Growing up in a Mexican household I was surrounded by little Virgin Marys on the table, frijoles constantly on the stove, my mother feeding me the corn flour mix for the tortillas, and my father watching Pedro Infante movies in the morning with a cup of coffee in his hand. Saturday's were days where we would wake up bright and early at 7 a.m even though its a weekend and eat frijoles with chorizo accompanied by freshly made flour tortillas, and afterwards we would begin deep cleaning the house. We spent the morning listening to Mana, Marco Antonio Solis, Vicente Fernandez and my moms favorite Joan Sebastian.
We were quite poor for the first few years since we moved to Texas, we did not have the luxuries my brothers have now, we could not afford to buy junk food, if I wanted a snack my mother would say, "go outside the pecans have fallen from the tree," and she would give me a bucket to collect them. Looking back at we had and have now I begin to see that all the sacrifices my parents made paid off. I get to see my brothers enjoy and experience things we could never have imagined. I had to give up my childhood so they could have theirs. Now they spend the childhood I lost riding their bikes, playing on the Nintendo I spent years asking my parents for, fighting like brothers do, eating food like there is no tomorrow. They don't have to worry about whether our parents will be able to afford to go grocery shopping, or be able to pay the bills. Having to grow up quickly to raise my brothers was always something I resented, while my friends went out I had to stay home and take care of my "kids". We all made sacrifices and because of them, my parents are financially stable, I can afford a college education and most importantly I got help instill my morals and values into my brothers.
I am not your perfect Mexican daughter by Erika Sanchez
Sanchez, Erika. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. Knopf, 2017.
The novel "I am not your perfect Mexican daughter," by Erika L. Sanchez is a eye opening experience about a young girl named Julia who navigates life having lost her "perfect" older sister and trying to dive into her sisters past whilst doing her best to stay sane in her Mexican household.
Book Review
The first thing that stood out about the novel is how well Sanchez was able to capture the essence of a fifteen year old, the language, sense of culture through the eyes of a Chicana. There was this constant judge of character I had against the main character Julia. Julia blames all her misfortunes on her mother, and her mother takes out her internalized anger against Julia. This can be classified as your typical highly dysfunctional Mexican American according to Julia, she knows that the way her mother and father suppress their emotions that its learned, meaning its common in Mexican culture. I felt pity and annoyance towards Julia, I felt bad her sister died and how hard it was for her to find out she did not know her sister at all. Still, I found her ungrateful and lazy. She talks about her father coming home tired and picking up shifts, her mother cleaning houses, and she thinks she is too good for them, she goes even as far as to blatantly saying it. She made herself believe that having a respectful job is embarrassing and that she deserved better and that life was not as complicated. Her mother focused on Olga and forgot she had another daughter, a daughter she shielded from everything to the point that she felt trapped and suffocated that she thought it was better if she committed suicide. The book itself gives a point of view we don't see in literature. Sanchez said what many Mexican daughters wanted to say through Julia. The ending itself is interesting because Julia chooses to not tell her parents the truth about Olga as to conserve the picture of a perfect Mexican daughter, she wanted her parents to live in this delusion that there daughter was everything they hoped and wanted. There are the two types of children that can in a way describe Mexican kids, the rebellious one who won't make an effort to hide what they think,Julia, and then there is Olga the quiet, eldest one who learns to live two separate lives specifically fit to satisfy their Mexican family and their real life.
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