La Llorona is a bedtime story that many Hispanic children grow up with. If you don’t listen to your parents, La Llorona will come to get you; if you don’t go to bed, she’ll come get you; if you misbehave, La Llorona will take you. In many ways, she is the boogeyman, or a version of him: a myth/legend that will scare children into doing what you ask, someone who used to be good that became bad and preys on children. Diaz compares her mother to La Llorona multiple times in the section appropriately titled “Monstruo”. In the legend, the mother drowns her kids, then drowns herself. In her own way, Jeanette does the same thing: going on a downward spiral and dragging her kids with her. The drugs and alcohol are a way to keep her pain at bay, but they only cause pain to the girls. Being evicted and moving from place to place—when she wasn’t on the run—left Diaz feeling like she didn’t belong anywhere. The multiple scenes with Jeanette and the men go to show the relationship she had with Jaquira. In some way, she always chose the man over her daughter. Without opposition, Jaquira felt that the one person left to protect her (her mother) was the one causing her pain and the reason she was always on the run where she should feel safe.