Merci Suárez Changes Gears

Through Merci’s unique strengths, such as intelligence, creativity, sensitivity, and athletic strength, Medina forms the message that children are just as valid and complex as adults. Merci’s struggles as a scholarship student at Seaward Pines highlight the psychological, emotional, and interpersonal consequences of a class-stratified American society. Medina’s depiction of the cultural elements of Merci’s Cuban-American immigrant family emphasizes the humanity and validity of the immigrant struggle in America, during a time in the country’s history that finds the American populace divided over the issue of immigration and regularly exposed to dehumanizing and racist narratives about immigrants of color. Merci’s character is a thematic vessel through which Medina both explores America’s contemporary reality through a specifically Cuban-American lens and parses the struggles unique to tween life. 

Merci’s grandfather, Lolo, is Merci’s confidante and the family member to whom she is the closest. Lolo has a way of affirming and listening to Merci that doesn’t make her feel condescended to, as he understands and embraces Merci’s strength and intelligence while simultaneously providing parental security and safety. Through this depiction, Medina is asserting that good parenting to tweens requires an adult to employ a mixture of both sensitivity and guidance as well as respect for and the cultivation of the tween’s personal freedom and autonomy.