Growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the nineties, Erika Sánchez was a self-described pariah, misfit, and disappointment—a foul-mouthed, melancholic rabble-rouser who painted her nails black but also loved comedy.
Erika L. Sánchez is a Mexican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. She is known for her poetry collection Lessons on Expulsion and her young adult novel I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.
This past July, she released a memoir called Crying in the Bathroom. It is a collection of essays ranging from growing pains in your early twenties, family and mental health.
“I needed to write a book that told the truth about who I was, and where I came from. And so, and that included many intimate details... and I think details for me, are what makes a piece of literature come alive,” says Sánchez.
In her new memoir, Sánchez includes detailed accounts of her struggle with her mental health, significant childhood memories, the memory of her abortion, and finding the beauty in all of life’s moments. She explains that she felt she needed to write the book intimately, as it was a cathartic experience for her and, ultimately, for the readers.
“It's not until I think I've published my books that I started to feel like my sensitivity was a superpower that people really connect to that, that being sensitive means you're paying attention, and that you're alive,” says Sánchez.
Sánchez explains in her book that many people helped shape the person she became, primarily the women in her family. She elaborates that a popular television figure also played a role.
“Lisa Simpson was someone I looked up to because she was so honest, she was so straightforward. She stood up for what she believed in, she had all of these like, morals and ideas about the world and justice and feminism," says Sánchez. "She introduced me to feminism.”
Sánchez found writing about such personal achievements and shortcomings to be fun and extremely painful. She explains that even now, she cannot read some excerpts from the memoir without bringing herself to tears.
“It was unnecessary ache, I think for me, and now that it's been expelled for me, it feels really liberating. And I love that people also feel healed by it. Like, that makes me so happy," says Sánchez. "And it makes my healing, even even deeper.”
She concludes her memoir with a letter to her young if she chooses to read it in the future. She hopes that if her daughter reads her work, she can understand Sánchez on a more profound and intimate level.
“I want her and others to know that you can make mistakes, you could be flawed, you could be a human being, and you can still succeed. You can still be happy. You can still have a good life,” says Sánchez.
Sánchez will be at Boswell Books on Friday, September 16 at 6:30 PM to chat more about her memoir, Crying in the Bathroom.
_
