My Family Divided: One Girl's Journey of Home, Loss, and Hope

Guerrero presents her life’s story of success as the result of her ability to use her trauma and experiences of adversity as a driver for learned self-worth, ambition, and positivity. Showing how she experienced and overcame considerable challenges forms part of the memoir’s social motivation as an exemplar and call-to-action: “Knowing that we are fighting on the right side gives us hope” (4). Guerrero’s own happy ending takes on a message of collective improvement; the brighter future of the narrative trajectory is mirrored by the book’s message for positive social change.

The chronological nature of the memoir supports the book as an example of how repeated experiences of trauma can be transformed into action for positive change, for oneself and others. Although Diane was always portrayed as being aware of some risk to her family, the true extent of her trauma and anxiety arguably began when she was seven years old and threatened to call the police on her arguing parents. Her mother warned her that the police would take both of her parents away, and it hit Diane that her life and everything she knew was in a fragile and vulnerable state: “For the first time, I realized that with one phone call, I could lose the most important people in the world to me” (33). These experiences created deep anxiety and fear, and Diane spent much of her childhood repenting and wondering what she had done to upset God and create these circumstances for her. The most difficult moment in Diane’s life was when she came home to discover her parents gone, and this panicked and shocking experience was only multiplied by having to see them in a detention center, worn and downtrodden. When her parents were gone, Diane came to the understanding that she would have to rely on herself and could no longer rely on her parents to take care of her. She is grateful to have been led to Boston Arts Academy, which provided her with motivation and a reason to push forward.

Guerrero argues that she was taught the value of hope and using one’s pain for good by her parents, demonstrating that this strength is not the prerogative of the socially sanctioned “American dream” experience. Both came to the US to escape tragedy and extreme poverty, and rather than succumbing to the negative circumstances in their life, they made the courageous decision to try and start again for themselves and their children. Although her relationship with her parents, and herself, has been conflicted, it is her parents’ efforts from which she draws resilience when considering suicide, the book’s crisis point. After this point, Diane’s story is on a consistently positive trajectory, leading her to accept her emotions and forgive her mother, and herself. Diane maintained hope after tragedy struck her life, and after a period of depression and isolation, found reasons to not only carry on, but also to try and make the world better for others, too. Diane’s call to action is an effort to inspire others to have the same hope that she has, and to work toward the future that they envision. She hopes that people can find the courage to channel their experiences of adversity into “meaningful change for others” (249).