Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir

“Why not wait until…Alex runs away or something? You know, to the circus or the zoo.”

Here Pedro’s narrative voice reflects both his ironic sense of humor and his jealousy over his mother’s perceived preference for Alex. In Pedro’s view, Alex, (as their mother’s favorite) is unlikely to run away at all, let alone to join the circus or be put into a zoo. Pedro feels safe making this joke to his mother, knowing he can be critical of Alex without upsetting her.

“Legend has it that all dads have this one superpower. A whistle only their kids can hear.”

Pedro’s hyperbole, calling his dad’s whistle a “superpower,” reflects his characteristic desire to see the men in his life as superheroes. He frequently compares his father and grandfather to Han Solo and the Jedi heroes of Star Wars, but as he matures, he is better able to appreciate them as complex humans who demonstrate acts of quiet heroism such as The Importance of Caring for Others.

“Keep the family safest.”

Martín uses the Kmart scene to provide key characterization for Apá. As all of the family members fan out in Kmart to choose what they think is “essential” for their trip, the children choose music, toys, and books for themselves. But Apá’s concern is to get the right oil for the motorhome in order to keep the family safe—this is what is “essential” to Apá, who always puts the family first.

“Us younger kids would mourn their inevitable abduction by road bandits.”

Here, Pedro’s comment reflects the line he and his siblings draw between the older, Mexican-born siblings, and the younger siblings born in the United States. Pedro’s joke points to the jealousy he feels of the ways in which he older siblings have achieved a sense of independence and autonomy that he hasn’t yet reached, while also reflecting the love and concern he feels for them on the road by themselves.

“Snapped-in-half bananas had even less appeal than bathroom bananas.”

Pedro’s description of the bananas—both “snapped-in-half” bananas and “bathroom” bananas—reflects his characteristic humor as well as a point of difference between himself and his siblings and Amá, and the difficulty that the younger, Americanized Martíns have in appreciating Amá’s frugal pragmatism.

“Your godparents, or ‘padrinos’, were required by law to give their godchild money every time they saw them.”

Pedro’s humorously delivered comment highlights how intensely his family’s community values its relationships. The relationship between the children’s padrinos and their godchildren provide one example of the ways in which Mexican culture centers The Importance of Caring for Others.

“Unlike me, I’m sure that Apá only thinks in Spanish.”

Pedro’s coming-of-age arc reflects a key trope of the genre—a view of himself as fundamentally different from his parents. He loves and admires his father very much, but he sees the cultural differences between them as a barrier to understanding that comes up often throughout the narrative.

“This is the worst! How can I expect to have any fun with all the best of the USA ripped from my arms?”

After Pedro’s tapes and toys are seized at the border, he despairs of being able to enjoy his time in Mexico, cut off from the American things he is used to, points to the ways in which he defines himself through his love for American pop culture. At the beginning of his arc, Pedro has not yet begun to embrace The Richness of Mexican Culture inherent to identity.

“I guess I’d never been happy and sad all at the same time before.”

After Apá lets out a grito at the mercado, Pedro finds himself unable to follow suit, further emphasizing the gap he feels between himself and his Mexican heritage. He is mature enough to recognize the contradictory emotions conveyed in the cry, but he does not yet have enough personal experience with The Bittersweet Nature of Life to make the sound himself.

“Distant cousins are the AAA of Mexico!”

When Apá tells the family about the waiter’s and mechanic’s network of cousins, Lila metaphorically compares these cousins to a well-known automobile road service in the United States, emphasizing the motif of cousins as representative of all three of the memoir’s central themes: The Richness of Mexican Culture, The Importance of Caring for Others, and The Bittersweet Nature of Life. In this way, Martín characterizes Mexico as a place where the people by band together and take responsibility for one another.

“He looks like the Fonz! The Mexican Fonz!”

Pedro identifies the similarities between Vicente Fernández in Don Felipe’s barbershop and The Fonz, marking his first step toward blending his American identity with his Mexican one. In finding similarities between the American pop icons he admires so much and Mexican pop cultural figures, Pedro begins to close the distance he feels between the two parts of himself—one more step on his road to embracing The Richness of Mexican Culture.

“Maybe he’s the metaphorical gamma rays or vat of chemicals that I need to be exposed to to unlock my true potential.”

When Pedro sees Abuelito for the first time in many years, his grandfather looks like a giant to him. Still thinking in terms of superheroes, Pedro metaphorically compares his grandfather to some of the clichéd mechanisms used to activate an ordinary person’s superpowers in comic books, foreshadowing the growth that Pedro will soon undergo because of his relationship with Abuelito and his eventual realization that he needs to be his own hero.

