forces to break off this relationship, sending Pilar away to a private school and prohibiting the two from seeing each other. The audience presumes that the interracial nature of this relationship was what motivated Mercedes and Buddy to interfere.
             Pilar's relationship with her mother, Mercedes, and with her two children is an important subplot. Intergenerational conflict is a theme here, also, but perhaps more important is the question of racial identity. Pilar's son, who listens to Salsa music, is searching for his Tejano roots. Pilar hopes to make a trip to Mexico with her mother to see the place where their family history began, but Mercedes is more interested in assimilating than in preserving the past. She asserts the family's Spanish heritage, distancing herself from Mexicans, whom she derogatorily refers to as "wetbacks." Pilar, who teaches in the local high school, is committed to developing a balanced curriculum and teaching history from various points of view. This inevitably brings her into conflict with some whit
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