Loving Pedro Infante Character Analysis

Loving Pedro Infante written by Denise Chavez, is an eye-opening novel that follows the life of Tere Avila. Tere is someone extremely relatable because she is a flawed heroine. She perfectly exemplifies a misguided, misunderstood protagonist that one eagerly awaits to be triumphant at the end. Growing up in a border town of Mexico and The United States, Tere is engulfed in both American and Mexican culture but only thinks she relates to her Mexican roots. Tere doesn't quite understand her identity because she is engulfed by the romance and drama of Mexican culture that inhibit her from realizing that she is neither Mexican or American. Tere mixture of culture deserves its own name, Chicana. From the very beginning of the novel, Tere clearly states her dissidence …show more content…
It is a very closed off culture that Tere seems to encapsulate, she loves Pedro, cooks "real Mexican food", goes to bailes and speaks spanglish. Tere is no longer solely Mexican because she has roots in The United States. Still what she tries to accomplish by not assimilating to the dominant culture is noteworthy. I think her confusion derives from the idea of never really being accepted into the American culture with open arms. Tere accepts and flaunts her differences but isn't accepting of everyone else's. This is of course very hypocritical of Tere because only she is allowed to feel and act freely but other are constantly attacked and condemned by Tere. The complexity of her character bears a lot of resemblance to Anglo Americans need to establish their superiority. One can even say that Tere has learned to treat people as inferiors because it's all she has ever known. This is something that all descendent of immigrants deal with. The mistreatment and alienation pointed towards them can be lashed out at other minority groups. This is what Tere suffers from, a constant need to profess her