Date of Award
1-1-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.F.A. in Creative Writing
First Advisor
Sheila Sundar
Second Advisor
Michael Wang
Third Advisor
Jaime Harker
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
What am I supposed to tell my daughters? is a novel-in-stories that weaves together the lives of Dominican girls and women across generations and migrations, tracing the invisible threads that bind them: tenderness and betrayal, faith and disillusionment, inheritance and escape. Set between Santo Domingo and North Bergen, New Jersey, the collection chronicles the fragile spaces where love and violence overlap, where girlhood is shaped and reshaped under the pressures of political unrest, migration, religion, queerness, and family loyalty.
In “You heard about Dominican Blade?,” a group of ESL kids builds a secret world behind the train tracks—only to watch fantasy crumble into tragedy when violence breaches even their most sacred refuge. In “Dairy Queen,” a tender and painful friendship between two girls teaches Edilia that desire rarely fits neatly into the stories she has been told about herself. “What am I supposed to tell my daughters?” follows Mari and Santi as they seek asylum in the U.S. amid political upheaval, uncovering personal betrayals that threaten their dreams of safety. “Grandes Series Dominicanas” explores how television’s serialized depictions of women reinforce cycles of violence across generations, even when survival demands reinvention. In “Love Thy Neighbor,” two queer girls in Santo Domingo find themselves drawn together—and ripped apart—by the colliding forces of religious repression and first love. “Dressed All in Reds” captures the emotional limbo of a daughter desperate to rescue her mother from domestic violence, only to find that survival cannot be forced from the outside.
Across these stories, What am I supposed to tell my daughters? asks: What do we tell our daughters about the world they will inherit? What do we hide from them, and what haunts them anyway? With intimacy, fury, humor, and grace, the collection bears witness to the quiet devastations—and stubborn hopes—that shape the lives of girls becoming women.
Recommended Citation
Reyes, Ãlida Pamela, "What am I Supposed to Tell my Daughters?" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3368.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/3368