READERS GUIDE

Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. Erika L. Sánchez writes, “Women of color are regularly praised for our resilience, but what’s too often overlooked is that our resilience is a response to so many forms of violence. For us, resilience is more than a noble trait; it’s a lifestyle that oppression has demanded of us. Either we adapt or we die” (xiv–xv). In what ways are the women in this memoir resilient, oppressed, and adaptive?

2. From disgust and fright to anguish and delight, do you relate to Erika’s wide range of responses to her body and sexuality?

3. Why does Erika assert that “paradigms of beauty are neither innate nor arbitrary” (127)?

4. Erika relates, “Growing up, I always felt like a pariah, a misfit, and a disappointment in my traditional Mexican family and community” (33). How is her humor related to this sense of alienation?

5. How does Buddhism empower and liberate Erika? 

6. In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf writes, “As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.” How does this quote speak to Erika’s experience?

7. How is Erika shaped by her upbringing?

8. How do Erika’s relationships with her family evolve during the course of the memoir?