I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is a novel by Erika Sanchez. The main conflict is that Julia’s sister Olga has recently passed away, so Julia struggles with her mental health, depression and grieving, and the stress of schooling additionally with her home life and close relationships. Julia is very dismissive because of the close and messy relationships she has around her life.
Julia is very self conscious because of the way her mother talks to her. Ama tries to set an expectation on Julia saying, “ You have to be pretty for your family. What will your sister think when she looks down on you from heaven?” - (Sanchez 123) Ama often comments on Juila’s appearance. Ama expects her daughters to be pretty and this leads to Julia getting compared
This story is exactly what Julia Alvarez went through. It’s her life story. In the book Yolanda plays Julia’s role. The story relates accurately to how the family struggled having to adapt to the American culture. “As the only immigrant in my class, I was put in a special seat in the front row by the window, apart from the other children so that sister Zoe could tutor me without disturbing them” (“How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” 166).
She still is “Ye Olde Fifi” (118) as her sisters describe her and falls right back into joking around with her sisters. Even though what she looks like has changed drastically, her personality has not changed that drastically. Sofia proves that even though place can shape your identity, it can only shape it to some extent because you are who you are down to your roots. In addition, Sofia’s sister Yolanda is also an example of how identity can be shaped by place. Yolanda goes back to the Dominican Republic when she is older.
“Don’t be afraid to start over. ”These are the words that come from immigrants all over the universe. Immigrants have a rigid life. Some of them may have been very rich, but lost everything. Esperanza is just like one of these immigrants in the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munzos Ryan.
The story The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez and the immigration photo by Jose Hernandez Clare are two things that i am comparing. The common subject that is portrayed in these stories/Photographs is family separation. The Red Umbrella and The Immigration photo both have thing in common, they both also have their own unique thing about them. In these stories/photo they both have something different, in the immigration photo the men chose to leave everything they know and love to go to america and in the red umbrella the children were forced to go to america they didn’t have a choice and they didn’t want to go.
The people you see on the outside are different from the inside. The story, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez, observes the life of Julia Reyes, a 15-year-old Mexican girl. Who reveals secrets about her own family and finds her true identity. Julia lives with her parents and perfect sister, Olga who died of a tragic death by a bus. Olga, the ideal daughter took care of the family and remained nearby.
In Julia Alvarez’s book, How the Garcia Girl Lost Their Accents, the best literary theory to analyze the book with is Formalism, specifically looking at the recurrence of Yolonda feeling as if they don't belong, to demonstrate the greater immigrant experience during the time period. After Yolonda has lived in the United States for a while, she heads off on her own to college. She notices how her peers act differently than her, “...I cursed my immigrant origins. If only I too had been born in Connecticut or Virginia, I too would understand the jokes everyone was making in the last two digits of the year, 1969. I too would be having sex and smoking dope; I too would have suntanned parents who took me skiing in Colorado over Christmas break, and
There are several reasons why men and women walk around in the typical patriarcal world, society plays a major role. Women feel the need to conform to such sextist ways not because they genuinly feel as though they are less than, but because the ideas that the civilization holds makes it seem like being matriarcal is deficient. This is proven through the characters in both This is How You Lose her a fiction novel written by Junot Diaz and How The garcia Girls Lost Their Accents a fiction novel written by Julia Alvarez. In both books men complying with sexit stards are very much so present along with consequences that women face due to this ideology. There are several ways in which sexism is portrayed in This is How You Lose her, but one way
After immigrating many assimilate into their new environments. In Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent, it exemplifies the struggle of Yolanda, the third oldest Garcia sister, as she searches for a personal identity while feeling trapped between her cultural identity and her new Americanized self. Yolanda strived to fit into American culture, she was able to find a way to fit in, through the English language, writing poems. In her continued desire to fit in, Yolanda became stuck between her cultural identity and her new assimilated self. Failing to find a sense of belonging in the United States as Yolanda is unable to let go of her past.
