“I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter”, by Erika L. Sanchez is a novel of shattering stereotype, Mexican teenager coming-of-age. Introducing Julia Reyes, fifteen-year-old teenager who desperately wants to go to college She’s a very outspoken sarcastic feminist with big dreams and a real hunger for art. The daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants Ama and Apa, living in a apartment infested with roaches. She’s filled with anger almost all the time and perpetually bitter because she is poor. Suffering from the loss of her prude older sister, Olga, who died by being run over by a semi-truck. Julia battless with the death of her sister Olga, her parents are having a challenging time with Julia not wanting to be a perfect Mexican daughter. However, for Julia her life needs more than being your traditional Mexican daughter have a good office job, marrying a Mexican, raising children, and preparing tortilla until the day she dies. In which, Ama struggles with daily, on why Julia just can’t be perfect like her dead sister Olga. Even though families are based on culture and …show more content…
Her struggles are of a flower trying to blossom in a pile of garbage. Growing up in the poor side of the southside of Chicago, Mexican music blasting early in the morning or ducking from the bullets flying in a drive-by shooting. Julia solace is found in her writing, and in her high school English class. Mr. Ingram her English teacher asks her what she wants out of life she cries “I want to go to school. I want to see the word” and “I want so many things sometimes I can’t even stand it. I feel like I’m going to explode.” But Ama doesn’t see it that way, she just tells, Julia, she is a bad daughter because she wants to leave her family. The world is not what it seems. It is filled with evil and bad people that just want to her hurt and take advantage of
While she might think that her plans are working, they only lead her down a path of destruction. She lands in a boarding house, when child services find her, she goes to jail, becomes pregnant by a man who she believed was rich. Also she becomes sentenced to 15 years in prison, over a street fight with a former friend she double crossed. In the end, she is still serving time and was freed by the warden to go to her mother’s funeral. To only discover that her two sisters were adopted by the man she once loved, her sister is with the man who impregnated her, and the younger sister has become just like her. She wants to warn her sister, but she realizes if she is just like her there is no use in giving her advice. She just decides that her sister must figure it out by
One of the biggest challenges Francie faces while growing up is loneliness. As a young child living in a Brooklyn slum, Francie has no friends her age. The other children either find her too quiet or shun her for being different because of her extensive vocabulary. Betty Smith describes how most of Francie's childhood days are spent: "in the warm summer days the lonesome child sat on her stoop and pretended disdain for the group of children playing on the sidewalk. Francie played with her imaginary companions and made believe they were better than real children. But all the while her heart beat in rhythm to the poignant sadness of the song the children sang while walking around in a ring with hands joined." (106). Francie is lonely, and longs to be included. As Francie matures, she begins to experience a different kind of loneliness. Betty Smith portrays her feelings as she observes her neighborhood: "spring came early that year and the sweet warm nights made her restless. She walked up and down the streets and through the park. And wherever she went, she saw a boy and a girl together, walking arm-in-arm, sitting on a park bench with their arms around each other, standing closely and in silence in a vestibule. Everyone in the world but Francie had a sweetheart or a friend she seemed to be the only lonely one in Brooklyn without a friend." (403). Loneliness is a constant challenge for Francie but it is through her loneliness that she finds a new companion in her books. Francie reads as an alternative for her lack of friends and companions. It is through her love of reading that Francie develops her extensive, sophisticated vocabulary. Her books lead her into maturity and help her learn to be independent and overcome her many hardships.
