I think that here, Walker presents us with a strong story of loyalty. I really enjoyed her descriptive writing and how she so vividly portrayed the emotions of her characters. After a lifetime of passiveness, the speaker finally takes up the courage to stand up to her daughter's dominant personality and give what is rightfully due to her other daughter. Walker explores the speaker's inner conflict as she struggles to grasp the life her daughter chose versus the life that she herself leads. A technique that Walker uses to highlight the heightened sense of separation is her progressive use of Dee, then Wangero, then both, then Miss Wangero at the end. In a way, she is closing the door on the ideals that her daughter has picked up or created in her time away.
I found it ironic that the speaker knew everything about the clothes used to make her quilt and her daughter later accused her of not understanding her heritage, when in reality, Dee had no knowledge or desire to learn about her true heritage. At the end of the short story, she symbolically covers her identity again when "She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and her chin," (Walker, 181).
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