“Hey! That’s the same trick Apá tried on the border guard!”

In a key moment for Pedro’s arc, he realizes that something he believed to be a distinct part of his nuclear family’s culture comes from Abuelito. The series of similar revelations that follow transform Pedro’s understanding of all that his grandfather has contributed to the Martín family and his developing respect for the person Abuelito really is.

“The grandson of a famous warrior doesn’t follow rules. He makes them.”

In a misguided attempt to embody the traits he admires in his grandfather, Pedro tosses aside his cousin’s warning about failing to follow the traditions of the serenata. The moment demonstrates his still-immature understanding of The Richness of Mexican Culture and his continued conflation of his fantasy-version of Abuelito with the reality of him.

“Even though I promised Lila I would step up, I didn’t know what skills I could step up with.”

Pedro has reached an important point in his development—he understands The Importance of Caring for Others and wants to make Lila proud and do the right thing by his father and grandfather. Still, this sense of responsibility is new to him, and he worries that he is not ready, highlighting the fact that his arc is still in progress.

“I needed to be mature enough to see…when…‘Hey! They have Pop Rocks!’”

Further emphasizing the work-in-progress nature of Pedro’s arc, Martín juxtaposes moments of maturity and immaturity, even within a single train of thought. Pedro is full of resolve to support his father on the trip to Tepatitlán until he sees a store selling one of his favorite candies and forgets all about his resolution, indicating Pedro is still on the cusp of change and needs to stretch himself to grow as a character.

“Suddenly the candy began to erupt all up and down his booger river like bunches of small chewing gum bubbles.”

Martín’s vivid and humorous image reflects Alex’s characteristic narrative voice, comparing the boy’s snot to a river—a hyperbolic metaphor that exaggerates the size of the trail of mucus. Alex diction—using the childish term “booger” to describe the mucus—adds to the comic effect.

“I felt bad that we left her here all alone for so long.”

When the family arrives at the cemetery, bent on the serious task of disinterring and moving Abuelita’s bones, Pedro shows that he understands the day’s implicit lesson about The Importance of Caring for Others. Although his grandmother is long past caring about the scenery and company in the graveyard, Pedro feels great compassion for her and feels guilty about leaving her alone in this overgrown and lonely place, signaling his growing maturity.

“Maybe Alex was right. Maybe I wasn’t ‘Mexican enough…’ If I couldn’t express my feelings in a real Mexican fashion, how Mexican was I?”

Pedro tries and fails to emit the grito he feels building in his chest. The traditional Mexican music at the party moves him enough that he wants to cry out in this way, but he cannot yet fully vocalize it. Although he has grown in his appreciation of The Richness of Mexican Culture, he is still too insecure in his own Mexican identity to let loose and utter the grito.

“I was just hoping that we had ‘superhero’ in our blood. Looks like we’re just a bunch of unspecial normals.”

Even though Pedro’s tone reflects a disappointment in acknowledging his fantasies for what they are, Martín frames this moment as critical for Pedro on the road to embracing his Mexican heritage and identity and learning to appreciate the real-life heroism of his parents, grandparents, and community. After this admission, he will be ready to start truly appreciating Abuelito for the strong, capable, and compassionate man he is superpowers.

“Stop making me grow up! I refuse to come of age!”

Martín uses this moment in his story to provide humorous meta-commentary on the inherent challenges of a coming-of-age arc. When Apá insists that it is time for Pedro to learn to drive, Pedro is afraid of the responsibility and protests that he is not ready. The metafictional joke about Mexikid as a coming-of-age story and Martín’s own reluctance to grow up, told with the hindsight of adulthood provides additional layers of humor and thematic resonance to the text.

“Wow! I was Abuelito’s legacy. I didn’t get that until now. My life was kind of a continuation of his. I was like a sequel! No wonder I was so clearly awesome!”

At this moment, Pedro clearly understands himself as carrying the legacy Abuelito’s real greatness—not a superhuman greatness but an ordinary greatness—a strength born of love for family and a sense of duty to others. This realization signals the completion of his arc toward self-acceptance, evidenced when he calls himself “awesome.”

“It was up to me now. I had to be the hero of this motorhome!”

Faced with the crisis of the deer’s suffering, Pedro steps up and takes decisive action, demonstrating he has learned the lessons he needs to complete his character arc. He takes his brother’s advice to stop relying on others and be his own hero, signaling real growth in his maturity from the beginning of the story.