What Does Vada Really Learn About Her Mother?

She learned who her mother was and what she did in her all too brief lifetime. She wasn't a hippie. She was an actress and singer and maybe was a fan of the "Beat" authors, such as Jack Kerouac. She was part of the initial rebellion against the post-war mindless conformity that was prevalent during the 1950's. The civil rights movement started in the 1950's (Google Rosa Parks) along with younger people rebelling against the social conventions of the time. She was in a theater troupe and had aspirations of working on Broadway. Vada was able to gain insight into how her mother thought, how she treated people and how she worked at the craft of acting. I'm not surprised she got an "A" on her project. Vada also found out about why she was who she was and she got to, indirectly, to meet her birth mother, which a lot of people, myself included, never got to do.