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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
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Book Review: Erika L. Sánchez's I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

Erika L. Sánchez
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
​Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5247-0048-5
352 pages
$17.99


​


Erika L. Sánchez ​is a Mexican-American novelist, essayist, and poet residing in Chicago. Sánchez graduated from the University of Illinois, then transferred to the University of New Mexico, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing. Erika L Sánchez is the recipient of the CantoMundo Fellow, Bread Loaf Scholar, and winner of the “Discovery”/Boston Review Prize. She was awarded the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation in 2015. Recently, she was named a 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellow. Her work includes: her young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, and her poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion. Currently, she is working on a collection of personal essays and poetry. 
​


Review


























A Review of Erika L. Sánchez's I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Miguel Soto
 

Erika L. Sanchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is a fantastic addition to Transcultural Latinx literature, which places an emphasis on growing up on the south side of Chicago as a first-generation teen. Julia, the novel’s protagonist, is a quick-witted teenager, who is constantly being compared to “Saint Olga, the perfect Mexican daughter.” Olga serves as the perfect foil to Julia’s dark humored life. Julia jokes her way through Olga’s funeral, “where did they find this mortician, the flea market(?),” through high school, “I want to get all Bartelby about it, tell him I don’t fucking feel like it,” and practically through life, “como me gusta la mala vida.”
 
Sánchez uses marked code-switching throughout her work, never italicized, but translated to offer an inclusive experience for all readers. Julia’s dynamic relationship with her mother takes a universal approach. The confrontations between mother and daughter are recognized by all audiences, but the added language, “ay como nos haces sufrir. No se si maldecirte o por ti rezar,” gives a unique experience that most first-generation Mexican-Americans will understand and appreciate, as they are picking themselves up off the ground, regaining breath from laughing so hard.
 

The full cast of characters includes a multitude of identities and experiences. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter captures a realistic narrative of the disillusioned immigrant consciousness. Julia’s parents are constantly caught up in allá, the idea of returning home to Los Ojos, Mexico. Their hard-work is rarely rewarded, and their nights out end with the “cockroach dance, which consists of stomping all over the kitchen floor, because they have a party whenever we’re not home.” Memories of home are full of joy and happiness, while memories of the United States are filled with grief and poverty. Sánchez also includes a cast of queer characters, the most prominent being Juanga, who is consistently kicked out of his home for refusing to adopt heteronormative characteristics. Sánchez respectfully gives each of her characters a substantive background and identity.
 
The beautiful Chicago setting is an added perk to reading I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. Erika L. Sánchez’s humor is used to question the traditional conventions of gender roles, sexuality, race, and overall, coming to age dilemmas. Her novel represents a large sector of the Latinx community, but is more than open to all audiences. Through all the teenage angst, the overall themes of grief are evident, “how do we laugh and feel happiness despite the buried things growing inside?” The reader is left questioning two valid sides, but the conflict only raises more questions, “how can I ever give this to my parents, something else to love, something dead?” The geopolitical landscape becomes synonymous to Julia’s life, “a giant wound, a big gash between two countries,” making I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter the perfect novel for young adult readers who are looking to enter the complex, open world of Latinidad. 
​


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Miguel is the Asst. Managing Editor and Book Review Editor for Jet Fuel Review. As an editor, one of his main concerns is giving a space to marginalized voices, centralizing on narratives often ignored. He loves reading radical, unapologetic writers, who explore the emotional and intellectual stresses within political identities and systemic realities. His own writings can be found in OUT / CAST: A Journal of Queer Midwestern Writing and Art, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Rogue Agent. He writes for the Jet Fuel Review blog in Not Your Binary: A QTPOC Reading Column. 

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
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  • Features
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  • Previous Issues
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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
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      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
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      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
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      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
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    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
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    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
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      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022