Roberta Fernández's short story "Amanda" is a captivating and moving tale that reflects the author's own experiences of growing up as a Mexican-American who was inspired by the artistic and creative Latina women in her life as she grew up.

In the short story, the narrator is a young girl who deeply admires and is in awe of Amanda, the talented seamstress who creates gorgeous and unique dresses. The narrator often spends her days by Amanda's side, watching her hands move across the sewing machine as she creates her beautiful dresses and adorns them with creative and thoughtful details. The narrator finds a role model and source of inspiration in Amanda as she watches her work and often falls asleep envisioning the dresses dancing behind her closed eyes as she drifts to sleep.

Certainly, Amanda is a powerful, creative, working-class older woman who serves as a strong role model for Amanda. While Amanda is admired by many for her beautiful creations, there are those who whisper that she is also a witch. This tension between admiration and fear explores the ways in which strong and confident women are feared or seen as a cause of suspicion or distrust in our society. The narrator does feel some of this intimidation and apprehension of the powerful seamstress, but she is ironically drawn to Amanda through her fear as she senses the mystery of the powerful woman.

When the narrator asks Amanda to make her a witch's dress, one can see the true admiration that the narrator feels more Amanda and that, even though she is wary that Amanda is a witch, she instead decides to embrace this possibility and be inspired by it. Amanda slowly, but surely, makes the narrator a gorgeous witch's cape adorned with black cat fur, black chicken feathers, satin, bird bones, cat paws, and chicken's feet. The cape is a unique artistic creation and shows the intergenerational respect between the two characters.

When the cape is eventually lost, the narrator is filled with a sense of mourning. The cape represented so much to the narrator—in terms of feminine power, artistic creativity, the Latina culture of South Texas, and the magical experiences in her childhood. When the cape went missing, it wasn't just the cape that she lost but also the material connection to these memories and experiences that she cherished.