Martha, who is spurred on by her love of her children, survives all but the harshest of storms. But when she finally sees “John sobbing there, against the horse” (Ross 179) and realizes the burdens he bears and the emotional turmoil within him, she finds even more strength in herself to push on and do everything she can to help ease John’s hardships. In “A Garden of Her Own”, Vijai relies on memories of her family growing up and the happiness she once experienced at home to comfort her during her lonely periods. She constantly addresses her Mama and Papa, talking about happier times gone by. Unfortunately this only seems to remind her of how bleak her present situation is. And so, just like Martha, Vijai’s ultimate comfort lies in looking towards the future. However, unlike Martha, Vijai’s dreams revolve solely around her instead of her children. She dreams of trips to “mountains, of touching them with the palms of [her] hands, of bicycling in them, and of hiking” (Mootoo 207); of a “drive in the country to see the pictures in the calendars pinned on the wall” (Mootoo 207); of canoeing “on a river or a big lake with no shores” (Mootoo 207). The reality that the futures that both these women envision are unlikely and mostly inaccessible to people of their fortunes does nothing to damper their hopeful
Her eyes were heavy, her body weak. As she crawled into the bathroom two feet away, Abby felt her body slowly succumbing to the numbness. All of her pain would be gone in less than 10 minutes, so why would she want to turn back? What about the senior trip Abby had planned with her best friend? What about the chair at the dinner table that would now be vacant? A couple of hours later Abby’s family came home from her little sister’s soccer game. Little did they know what they would find as they approached the top of the stairs. Her little sister, Ali, stood still as she looked down at her feet. There on the cold floor lay her big sister, her role model, and her super hero. Ali was crushed when she saw the pill bottle in her hand and the pale color of her skin. Her mom fell to her knees screaming and crying, wondering where she
Growing up in a Mexican household where education isn’t a priority or important has been one of my major obstacles that I’ve had to overcome. Although my family’s culture believes that education isn’t necessary their experiences and lifestyles have influence and motivate my choices for my future. I come from a home where I have no role model or someone influential. I have no one to ask for advice for college or anything involve in school. In most homes, older siblings help their younger siblings with their homework or projects but in my house no one was able to provide me with any help. I grew up to be independent and to do anything school related on my own. My parents are both immigrants who didn’t get to finish elementary
Claireece ‘Precious’ Jones is a sixteen year old African American, illiterate and obese girl who lives with her abusive mother, Mary, who is unemployed and neglectful. Claireece has gone through tremendous sexual abuse including being raped by her own biological father several times from she was only three years old that has resulted in her bearing one child and another on the way. This resulted in her having severe hatred for herself, her race and taking a toll on the socialization process of interacting with others, Her family completely survives off welfare and her mother comes up with all types of plans to get as much money as she can from the government because she is lazy and had selfish motives. Precious was no longer able to attend high school upon her second pregnancy so she was forced to enroll in an alternative school where she began to be lead by her inspirational new lesbian teacher, Miss Blu Rain. Precious often escapes her reality through daydreams wishing of fame, fortune and being loved. Eventually, she gets her life together and triumphs over all the tribulations in her
... is reminiscing about the fact that she messed up and it cost the boy’s life. The overall tone in the end of the novel is depressing as the governess’s actions and attitudes about current events tend to reflect the tone of the situation.
