos are forever woven into the fabric of my imagination, as braided as my hair that day” (807) “We understood that neither the facts nor the details were important, only that a woman had let love defeat her .”( 807) This suggests that the mother and the women in the family see love as a kind of weakness that they must fight against and be wary of. Furthermore, Mama's strong influence on her daughters and granddaughters is illustrated by "the moral tales told by the woman in our family for generations...became part of my subconscious and later surfaced in my dreams and poetry" ( 805). the strength of Mom's words and the lasting impact on their sense of what a woman should be. Mom asserts her expectations of her relatives, carefully constructing cautionary tales in hopes that they will remain true to themselves as Puerto Rican women. The women in the family are under pressure to fulfill the role of ideal housewives. First, Maria is described as “…a beautiful girl, everyone thought she would marry…the richest man in town”. (806) Emphasize how external beauty will guarantee a rich husband. Cofer further explores the pressure placed on the young woman to marry into a respected family, illustrating Judith's mother as an "immaculate lamb, who had been accepted into a good family." (806) His purity and Mary's beauty had qualified them as marriageable. While aunt.