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Book Review: Lessons on Expulsion by Erika L. Sánchez
Erika L. Sánchez is the daughter of Mexican immigrants. A poet, novelist, and essayist, her debut poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion, was published by Graywolf in July 2017, and was a finalist for the PEN America Open Book Award. Her debut young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, published in October 2017 by Knopf Books for Young Readers, is a New York Times Bestseller and a National Book Awards finalist. Her memoir Crying in the Bathroom is forthcoming from Viking.
Erika was a 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellow, and a recent recipient of the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. She has recently been appointed the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Chair in the Latin American and Latino Studies Department at DePaul University and is part of the inaugural core faculty of the Randolph College Low Residency MFA Program. |
Review
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A Review of Erika L. Sánchez's Lessons on Expulsion
At first glance readers might ask themselves, “What is the meaning of ‘Lessons on Expulsion?” Poet, novelist, and essayist, Erika L. Sánchez answers that question by starting with an epigraph from Larry Levis’ “Elegy in the Sound of a Skipping Rope”: “Love’s an immigrant, it shows itself in its work. / It works for almost nothing.” Sectioned into three untitled parts, Sánchez invites readers into this award-winning poetry collection that teeters on the edge of the border when dealing with the expectations of cultural norms in a male-dominated society. Whether it’s through vignettes of her own life and experiences or scenes of the daily struggles of Mexico, Sánchez weaves together poetry that veers from lovely eloquence to stark reality, guiding readers to engage with poems like “Amá” that is reflective of failure and expectations in the face of motherhood. She then stuns them with the visceral imagery of the narco-world in “Kingdom of Debt,” before delving into concepts regarding sexuality and identity in her poem "Girl" as well as her "Self-Portrait" pieces. Throughout the book, Sánchez plays on the themes of sex and violence faced by women around the world, from being catcalled at the age of thirteen to later being yelled at by their mothers for being home too late at night, to being seen and treated like sale merchandise in “Orchid”: On Calle Montera, Madrid—the center of the city “Orchid” tells of how women, in many cases, are treated like objects. The poem delves into the nature of objectification, highlighting a range of experiences and examples from a woman’s desperation in front of a motel in Cicero, to Édouard Manet’s Olympia, to women of different ancestries in front of a McDonald’s, and finally, to the cruelties of human trafficking in Europe. Sánchez gives pause to readers on the theme of sexuality and its relationship to oppression that is omnipresent throughout this collection, and she greets it with a hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other. Sánchez depicts the duality of women’s oppression and sexuality in much of her poems in this collection including, “Hija de la Chingada,” where “men whistle from their trucks / though you’re only 13 and your breasts / are still tucked / meekly inside you.” Young girls getting catcalled at the age of thirteen, and, in some cases, even as young as eleven, is not uncommon in Latinx communities, and Sánchez clearly writes this from experience.
While a large portion of this collection focuses on women’s roles in a machismo society, Sánchez also interweaves the question of identity with the subversion of a cultural norm like the Quinceanera, a coming-of-age practice that has its roots in Mesoamerica: You dance in the frenetic The Quinceanera marks a girl’s transition into womanhood. Many adolescent Latina girls, once they reach fifteen, undergo the ceremony. Sánchez changes the narrative and offers a viewpoint that differs from the fairytale image that many familiar with the practice identify. Rather than a princess on the cusp of adulthood, Sánchez’s “Quinceanera” depicts the point of lost innocence: a girl becomes a woman and tries to meet the expectations placed on her shoulders; yet, wishes to forge her own name, understanding the pain it will bring, but does it anyway.
Sánchez continues this question of identity in “Crossing,” one of the collection’s longest poems, which retells the journey her parents took from their homes in Mexico to entering the United States as she tries to reconcile with them, and herself, on her own self: “When asked where I am from, / what can I possibly say? / I am you, in part, I suppose, / I want to say, but I don’t.” Identity, especially cultural identity is a loaded question for Latinx people. An ancestry distilled from a million strands, it is almost impossible for many to understand their origins and reconcile with the history that comes with it. Sánchez goes further and juxtaposes the year the Europeans first landed with the year her parents “crossed the border / in the trunk of a Cadillac.” “Crossing” also delivers a sense of irony, as there are those who think they know their origins only to discover that what they thought is not the case, leaving them to “scour landscapes” perpetuating an endless migration. With evocative language and significant, universal themes that draw on experience and cultural norms, Erika L. Sánchez has created an exquisite collection that is extremely relatable to Latinx readers while still able to tether others into its moving pages. Ever wandering through a world that continues to astound, her poetry provides a tangent feeling that expands on the meaning of what it is to walk within Latinidad and its ongoing exodus of self-discovery. |
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Salvador Martinez is an undergraduate studying Political Science and English (Creative Writing Track) at Lewis University and is a poetry editor for Jet Fuel Review. He enjoys reading poetry, fantasy fiction, science fiction, classical works, and political theory while listening to music on his phonograph, playing one of his guitars, or simply writing prose or poetry.
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