83 pages • 2 hours read
Erika L. SanchezI Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 14-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary
Julia spends the summer cleaning houses with Amá and saves a bit of money. Once senior year begins, Julia meets with Mr. Ingman after school once a week to help with college prep. He encourages her to highlight that her parents are undocumented, because “admissions committees love that stuff” (166). Julia worries that this will get her parents deported, but Mr. Ingman assures her no one is going to report her parents. Julia does not understand why Mr. Ingman is so invested in her, and he tells her that she was one of his best students. He thinks Julia must “get the hell out of this neighborhood” so that she can “become something great” (168).
After jotting down some ideas for an essay, Julia goes to the used bookstore. While reading some poetry, the boy who sits down next to her strikes up a conversation about their favorite books. He introduces himself as Connor, and after joking around for a bit, he takes her out for coffee. When Julia says she is from Chicago, Connor wants to know where she is “from from” (174). She understands that he is really asking about her ethnicity and that he wants to know “what kind of brown I am” (174).
Her time with Connor is “surreal,” because no one has ever expressed so much interest in her. She tells him about Olga’s death, and he reassures her that it is not too late for her to get to know Olga. He offers to hack Olga’s laptop once she can get to it.
For another date, Connor brings Julia to his favorite Indian restaurant, where she tries Indian food for the first time. They return to the bookstore where they met, then they kiss in a park, which Julia enjoys.
Chapter 15 Summary
Julia is still processing her grief and struggles to feel happy most days. For Julia, losing Olga sometimes “feels like [...] missing an organ,” and when she remembers old memories with Olga, they often make her “feel like someone scooped out [her] soul and trampled it on the dirty ground” (181-182).
Julia returns to the community college and the Continental several more times in hopes of finding out more information to no avail. She sees and talks to Connor regularly, and he cheers her up. As Julia thinks about leaving for college, she concludes that the only people she will miss are Lorena, Mr. Ingman, and Connor. Juanga has grown on her, but his and Lorena’s constant drinking and smoking have started to concern Julia.
Connor wants to visit Julia’s home, but she makes up an excuse so that he does not have to see her rundown apartment. When Connor wants to jokingly buy an ugly sweater at a thrift store, Julia becomes irritated because it reminds her how poor she is. Later, Connor invites Julia over while his parents are away on a business trip. She is anxious that he expects them to have sex, so she calls Lorena for advice. Julia lies to Amá about where she is going, and once she arrives in Evanston, the apparent wealth in the neighborhoods makes her uncomfortable.
When Julia and Connor start getting intimate, Julia worries that a cockroach is going to crawl out of her sneaker. Part of Julia feels shameful and embarrassed, but she decides to have sex with Connor. When she returns home, she finds the key to Olga’s room in a box of frozen waffles. At night, she takes Olga’s laptop, lingerie, and hotel key to hide in her room.
The next day, Julia returns home and Amá is crying because she found Olga’s belongings and assumes they are Julia’s. Amá takes away Julia’s phone as punishment, so Julia regularly calls Connor from a pay phone. One day, he expresses that he is at a loss with how to help her, suggesting she talk to a therapist, but Julia angrily hangs up on him.
Chapter 16 Summary
Amá goes through Julia’s belongings again, and this time, she tears out any pages of her journals that contain swear words. Julia’s mental health rapidly deteriorates as her depression worsens. She misses Connor but cannot bring herself to reach out to him. She frequently misses her college application sessions with Mr. Ingman, and Lorena is worried about her. She goes to Millennium Park after school one day and is overwhelmed by how stuck she feels in her own life. She thinks to herself, “I can’t keep going on like this anymore” (209).
Chapter 17 Summary
Julia wakes up in a hospital room next to Amá and Apa and remembers that she tried to commit suicide the previous night. Julia reassures everyone that it was a mistake and that she is ready to go home, but Dr. Cooke decides to evaluate her further and come up with a treatment plan for Julia’s depression before discharging her. When she meets with Dr. Cooke for therapy, Julia shares that she has been depressed for “a pretty long time” (213), but that it all came to a head last night. She asks Dr. Cooke: “Like, why does everything have to hurt all the time? Even the dumbest things. Is that normal?” (215). She shares her aspirations and discusses her relationships with her parents. Dr. Cooke points out that her parents’ immigration was probably traumatic for them and reassures Julia that there is no shame in being emotional, and it makes her neither stupid nor weak.
Julia and her family agree to an outpatient program and therapy. Dr. Cooke diagnoses her with severe depression and anxiety and prescribes medication. Before going to sleep, she sees Juanga and Lorena outside of her hospital window, waving and trying to get her attention. This makes her smile. When Julia, Amá, and Apa return to the apartment the next day, the mood is tense with uncertainty and fear, and Julia feels guilty for hurting her parents. She wants to reconnect with Connor but worries that her diagnosis and actions will drive him away.
Chapter 18 Summary
Julia attends a movement therapy class, where she does not get along with the boys in the group but starts to befriend a girl named Tasha. Tasha asks Julia if she really wanted to die, and Julia thinks: “I’m glad I’m not dead, but living...living feels terrible” (227). After dinner that night, Julia’s parents announce that they think she should go to Mexico to spend time with her grandmother, Mama Jacinta. Julia does not want to go and is anxious about missing school and therapy. They remind her of all the things she loved about Mexico, but Julia is too worried about getting rejected from college.
