When the narrator describes the ancient Aztec legend told by her grandmother, the language switches to a more Spanish style, with verbs in front, in such phrases as "Arrived the autumn, and the afternoons became painted with rich reds".Mena, 67. Mena also inserts Spanish phrases in this story, explaining through the voice of the narrator that “I render the construction literally because it seems to carry more of the perfume that came with those phrases as I heard them by the blue-tiled fountain”.Mena, 64. While the insertion of Spanish phrases and sentence structures in contrast to the high version of English that frames the story creates a unique local atmosphere, some critics have said that this juxtaposition is Mena's way of “[c]onfronting the difficulties of mediating between two cultures”.Doherty, xxvii. Indeed, Mena, through the voice of the narrator, suggests that she may have been unsatisfied with the resulting translation: “The sonorous imagery of those well-remembered phrases loses much in my attempt to render them in sober English”.Mena, 65. By ensuring the story of Huitzilopochtili is framed in the context of how it is told, Mena highlights the differences between the culture of the target reader and the foreignness of Mexico.
