Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir
Written by Pedro Martín
Dial Books for Young Readers, 2023, 316 pp
ISBN: 9780593462287

This graphic memoir follows the adventures of the eleven-member Martín family on an epic road trip by Winnebago from their home in Watsonville, California to Pegueros, Mexico. Not just the usual, yearly family trip, the group is tasked with bringing their taciturn abuelo back to the U.S. to live with them. The story is told through the eyes of the young artist and writer, Pedro Martín, who, along with his penchant for drawing, is also obsessed with comics, superheroes, and TV (going so far as to audio record favorite Happy Days episodes to listen to on the long drive), and who is constantly plotting and battling with his eight siblings. Punctuated with the generous and wise reflections of the present-day Martín, the memoir subtly balances laugh out loud (and at times scatological) humor with issues of immigration and border security, labor and economics, the shifting desires of different generations, loss, and what it means to be a kid (and by extension, a family) within two cultures.

At the start of the trip, Pedro evinces an attitude of reluctance to share his already crowded home with his abuelo. As the trip progresses, it becomes clear that Pedro’s seeming reluctance to share space really masks a fear about whether he and his abuelo have anything in common, and whether he is Mexican enough and can live up to the stories and brave exploits he has heard about his grandfather. Early in the memoir, Martín humorously demonstrates the biculturality of his family when he differentiates between his older siblings, who were born in Mexico, but have come of age in the U.S. (and whom he labels as “Somewhat American” and “barn babies”), and himself and his younger siblings who were born in and have spent the majority of their time in the U.S. (whom he labels as “Somewhat Mexican” and “hospital babies”), but are nevertheless suffused in their Mexican heritage and culture. As Pedro spends more time with his abuelo in Pegueros while the family attends to serious and sad business, and on their way back to the states, he gradually discovers more about his family’s past, and what it means to be a hero and authentic.

Martín’s graphic memoir is a lovingly and beautifully rendered homage to his family. The bold and engaging use of coloring and panels, as well as occasional shifts in drawing style mean that the memoir sustains the reader’s attention. At points, Martín alters the style of the drawings to match the imagination of his younger self and to suggest shifts in time and place. For example, when young Pedro imagines his grandfather’s exploits as a hero during the Mexican Revolution, the page is drawn in a more classic, action-oriented comic book style, complete with expressive onomatopoeia. When Pedro or other family members recount the quieter, more realistic moments of their earlier lives in Mexico, the style takes on a gentle brown hue with more softly drawn lines. These welcome stylistic and tonal shifts juxtapose nicely with the more traditional cartoon style of drawings that younger readers might be used to. The fluidity of the art, the pace of the story, and the tenderness and hilarity of the portrayal of the Martín family all work together to offer readers young and old a poignant tale of finding oneself within a family and within multiple cultures, and in young Martín’s case, finding one’s “grito.”

Being a graphic memoir, Martín’s portrayal is specific to his own experiences and viewpoint, yet in doing so reveals and reflects on the complexities of being bicultural in the U.S. and Mexico. No issues of cultural accuracy or authenticity seem to have been raised by readers, and the graphic memoir has been widely lauded and appeared on numerous best of lists. It was also named a Newbery Honor book and was awarded the Pura Belpré awards for both author and illustrator, and the Tomás Rivera Children’s Book Award. The memoir appeals to monolingual and bilingual readers alike, as English translations of the many Spanish words and phrases are asterisked and rendered at the bottom of the page, ensuring a smooth reading experience.

This graphic memoir could be read alongside Land of the Cranes (Aida Salazar, 2022), a novel in verse that considers issues of immigration, language, hope, and culture through a young girl’s experience in the inhumane conditions of a migrant detention center, and I Was Their American Dream (Malaka Gharib, 2019), another graphic memoir that follows a young woman’s attempt to balance her immigrant parents’ cultures and her own yearning and love of American culture as well. These three books offer children an interconnected yet diverse look at the struggles and strengths of being a culturally diverse young person in (and out of) the United States, and the place family holds in navigating this reality.

A former Hallmark artist of 27 years, Mexikid is Pedro Martín’s debut graphic novel. More stories about his experiences growing up Mexican American can be found in his online series of the same name. Find more at his website.

Nick DePascal, University of New Mexico

© 2024 by Nick DePascal

WOW Review, Volume XVI, Issue 3 by Worlds of Words is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on work by Nick DePascal at https://wowlit.org/on-line-publications/review/xvi-3/7/

WOW review: reading across cultures
ISSN 2577-0527