I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

Even after Angie’s lesson, Julia is still struggling with how secret-keeping relates to morality. She knows that to burden Amá and Apá with Olga’s secret would be selfish; but at the same time, she is not sure how much more loneliness she can take. She tries to connect with Apá in another way, but fails—the narrative suggests that while secrets and lies may chip away at a relationship, to reveal secrets might be to blast that relationship away altogether. It's also not clear what the book thinks of Apá’s stance toward drawing. It makes sense why he gave it up in a practical way, but was it actually a waste of time? But the point that “sometimes you don’t get to do what you want to do” does connect to the way the book treats the realities of life—as always complicated, always messy, and never perfect.

Julia’s relationship to secret-keeping is complicated by another facet, too, which is that revealing that she knows a painful secret might do to her relationship with Amá. There’s the chance that Amá is burdened by keeping the truth from Julia, and Julia revealing she knows it already might make things better—but Julia is too afraid to do more damage to her fledging relationship with Amá to reveal anything just yet. For now, Julia is leaving her options open—leaving a possibility for the future—which is a step in and of itself, and leaves space for a relationship to blossom in the meantime.