One of the overall meanings of the novel, Dreaming in Cuban, by Cristina Garcia is that “love to family is above all”. The following theme is portrayed throughout the novel, an example being when, Lourdes, is against going to Cuba because of her hatred toward the country. When the death of Felicia occurs, Lourdes is forced to go to Cuba and return to her family, “‘ your sister has died....”’(196 Garcia). Even though Lourdes has a great hatred to Cuba, her own country, she still has to go there to show her love towards her family, If Lourdes doesn’t go to Cuba she will lose lots of respect from her family because it will illustrate that she doesn’t care about her own sister. Lourdes stands nowhere in the world if she cannot show respect to her
Trespass by Julia Alvarez is a short story that depicts the life of a young immigrant girl whose family has relocated from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey and the many emotions, trials, and tribulations that come with such a massive change. The oldest of four girls, Carla, seems to have the hardest time adapting to this new environment and circumstance. When their mother makes a typical Spanish dessert and inserts a candle to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the move to the States, she says, "Let us please go back home, please, She half prayed and half wished" (Alvarez 99). Aside from the anguish of leaving her extended family and the challenges of adjusting to a new neighborhood, school, and country, she has the strongest ties to the Dominican Republic and the most difficulty assimilating to English and American culture.
Olga was the perfect daughter who did not go to college, followed all rules, and put family above anything. While Julia is her complete opposite; troubled, outspoken, and independent, with many dreams of attending college and becoming a writer. Throughout the book, Julia struggles with accepting the role of being a perfect Mexican daughter, handling adolescence and her parents’ high expectations; after all her sister was the one who was the perfect one. However soon she discovers not everything is as black and white as it once seemed and starts to discover the truth behind being the perfect Mexican-American daughter. I am not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez is accurate with its truthful portrayal of the immigrant experience for Mexicans and the unfortunate history they have held when it comes to deportation, it provides a fair understanding of what the Mexican culture truly is and the values they uphold, while also providing a useful depiction of what it means to deal with mental health moreover giving more insight of the life of a teenage girl who is coping with grief and
On September 11, 2001, tragedy struck the city of New York. On that fateful day, two airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and flew straight into the twin towers. Each tower fell completely to the ground, taking thousands of lives with it and injuring thousands more. Not only did that day leave thousands of families without their loved ones, it also left an entire city and an entire country to deal with the aftermath of the destruction. Poet, Nancy Mercado, worries that one day people will forget that heartbreaking day.
In the essay "Children of Mexico," the author, Richard Rodriguez, achieves the effect of relaying his bittersweet feeling regarding how Mexicans stubbornly hold on to their past and heritage by not only relaying many personal experiences and images, but also by using an effective blend of formal and informal tone and a diction that provides a bittersweet tone. Among the variety of ways this is done, one is through repetitive reference to fog. The word is used many times in the essay, especially in segments relating to Mexican-Americans returning to Mexico for the winter. One of the more potent uses reads as follows: "The fog closes in, condenses, and drips day and night from the bare limbs of trees.
The book I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez shows an imbalance of power in many aspects, from the truth of living in a household where Julia, the main character, does not feel loved to feeling embarrassed about having immigrant parents and being poor. Having immigrant parents and them being immigrants and poor are the hardships that Julia Reyes has to endure. Olga, Julia’s sister, died, which made everything worse for her. Ama also never stopped comparing her "slob daughter," Julia, to the "perfect" Olga, even after Olga's death. In I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, the person or thing that holds the power is Ama because she controls Julia's emotions and, in a way, money.
This caused her to alienate herself since her mother asked her to keep a part of herself hidden from the world by binding her and making sure no one found out she menstruated ealy (Anzaldúa 1983, 221). This will later isolate her further but ultimately lead her to reflect on the racism that surrounds her. In addition, Anzaldúa’s identity also suffer because she denied her heritage and the traditions that with it. She mentions that she felt ashamed of her mother and her loud tendencies, it is an archetype that most Hispanic mothers are loud by nature, and the fact that her lunches, or “lonches”, consisted