I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez

Genre: Contemporary Young Fiction with a splash of suspense!

Plot: Olga is considered the perfect Mexican daughter. She doesn’t stray too far from home, does what she is told, and has the job that her parents aspire for her. But secrets come unraveling when Olga is involved in a fatal accident,
and Julia, her younger sister tries to learn more about her late sister and what made her tick.

Themes explored: secrets, trauma, suicide, rape, mental health, immigration, education, socio-economic disparities, homophobia, LGBTQIA issues, teen life, favoritism in the home and homelessness. 

Ideas that really resonated:
a) The concept of having two faces: Many people have a home face and a different face that they show the world. Parents often hope that the face shown at home is the real face but that is often not the case particularly in authoritarian cultures  and households.  Olga had massive secrets that would have torn her family apart but she presented as a perfect, quiet, and dutiful daughter at home.
b) The concept of limiting beliefs brought about by the environment: Julia grew up in a lower-income neighborhood in Chicago where it was expected that the perfect ‘career’ to aspire to was to be a receptionist in a firm with air conditioning.  But she had dreams and the skills necessary to be more than that. Sometimes, how far a person goes might not be tied to their potential but rather their environment.
c) Generational trauma and its impact on relationships: Julia’s mother goes through a traumatic experience when she was crossing into the United States, and we see the impact of this event in her relationship with her daughters.
d)Sacrifice: Julia’s dad has no time to continue his passion when he moves to the United States because he is busy trying to ensure that his family has the basics. This is the story of many people who get caught in the day to day routine of living that they forget things/ideas that light them up.
e) Mental health: This book literally oozes mental health with particular emphasis on trauma, depression, and anxiety. One could argue that Julia’s father might have been going through a form of long-term depression.

 

Idea(s) that made me itch:

In many books that feature minority characters, education is often the only key that is presented as the way to get out of an economic bracket.  Secondly, the ideas explored aren’t particularly new. 

 

But:

I loved this book and have added this author to my must-read. This book debuted in 2017 and was one of the books that I picked for Hispanic Heritage Month.