62 pages • 2 hours read
Celia C. PerezTumble
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Understanding Identity vis-à-vis Family
Tumble follows 12-year-old Addie as she finds and meets her biological father and extended family members. The action in the book is instigated by Addie’s mother Lourdes and stepfather Alex when they present the idea of Alex adopting her. Addie insists that she meet her biological father first, whom she knows nothing about, before she decides. On her journey of self-discovery, Addie demonstrates how important family is and how it impacts one’s identity.
An added impetus for Addie to look for her father is that Lourdes is pregnant with Addie’s half-sibling, who will be arriving soon. With Addie’s immediate family growing, and in addition to the potential adoption, she naturally has questions about her own biological father. The idea of nature versus nurture is presented through Addie’s reflections: She has been raised by Lourdes for all her life, and by Alex for a good part of it. However, she cannot ignore the fact that half of her genetic makeup comes from a complete stranger, and she has questions about which parts of who she is are informed by her father.
Thus, Addie goes searching for Manny, and when she finds him, there are some undeniable similarities. Besides a physical resemblance, she learns that they have similar tastes and preferences, and over time she also discovers that she shares the same thrill for the stage as Manny and the rest of her paternal family. There are also significant differences between them. However, the distance between father and daughter is less because of these differences than because of Manny’s clear unwillingness to prioritize his daughter over his career.
Here is where the question of what truly makes a family comes in. Despite being Addie’s biological father, Manny does not feel the same sense of concern and responsibility toward her that Alex does. In fact, the circumstance of the adoption presents this paradox clearly: The man who fathered Addie is happy to give up legal responsibility for her to a man who is more than willing to carry out fatherly duties without a legal mandate. Through the constant let-downs and disappointments Addie faces with Manny, she realizes and comes to terms with the fact that DNA doesn’t make someone a good father; the relationship needs energy and investment beyond shared biology.
This idea is further supported by the presence of others in Addie’s life who act like family despite not sharing her blood. Besides Alex as her stepfather, Addie has Marlene, an employee at Alex’s diner, in whom Addie feels comfortable enough to confide her frustrations and worries. Addie also has her best friend Cy, who is like a sister and helps her in her search for Manny. When Addie eventually meets the Bravos, despite not being as closely related to the rest of the extended family, she nevertheless grows close with Mateo, Rosie, and the twins as well. In this manner, the book explores the need to establish one’s identity in the context of one’s family, but it also presents the idea that family can extend beyond blood relations.
The Weight of Family Expectations and Legacy
Tumble is set in New Mexico, specifically in the neighboring towns of Thorne and Esperanza, which sport lucha libre as part of the local culture. This form of wrestling plays an important role in the story, as it connects Addie with her father’s family. In understanding wrestling, Addie is able to better learn and understand who the Bravos are, specifically with respect to the weight of family expectations and legacy.
The Bravos, as Addie learns through her initial research, are a family of famous luchadores headed by Francisco “Pancho” Bravo, known in his day as “El Terremoto.” As a winner of the world championship belt, Pancho expects one of his sons to continue his legacy and win the belt in turn. In keeping with this expectation, all three of Pancho’s sons follow their father’s footsteps. However, Pancho’s dream remains unfulfilled due to Speedy’s death, Mateo’s retirement, and Manny’s departure from the Cactus Wrestling League.
This unfulfilled dream affects multiple generations in far-reaching ways. The reason that Addie grew up not knowing her biological father is partly because of Pancho’s overbearing nature: Lourdes sees how consumed Manny is by wrestling because of Pancho’s expectations, and she chooses to leave Esperanza and the Bravos behind. Manny, in turn, prioritizes his father’s unfulfilled dream over his own responsibilities as a father when he chooses wrestling over settling down with Lourdes and Addie. This sort of pressure is extended to a third generation, as Maggie dreams of becoming a professional wrestler. Especially with her father’s early death, wrestling is a way for Maggie to feel close to Speedy, and she wants to make him proud—a pattern consistent in their family.
Although Pancho’s legacy reaches across generations, it is not all-defining; there are members of his family who chose to defy expectations and chart out their own paths. Realizing that it is not worth waiting around for the love and approval of a largely absent father, Mateo leaves wrestling to pursue his own passions. He feels none of the guilt or pressure that Manny does. Similarly, Eva, too, feels no emotional connection to Speedy, whom she barely remembers, and does not feel pressured to pursue wrestling professionally. Addie, having grown up outside the Bravo family influence, cannot relate to either Maggie’s or Manny’s adoration and desire to emulate their respective fathers in this manner.
It is characters like Eva and Mateo who show Addie that family legacy and expectation are not binding or defining in the way that an individual develops. While it can help one make sense of one’s identity, a family legacy can also be damaging, limiting, and restricting. The key to breaking the cycle comes down to a person’s ability and willingness to choose a path for themselves, as Mateo asserts to Addie. In such an instance, one can still bear the family legacy lightly and joyfully, as Addie does when she finally wrestles on stage and discovers that she enjoys the performance.
Using Storytelling to Subvert Social Norms
Lucha libre is an essential part of the story in Tumble, helping ground the cultural context of the book as well as feeding into the book’s themes. However, it is not the only form of storytelling that appears in the book: Mythology and theater also play significant roles, with each of these different storytelling traditions being used to subvert different social norms surrounding race and gender.
The centering of lucha libre is, in itself, a subversion of racial norms. While extremely popular in its own right, mainstream American professional wrestling is a more recognizable form of wrestling entertainment than lucha libre. In Tumble, the wrestlers are all luchadores, despite wrestling in the United States, and the Cactus Wrestling League is a lucha libre league.
Furthermore, having characters like Rosie and the twins wrestling presents a subversion of gender norms. Rosie even admits that she had to win the Mexican championship belt in Guadalajara rather than Mexico City, as women weren’t allowed to wrestle in the capital city in her time. Eva and Maggie tag-team wrestle, and Maggie has dreams of becoming a professional wrestler, despite her grandfather’s assertion that girls can’t wrestle or be champions; Maggie takes the first step in proving him wrong by becoming the first girl to make her school wrestling team.
The twins’ choice of wrestling alter-ego is yet another nod to breaking gendered expectations: The tzitzimeme are extremely powerful twin deities from Aztec mythology and understood to be both male and female in different interpretations of the myths. The girls assert that they like the idea of not being boxed into a category based on their gender and express this in their choice of alter-ego, which draws on that mythology.
The twins are not the only ones who are intrigued by mythology. Addie works on a mythology project for school and contemplates how the pantheon resembles a large, somewhat complicated, and at times dysfunctional family. Accordingly, she chooses to cast her own large, complicated, occasionally dysfunctional family in a fictional pantheon for her project, creating myths and legends based on her family’s stories. In this way, she, too, blends mythology and wrestling.
Yet another blending of storytelling traditions occurs when Addie suggests incorporating lucha libre in the school production of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Addie’s casting as “Marie” breaks the traditional conception of the character as a white girl; the group adds a further twist to the narrative by turning the final battle into a lucha libre match. While this is already category-defying, Addie further adds to it by entering the ring herself as “Marie” in a last-minute, unscripted moment.
Addie fighting and winning the match as “Marie” and as a girl is symbolic of the idea that it is possible to change the script, or society’s expectations, and assert one’s independence regarding gender, race, and identity. In these ways, different storytelling traditions in the book help subvert social norms and reshape the dominant narrative.
