Excerpt from The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"We got two bedrooms, two beds, four people," you said, pointing out various corners of your drawing. "Me and Mom sleep head to foot here, Abuela Omara and Mamá Suset sleep head to foot here. This is the hallway, with a rhinestone baby Jesus. We redid the bathroom to be a Zen sanctuary with a plastic bamboo on the toilet," you said. Not only had you drawn the Evening Buddha aromatherapy candle, but also its half-ripped price tag from Ross Dress for Less. "There's a Do Not Disturb sign on the bathroom door. And a lock, too." You spoke the word lock as if it were salvation. "My mom be loving that lock. That's her favorite part of the whole house."

I began to feel caustic and unsound.

There it was: Our handsomely appointed Section 8 row home. The crystal knickknacks and faux greenery. The warped dollar store plaque with its cursive "I am the light of the world." Floor plan as prelude to exposé.

And of course, you had drawn us. Mamá Suset stood at the doorway, shopping bags in hand with their optimistic logos. Abuela Omara guarded the stove with a lemon-print pot holder and a can of Pledge. You had framed yourself in the front window, pondering the pyramid of tires at the garage across the street. (Remember those? Learning to count to a hundred on old Goodyears?)

And me? I was seated at the foot of our bed, back to the viewer—faceless—with headphones cupping my ears. This part of your drawing required a special inset box, a pencil-and-glitter close-up that captured my blue wired Beats in detail: iridescent, the color of a mermaid's tail. I could practically hear the Ocean Sounds app coming through your drawing.

"When Mom busts out the Beats," you said, "that's her 'me' time. Don't tap her shoulder or say her name."

"I hear that," one of the dads chuckled. "Gon' get me some Beats!"

Your audience was primed. "Sometimes she got the Beats, the Do Not Disturb, and the bathroom lock going all at once. A trifecta."

Much parental hooting. "Girl said trifecta!" Laughter volume eleven.

Talk about being pinned. You knew me, hija, unlike any ever will. It was gold-star work. Four generations of Soto women sardined into HGTV prettiness, not a speck of dust—or man—in sight.

During the next kid's talk you didn't turn around to wave or to ask me with your eyes, Did you like it, Mom? Which is how I knew I'd received your artwork as intended. A provocation. Your phone pinged and the teacher mouthed "Algebra?" then waved that you could go. Without glancing my way, you wove through the parents and out into the hall. More parental voices: "Algebra? Dayum." "Go get 'em, Doogie Howser!" I stood in the back of the class, breathless. That you were smarter than me was no surprise. That you were more honest? Trouble lay ahead.

* * *

Did I walk to work from there? Hop the bus or El? I only remember the blocks whooshing by, my mind roaring its own narration of Our Family Homes:

Once upon a time there was an abuela whose pot of café did overflow. With a grain of rice and droplet of water she fed four generations of Soto women, letting love dry the tear at the corner of her eye—from cataracts, not regret.

See her daughter (Mamá Suset): the first-gen airport bartender with a penchant for bargains, ever lighting church candles. See who's next in the lineup: the teen mom (me) making sure her kid Just Said No and Stayed in School. See the final link in the chain: you, Noelle, seeing Las Mujeres Soto for what they were.

Though the Sotos wanted gold earrings, they bought textbooks and multivitamins. Though they craved a spa day, they took lukewarm dribble showers after night shifts. O, urban foursome who know not of greenery—whose very Christmas tree is plastic! Just as fake pine needles forever cling to metal branches, so is their loyalty evergreen.

The OG loyalty: Abuela hunched that they might stand. Abuela stretched every teaspoon of harina that they might taste a Number Four with Fries. Abuela migrated that they might Netflix and chill.

Excerpted from The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes. Copyright © 2025 by Quiara Alegría Hudes. Excerpted by permission of One World. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.