what steps does each girl take to define herself as an individual??

Carla García

The eldest of the four sisters, Carla was around 12 when the family moved to the United States, and had great difficulty adjusting to the new country.She becomes a child psychologist, in part, to help her figure out who she is.

Sandra García (Sandi)

The second eldest sister, Sandra, is fair-haired, light-skinned, and blue-eyed, traits she inherited from a Swedish ancestor, and which distinguish her in the family. She is a deeply dissatisfied person, haunted by a gnawing emptiness that cannot be filled by beauty, lovers, scholarship awards, or work. In an effort to define herself, she becomes obsessed with weight loss and suffers a nervous breakdown in graduate school, for which she is temporarily committed to a private mental hospital.

Yolanda García explores the materiality of words, often speaking in rhyme and using surreal images, and defines her romantic relationships based on her partner's relationship to language.

Known as the "maverick" of the family, the youngest daughter Sofía drops out of college and is the only girl without an advanced degree. She seeks an identity seperate from her roots or her American experience. She runs away from home to elope with her husband, a German chemist named Otto whom she met on the street in Colombia.

Your question is too involved to answer in two or three sentences.