In the story Jubilee by Kirstin Valdez Quade A young very bright Latin American woman, Andrea, struggles with feeling like she’s been accepted in today’s society despite all of her achievements. These feelings tend to peak and turn negative whenever she’s around the family of her father’s lifelong employer, the Lowells, and in particularly their daughter Parker. Although the Lowells, as a whole seem to love Andrea and her family, she finds that their success and good fortune directly correlates to her family’s second rate citizenship. This story reveals that obsession with being accepted as an equal can be an ever increasing stressor that can severely damage a child’s identity, social skills and ultimately lead to misplaced resentment and
The first day that the kids go back to school after The Slowing was announced, we see how things are starting to change for Julia. Because her best friend, Hannah, who in the beginning is her only friend, is no longer attending their school Julia is forced to pay attention to other classmates. One of the boys at the bus stop is persistent in annoying her in addition to another female classmate. While being forced to deal with the boy’s antics, Julia decides that “Hanna would have known what to do… [b]ut I was on my own that day and unaccustomed to getting teased.” (39, Walker). At one point the boy pulls her shirt up and exposes her to all of the kids at the bus stop, but Julia doesn’t stand up to him. However, when Julia finds that her father has been having affair with Sylvia, their neighbor and Julia’s piano teacher, she confronts him about it in a way she never would have before The Slowing or the events that had taken place since. As she grows older and matures Julia learns how to have and keep relationships that would have been out of her comfort zone
She didn’t wake up every morning, happy to go to the school and learn more things, instead she felt terrified wondering what was going to happen to her. Some days were not as bad like the others but there was some days that Melba could've really got hurt but she always found a way out without getting too injured. Kids just kept taunting her every moment of the day and the worst part was the teachers didn’t do anything about it. Even though they know she is a child too and that they should care that because she could get badly hurt and it would be the teacher's fault because they didn’t do anything about it or to stop
In the part of town where Melanie lives, she's witnessed more crime and more gruesomeness than most adults have, and only at the age of fourteen. Shes has been living with her grandmother for over a year because her parents left her and she had nowhere to go. Using her resilience, Melanie has overcome this hard situation and is trying and succeeding to live a better life, and to make a better life for her family.
Never Marry a Mexican is a short story by Sandra Cisneros. The story is about a girl named a girl named Clemencia who runs by the words of her mother, her mother always told her “never marry a mexican”. Clemencia never wants to get married anymore, “marriage had failed [her]”, instead Clemencia likes her men “borrowed” now. But the question is: is it really because she has everlasting feeling of lust or does she want to seek revenge?
In “Never Marry a Mexican”, the author, Sandra Cisneros, writes about the love life of a Mexican American woman, Clemencia. The story is in first person narration. At the beginning of the story, Clemencia admits that she wants to get married; however, she confesses being in affairs with married men, the reason why she does not want to get married anymore. She mentions her parents’ background and failed marriage. Her mother would tell her to never marry a Mexican; therefore, Clemencia only becomes involved with white men. While her father is dying in a hospital, her mother is getting into a relationship with a white man, which leads her into a life of immorality. At the age of nineteen, she falls in love with a married white man named Drew. Clemencia works as a translator and substitute teacher. During their affair, Drew’s wife gives birth to a boy. In addition, Clemencia wants the wife to know about their affair by leaving gummy bears where only Drew’s wife would notice; she feels no guilt about their relationship and actively tries to break them up. Years later, since her efforts of breaking Drew 's marriage are in vain, she seduces Drew 's son. Clemencia wants his son to love her as much as she loved Drew. At the end of the story, Clemencia considers for a
In this scene we begin to see the first glimpses of the amount of repression present within the neighborhood of shady hills. We are able to see this clearly when Francis is trying to explain to his family about his plane crash but nobody seems to care. When everyone is sitting at the dinner table, the narrator states “Francis says that he must be understood; he was nearly killed in an airplane crash, and he doesn’t like to come home every night to a battlefield. Now Julia is deeply concerned. Her voice trembles. He doesn’t come home every night to a battlefield. The accusation is stupid and mean” (299). In this quote, Julia is upset over her husband’s comment more so than his brush with death. Her thought process seems quite strange, and almost child-like. Instead of dealing with the main subject, the crash, and talking about it she chooses to completely overlook and ignore it. Thus her actions and thinking serve to further emphasize the theme. Her character is a symbol for the ideals of suburbia. She is self-centered and lacks the ability to communicate thoroughly, or in fact chooses not to. She chooses to keep living within her unrealistic idea of the perfect
Mavis’s school was just like her house, old, rusted, and filled with people that don’t care about her. She started her day with the same routine. Put her books in her locker, and get pushed against her locker by Lilith. As usual, Lilith called her a fat--- and went on her way. With every syllable, everyday, Mavis’s heart broke a little. She figured that over time she would get used to the name calling and her heart would become callused. While she waited, the distraction of her hours of homework distracted her.