FAMILY CONFLICTS IN ERIKA SÁNCHEZ’S CHICANO FICTION
FAMILY CONFLICTS IN ERIKA SÁNCHEZ’S CHICANO FICTION

Summary/Abstract: The present study aims at exploring the family conflicts, family tensions or the so-called ”family rupture” in Erika Sánchez’s novel entitled ”I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter”. It displays the difficulties of a person going through the teenage years when everything is surrounded by uncertainty. In this stage of one’s life, guidance and understanding are very precious. Unfortunately, the novel reveals the repercussion of the family not being there to support their adolescent daughter, not because they do not care about her, but due to how they have been raised themselves, not understanding that the world around them changes, children grow up faster and instilling certain restrictions without any explanation will not protect their children. Also, forcing their values and opinions onto their kids will not reach an agreement between them, it will create a feeling of alienation, a sense of not belonging anywhere in the world, and being an outcast. The author chose to implement one of the worst outcomes when it comes to parents not communicating or trying to empathize with their kids: they might attempt to take their own lives. Although the relationship between parents and their daughter improves at the end of the novel, the theme of ”family rupture” still applies because after such a traumatic last resort, no one will be able to fully heal from it: the parents, while attempting to be understanding, will try and walk on eggshells around their daughter to prevent it from happening again, which is not, in fact, a solution. Their daughter, while being more comfortable to communicating with her parents, will never be fully honest with them because she realizes their minds are too limited to deal with certain truths, like the one about their dead daughter being pregnant at the time of the accident from an affair with a married man. Even though this family is not torn apart, they have unhealed wounds that will never go away.

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