This Thesis collection contains a critical preface and five stories. The preface, “Reflejos y Reflexiones” (translated: Images and Thoughts), addresses the issues of writing the cultural or gendered Other; these issues include methodology, literary colonialism, a dialogue between works, and creating distance through defamiliarizing the self. “Perennials” is the story of Noemi Tellez, an immigrant to the U.S. who must choose between working and taking care of her family. In “Load Bearing” Luis, the eldest child, faces his family and friends on one of his last days before moving away to college. “La Monarca” deals with Lily's, the youngest daughter, struggle to mediate a place between her friends and her family. In “Reflections in the River,” Arabela, the second youngest, faces the ghost of an unwanted pregnancy and La Llorona. “La Cocina de Su Madre” is the story of Magda, the oldest daughter, and her own teenage girl, Natalia, as they attempt to find themselves in a new town after moving a thousand miles from home.

Illegal Immigration: Six Stories from an American Family is a collection of stories derived from and inspired by the author's personal life experiences, dreams, and family history, as a Mexican American woman. The stories also hold distinct archetypal patterns, images, storylines and symbolism due to the author's connection to the collective unconscious through meditation. The stories tell character driven stories of adversity, and the search for home, and identity by linking main characters to their family members in each story. The collection as a whole reveals generational patterns, histories and connections not only present in the matriarchal bloodline of the collection, but from one human to another. The stories beckon the reader into an alternate reality created by these archetypal patterns inherent in all humans, in an attempt to transcend genres and find a place within the psyche where anything is possible. / Illegal immigration -- Marco and Margarita -- La muerte de mi padre -- Together again -- Vivi and Ricardo -- The healer. / Department of English