“Bien Pretty,” as its title suggests, is a story that invests in appearance. Throughout the story, prettiness is used as an indicator of authenticity and confidence in one's identity, while ugliness is a substitute for staged identity. Flavio's appearance first attracts Lupe because he is physically reminiscent of ancient Aztec images. She finds him pretty, however, not because he has symbolic cultural value, but because he is comfortable in his modern Mexican identity. Only after Flavio leaves does Lupe use the term “pretty” to reflect on her own authenticity: “Everything is as before. Except for that. When I look in the mirror, I'm ugly. How come I never noticed it before? (160). In this passage, Lupe criticizes her appearance and, by proxy, the inauthenticity of her interpreted identity. This self-reflection is crucial because it begins a series of reflections in which Lupe questions the beliefs she has held up to this point in the story. This passage begins the trend of introspection that moves him away from his despair over his lost love and towards self-sufficiency and the present. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay During the first half of the story, Lupe is in constant dialogue with her lived past and what she imagines to be her ancestral past. “We must abandon our current way of life and seek our past… As the I Ching says, to return to one's roots is to return to one's destiny,” she said to Flavio (149 years old). Lupe seeks authenticity by looking to her past. She carries with her her lived past in the objects she brings to Texas and attempts to connect to her ancestral past through sacred texts and trinkets. Our main access to Lupe's personality and interests is through the objects in her life. Many of these objects (his grandmother's molcajete, her cassettes, her copal) demonstrate an interest in or an attachment to Mexican origins. But many others (the I Ching, the Tibetan gongs, his references to chakras and Tae-Kwon Do) show a multicultural element in his life. She explicitly states her desire to be Mexican, but she also surrounds herself with objects that suggest a desire to connect to some universal indigenous wisdom. Lupe's thirst for a connection to an ancient heritage is present in her early interactions with Flavio. Even before finding him pretty, even before loving him, she is able to appreciate Flavio's physical features by connecting them to Aztec imagery. She describes “his beautiful Tarascan face” as “the face of a sleeping Olmec”. Initially, Flavio is attractive because he is a reflection of a past with which Lupe longs to connect. For Lupe, beauty is not just about “beauty”; it's something more subjective. From the beginning of the story, she, as narrator, tells us that “pretty” is a conditional state. Flavio “was only pretty if you were in love with him” (137). Throughout the story, Flavio, who begins as "just ordinary Flavio", becomes the man Lupe cannot help but see in strangers' faces. Although Lupe never explicitly states what she likes about Flavio, the arc of her affection seems to deepen in moments where he displays confidence in his authentic Mexican identity. This type of identity is rooted in family and personal histories rather than studied or borrowed knowledge. It comes from lived experiences and traditions with a lowercase “t” rather than traditions built around rituals.!” (165).