In the short story Daughter of Invention, there were a few themes and conflicts. The daughter had a tough childhood. She moved to New York as a young girl. After moving to New York she had to learn how to read and write English. I can relate to her situation and I can say that it is very difficult to learn English when your original background is all Spanish. One of Cukita’s biggest problems when moving to New York was learning English. It wasn’t easy for her because kids would bully her on her accent. After a while she adapted and became a really good student.

Another conflict that I thought was very important was the differences Cukita and her mom had, they didn’t have the best mother and daughter relationship. I could understand both their situations because I had the same issues with my mom. Cukita and her family were really close, they thought no one else mattered except their family. Her family was basically alone, their relatives were in the Dominican Republic. Cukita mentioned that her mom didn’t act like her mom sometimes. Many teenage girls think like that sometimes, we say it because at the time we have anger inside of us and we have negative thoughts. We sometimes don’t realize how important family is, I learned to take advantage of every minute I have with them. If I were Cukita I wouldn’ttreat my mom like that, all her mom wants is for her to be happy. Her mom supported her with everything, Cukita and her father didn’t care about any of her mom’s inventions. Even after Cukita and Papi made her mom feel bad about her inventions she helped them when they were arguing. Cukita’s mom would have been really successful if she had her family’s support.

Cukita and her father had some issues when Cukita wrote a speech to her teachers. Papi said the speech was really inappropriate, he tore it up and because of this Cukita got upset with her father. Cukita loves writing and she felt furious when her dad took the speech she worked so hard on and tore it up. Papi expected a lot more from her, he wanted her to write a well organized speech about her teachers. Cukita had worked really hard on it just for her dad to destroy it. In the end Cukita’s mom, like always had to fix things between them. She re-wrote Cukita’s speech so that she could still present and so her father would get over his anger.

If I were Cukita I would have threaten my mom differently, after all, she never turned her back on her family; even after Cukita and Papi never cared about her inventions. She’s the one holding the family together, towards the end of the story she helped Cukita with her speech, made her husband happy, and got Cukita the typewriter she has always wanted. If Cukita would have acted differently her mom would have been successful with her inventions, she would have never had a problem with her dad and there wouldn’t have been any issues in their family. Family is the most important thing to me, I learned that they’re the people that will stick by your side throughout your entire life. You should cherish them every second you’re with them.