On her last day of the therapy program, Tasha tells Julia: “Sometimes it’s nice to know you’re not alone...Like you’re not the only one who feels like complete shit all the time” (230). They both wonder if they will ever be “normal,” or genuinely happy. When she leaves the hospital, Julia notices the first signs of spring, which seem beautiful to her.
When Julia returns to school, she lies to her classmates about where she has been. Juanga reassures her that she can always reach out to him or Lorena, and Julia has a tearful reunion with Lorena.
During her session with Dr. Cooke, Julia talks about Connor and Amá finding Olga’s hidden belongings. Julia identifies this as the catalyst to her suicide attempt and explains that she could not tell Amá the truth because “it would destroy her” (234).
Julia tells Dr. Cooke that even though she understands sex to be a natural process, she still feels ashamed about it. She shares that she feels like she has never belonged anywhere, and no one ever understands her.
At night, Julia goes through Olga’s room again and finds the password to her laptop scribbled on a receipt. She logs into Olga’s email and finds old email exchanges between Olga and an unknown person, concluding that Olga was having an affair with a married man from work. She decides to keep the laptop hidden in Olga’s room while she is in Mexico.
Chapters 14-18 Analysis
Julia has her plan of escape: she is preparing for her tests and applications with the help of Mr. Ingman and has saved some money to help her cover the cost of a plane ticket out of Chicago. While working on her college essay, she is unsettled by the thought of mentioning her parents’ undocumented status. Even though Mr. Ingman assures her that her parents will be safe and that this actually increases her chances of getting chosen, Julia is reluctant and feels protective of them. Though this preparation for college makes her dreams feel that much closer and more tangible, she is still wrestling with her immense grief. The imagery she uses to describe it is intense and heavy, and even though her dark days are peppered with brief moments of joy, like going sledding with Lorena and Juanga, it becomes increasingly apparent that her current mental state and failure to address it are not a sustainable way to live.
While she treats herself to some new books with her hoarded lunch money (demonstrating just how important reading is to her), Julia meets Connor, the only other character Julia connects with intellectually. Their difference in race and socioeconomic status becomes evident in seemingly innocuous moments, but they serve as an ever-present source of discomfort and anxiety for Julia. Money is never a concern for him, whereas Julia is constantly reminded of her own poverty; her shame prevents her from sharing herself fully with him, keeping a significant part of her identity a secret. His kindness and their mutual interests, though, outweigh their differences, and Julia begins to use her new relationship as another way to escape her distressing circumstances. Knowing how neurotic Amá is about boys and anything sexual, Julia keeps her relationship a secret, even though, by comparison, it is one of the few healthy and happy ones in her life. Connor is one more secret on the Reyes’ ever-growing list; one that requires Julia to lie to Amá even more frequently.
When she returns home from Connor’s house, she is, as always, starving, and symbolically finds the key to Olga’s room in a box of frozen waffles—the thing she has been craving for a full year now. Julia hides Olga’s scandalous items in her room to keep Amá from finding them, and when she finds them anyway, Julia refuses to tell Amá the truth. Though she is certain Amá would never believe her, this primarily demonstrates Julia’s sympathetic, albeit somewhat begrudging, desire to protect her mother from any further pain. Ironically, Amá asks Julia: “What must your sister think of you right now?” completely oblivious to Olgas less-than-saintly past.
This time around, her grounding alienates Julia the furthest from those who care about her, including Connor. As her depression spirals, she convinces herself that his lack of understanding (indicative of his privileged life) is a sign that he wants to break up, worsening her mental health even more. The last straw is when Amá tears apart her journals and throws away her poetry—writing is the only thing Julia cares about in the world, and now even that has been taken away. Even when Lorena and her teachers express concern, Julia has sunken so deep into her depression that she is past the point of asking for or receiving help. With absolutely no outlets left, Julia’s mental health reaches its lowest point, and she wonders if there is any point left in living.
Though not explicitly stated, the beginning of Chapter 17 reveals that Julia attempts to commit suicide, which she later considers a “stupid thing to do” (211). As she begins her counseling sessions with Dr. Cooke, she learns that the things she feels so deeply are valid and not shameful, and she begins to identify the constant triggers in her life that fuel her anxiety and depression. Julia finally has the external tools she needs to manage her mental health, meaning she can now fully devote herself to creating the life she has always wanted. Dr. Cooke also brings up the important point that Amá and Apa’s traumatic journey and transition to life in America undoubtedly affected them deeply and could explain the way they behave and treat Julia. This realization, and the empathy that comes with it, is critical in Julia’s journey to mend her relationship with her parents.
Following outpatient therapy and her continued sessions with Dr. Cooke, Julia faces her reasons for being so fixed on Olga’s secrets. When she asks herself: “What if, in my own messed-up way, I want her to be less than perfect, so I didn’t feel like such a fuck-up?” (236), she finally admits that even she is guilty of holding Olga on a pedestal and has been looking for validation of her own mistakes. When she finally unlocks Olga’s laptop and finds the secret emails pointing to a long, involved affair, Julia considers the pressure Olga must have been feeling to hide this. Instead of satisfaction, though, Julia feels pity towards Olga’s wasted life and sorrow that she had gone so many years without knowing about this immense part of her sister’s life.
