Woman of Light

Working side by side at the laundry, Luz and Lizette discuss how difficult it is to be a parent. Luz remembers her mother Sara, which often causes her to cry. She remembers her and Diego’s displacement to Denver, when a stranger looked at her and said to her brother, “Your elders are in the little one” (83). With Diego gone, Maria Josie seeks a man to live in the apartment for security and help with rent. The family eventually takes in a woman, who steals from them and is evicted. When they receive a letter from Diego in which he says he has sent cash, they find the envelope torn. Luz wakes one night, aware that the apartment is cold, and even the capable Maria Josie cannot fix the broken radiator.

A handyman named Avel comes to the apartment to determine what is wrong with the radiator. He is tall and handsome, and notices how attractive Luz is. After some negotiation, Maria Josie leaves him to fix the radiator and takes Luz with her to her workplace, a mirror factory, as she does not want her home alone with a man. Luz complains that she is not a child, and that she detests her life and lack of independence. Maria Josie tells her, “you don’t feel it now, but someday you’ll know. You have very much, Luz” (94).

Needing additional work to help Maria Josie with expenses, Luz travels to the Denver Public Library to look at the job bulletin board. Despite her repeated requests, several librarians refuse to let her near the board. One says, “I apologize, again, but we don’t have a community board for you” (98). Afterward, as Luz eats with Lizette and Alfonso at the restaurant where he works, Alfonso suggests she approach David, who needs assistance in his law firm.

Luz approaches David about becoming his assistant. He points out that she has no qualifications or training. In a moment of inspiration, she tells him that Maria Josie sent her to ask for a job, causing him to relent. It is soon revealed that Maria Josie saved David when he was young.

When Maria Josie arrives in Denver in 1922, she lives in a boarding house. The amenities are sparse, and she has no place to wash her clothes unless she takes them to a stream. While washing her clothes, she sees a man and his young son fishing. When a flash flood occurs, the boy falls into the water. Maria Josie jumps in, swimming after the boy and pulling him to safety. The boy is David, and his grateful father is Papa Tikas.

Avel arrives at Maria Josie’s apartment to collect his pay for fixing the radiator. He also invites Luz to go with him to hear his old band at the Teatro Oso. Maria Josie encourages her to go, but warns both of them not to do anything foolish. At the theater, Luz notices several of Diego’s ex-girlfriends. She is surprised when a woman, Mrs. Montoya, approaches her for a reading. Avel expresses interest in the fact that Luz reads tea leaves. They talk about their family histories, both coming from broken homes in which their parents separated. For the first time, Luz reads coffee grounds for Avel: She describes a citrus orchard in which white people appear and begin to arrest workers, taking them from their wives. This stuns Avel, because Latinx workers are being deported in favor of white people seeking work.

On her first day working for David, Luz receives a tour of the law firm and a list of expectations. He says he will give her an allowance to buy more conservative clothes because he does not want her to look too pretty. He also wants her to learn how to type. Through one of David’s visitors, Luz learns about the case of Estevan Ruiz, a worker who was apparently beaten to death and thrown into a railroad car by a police officer.

To learn how to type, Luz begins to attend classes at the Opportunity School. The teacher gives each student a diagram of a typewriter keyboard. Luz sits with three Italian sisters who say they are from the north side. Though of Italian descent, they were born in the US and say they are Americans like Luz: In response, “Luz laughed. She had never been called an American before” (134).

Swiftly, Luz becomes proficient in typing. David asks her to translate a Spanish letter written by Celia Ruiz, the sister of Estevan Ruiz. She finds the letter wrenching and has difficulty not weeping after reading it. After work, Luz goes with Avel to the theater, where he plays his trumpet, attempting to find a band to join. A woman approaches her and ask for a reading. She ends up giving several readings and learns that David is in the theater with a date as well. Luz asks him why he has Eleanor Anne as a client, but he cannot give her any information.

This chapter records the visit of Diego and Eleanor Anne to a house of curanderos, healers. They see a woman, who gives Eleanor Anne a potion intended to cause her to miscarry. As they leave, she begins to feel sick and bleed. Diego wants to care for her, but realizes he cannot because a crowd of white people has seen them together. They shout at him, “What have you done to her!” (148).

Luz remembers meeting David not long after she came to Denver. White people spat on her from a vehicle, and Diego took her into Tikas Market to wipe her face. David showed her how to tell the different directions in Denver, then encouraged her to shout loudly, “This is my city” (151). In the present, he takes Luz to the courthouse for a hearing regarding Estevan’s death. He wants to sue the city because they will not remove the police officer who killed Estevan and continues to brutalize BIPOC groups. When the judge refuses to allow the case, David takes Luz to the radio station of Leon Jacob, a social activist. David gives her the letter written by Celia and asks her to read it over the air in English and Spanish. When she finishes, Leon shouts, “You’re a natural, a natural!” (159).

In the spring of 1934, as Luz walks to work, she notices many people face eviction from their apartments, with all their possessions dumped onto the streets. She writes Diego every week, not talking about the difficulties that the family face, instead describing Avel and their relationship. On a Saturday, she and Lizette go to see the Russian dressmaker Natalya, the best wedding gown seamstress in Denver. Lizette shows Natalya the pattern that she has chosen and describes the material she wants. Natalya says the fabric for the dress will cost up to 10 dollars. As they talk, Natalya realizes Lizette is also a good seamstress. She offers to hire her on the weekends to offset the cost of sewing her wedding gown.

That night, Avel and Luz walk together and encounter an iceman’s horse. He encourages her not to be afraid to touch the horse. He kisses her and, after a moment of hesitation, she kisses him in return.

As Luz finishes her work on a Thursday evening, David approaches her, insisting she go with him to a private supper club, Suville’s. She realizes once they are there that it is a establishment for white people only. As they walk to a table, the Denver district attorney, Steelman, insists they sit with him and his companion. Luz deduces that this woman is Steelman’s consort. She finds Steelman’s sexual comments about her disconcerting. When she searches for the ladies’ room, she enters an indoor shooting gallery, and finds herself overwhelmed by the sound, smell, and motions of men firing guns. As David drives Luz home, he casually asks if she has ever had sex.

Lizette’s family throws an 18th birthday party for Luz. Many friends arrive with large platters of food. Avel is present and brings Monica, the new singer for his band. A number of participants drink heavily, and several of the men engage in a poker game, with Avel emerging as the winner. David encourages Avel to drink ouzo, a Greek liquor to which he is not accustomed. When he gets ill, Luz leads him outside, where he vomits. As she stands with him in the bushes, she hears David and his date pass by, complaining about the lack of promised music.

On the morning of her 18th birthday, Luz receives a gift from Maria Josie—a quartz rosary that belonged to Luz’s grandmother Simodecea. Milli, a brief resident of the apartment, had stolen it, but Maria Josie found it in a pawn shop and brought it home as a gift. Luz also receives a letter from Diego, who tells her that he has seen the ocean and has a new female rattlesnake. She later realizes her clairvoyance is growing in power.