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 23-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary
Julia returns to Chicago, and Amá is happy to hear that she enjoyed her time in Mexico. While she was gone, Mr. Ingman called Amá to express his concern about Julia’s absence, stressing that Julia was his best student. Amá apologizes for blaming Julia for Olga’s death and reassures her that all she has ever wanted was to protect Julia: “I’m ignorant, mija [...]There are so many different things I don’t know. I wish things were different. I know you hate me, but I love you with all my heart” (283).
The secret of Amá’s assault torments Julia, but she does not think she will ever be able to talk to Amá about it. Julia is finally able to call Connor, who has left her many concerned messages while she was away. They reconnect and decide to see each other again so that Julia can explain everything that has happened in her absence.
Julia puts more effort into her relationship with Amá and attends the weekly prayer group with her. Group members share their difficult reasons for being there and hearing all the hardships take an emotional toll on Julia. Amá talks about losing Olga and how she struggles in her relationship with Julia. In front of the group, Julia tells her: “I want to see the world. I want so many things sometimes I can’t even stand it. I feel like I’m going to explode” (289).
At night, Julia returns to Olga’s room using the extra key she made. She reads the rest of the emails between Olga and her boyfriend, which reveal “a side of Olga [Julia] never saw: desperate, clingy, and delusional,” concluding that Olga “would have been waiting forever” (290). When Julia reads the last message Olga sent before she died, she learns that Olga was pregnant.
Chapter 24 Summary
Julia arrives at the luxury hotel where Angie works, and when Julia tells Angie she knows about Olga’s pregnancy, Angie takes her out for a coffee to talk. Angie believes that “sometimes people don’t need the truth” (293), which is why she refused to tell Julia or her parents about Olga’s baby and boyfriend. She tried to convince Olga to leave her boyfriend but says that Olga was “obsessed” with him (294). Julia is tired of living with so many secrets and lies and believes people deserve to know the truth, telling Angie: “I’m tired of pretending and letting things blister inside me. Keeping things to myself almost killed me. I don’t want to live like that anymore” (295).
After talking to Angie, Julia meets Connor at the bookstore, and they catch up on the events of the last few weeks. He got accepted to Cornell, and he reassures her that he can visit her if she ends up going to school in New York City. Julia asks him what they should do about their relationship, and Connor tells her they should enjoy their time together “without overthinking it” (298), which disappoints Julia, because she wants to be his girlfriend.
Chapter 25 Summary
Julia reflects on all that has happened while she was in Mexico, thinking to herself: “I don’t know why it surprises me that the world doesn’t stop just because I’m gone” (299). Lorena is worried she is pregnant, so Julia goes to the clinic with her to get tested. Lorena has already decided that she will not tell her boyfriend and will get an abortion, using her mother’s boyfriend’s stash of money to pay for it. The test comes back negative, and to celebrate the good news, Lorena takes Julia out to a fancy seafood restaurant, using the money she had preemptively taken from Jose Luis.
At their table, Julia finally tells Lorena about Olga’s secret pregnancy and married boyfriend. Julia tells her how difficult it has been for her to keep this secret to herself and how much she is struggling to decide what to do with this information. Julia is distracted from the conversation because she notices the waitress eyeing their table suspiciously. Lorena waves her stack of money at the waitress, reassuring her that they can pay for their meal. Lorena wants to meet Connor, and Julia arranges for them to meet after they leave the restaurant. They spend some time with him in a coffee shop, where Lorena is overtly judgmental of Connor because she is convinced that he looks down on them for being poor. This bothers Julia, and she insists that he is different.
Chapter 26 Summary
Julia goes to the medical office where Olga worked. She does not have a plan for finding out which doctor was Olga’s boyfriend, but she recognizes Dr. Castillo was the stranger she noticed at Olga’s wake. She waits for him outside when the office closes and approaches him by his car. When Julia makes it known that she knows about their relationship, he brings her to a diner to explain. He insists that he loved Olga, and that sometimes in life “nothing works out the way you expect” (310). Julia learns he is 46, which bothers her because he is older than Apa. He insists he was going to leave his wife and marry Olga, especially after she got pregnant. He gives Julia the ultrasound, and she asks herself: “How do I bury this too?” (311). Dr. Castillo asks that Julia not hurt her parents by telling them about any of this and tells her that Olga was thinking of naming the baby Rafael, after Apa. He says that Olga’s death “ruined” and “destroyed” (313) him, and that he later divorced his wife. Julia has little sympathy for him and leaves him in the diner.
Chapters 23-26 Analysis
At the restaurant when Julia returns from Mexico, she and Amá are emotionally honest with each other, perhaps for the first time ever, which shows that they are entering a new phase of their relationship. Amá reminds Julia that all she has ever done is out of a place of love and a desire to protect her, which Julia now understands on a much deeper level. They begin to actively work on their relationship, and Julia is even willing to attend Amá’s prayer group—something she avoided at all costs before. This offers them another opportunity to speak frankly about their emotions: Amá reiterates how hard it is for her to connect with Julia and understand her desires, and Julia is able to receive this without lashing out, and kindly reminds her that she will never be Olga, this time, without any shame.
Julia is relieved to find out Connor has been concerned and trying to reach her since her attempted suicide; their relationship is another sign of second chances and a hopeful future, even if it is uncertain. When he suggests that they keep their relationship more casual in preparation for college, Julia is disappointed, but her mental stability is strong enough that she can process this in a healthy way without causing her too much anxiety or sadness.
Olga’s pregnancy is the final major secret Julia discovers in the novel, and she finally gets the answers she has been constantly looking for from Angie. Even though Julia is more mentally stable, the weight of this secret, in addition to those she is already carrying, begins to feel like too much for her to bear. Even though she cannot comprehend how people go on with their everyday routines, living as if things are normal while carrying such a burden, she ultimately comes to agree with Angie that sometimes “people don’t need the truth” if it is only going to hurt them further. She wants to set a precedent of honesty and transparency with her parents as they mend their relationships, but they are precarious enough, and the painful past might only be detrimental.
Not long after the reveal of Olga’s secret pregnancy, Julia finds out that Lorena also thinks she might be pregnant. The choice to have unprotected sex, and her willingness to steal money for a possible abortion, highlights the reckless behavior and its consequences that perpetuate unbreakable cycles of poverty. Luckily for Lorena, the test comes back negative, and their fancy celebratory meal offers them a glimpse of what a successful future outside of their impoverished community might look like.
The foreshadowing of the stranger at Olga’s wake is revealed when Julia recognizes him in Olga’s office—Dr. Castillo was Olga’s lover. She lashes out at him, uncharacteristically protective of Olga, and refuses to believe that he could have genuinely loved her given the way he treated her. He reminds her that “everything is much more complicated than you ever imagined” (310), a lesson she has already been slowly learning for herself. When he tells her that Olga was considering naming the baby Rafael, after Apa, Julia is at a loss when she considers how Olga’s life might have played out. Her confrontation with Dr. Castillo is left unresolved, but he gives her Olga’s ultrasound—a tangible piece of Olga and all the lessons Julia has learned over the last two years.
