Nopales for My Ancestors Book

Nopales for my Ancestors is a book where the poet exposes her own conflicts from childhood to adulthood. "Nopales," are the cactus leafs. Leaves have thorns and these thorns represent struggles she had to endure with her own family and most of all with the religion she was subject to follow at the private school she attended.
From the cacti, the Magey, a liquor drink, is also extracted. In Victoria's words, these were the joyful moments spent with he family as she grows up she realizes how harmful alcohol is in one's family. With each poem, Victoria cries triumph by rebelling against her own family, the church, and her marriage for trying to subject her to something she is not. Later, as her family emigrates to the USA, she encounters another oppression, the one no emigrants hear about. And these have to do with collecting food stamps, welfare, unemployment, disability insurance, etc.
Cut in pieces, we make nopales, a breakfast dish and this is what the poet feeds to her family and readers. A dish from which they can eat all they want. At the time where the poems end, she has realized that this is the only thing she can give to her relatives who have never understood her; nopalitos. In addition, she makes "Nopales for my Ancestors" a descriptive way of her life in Mexico and the USA.