In the opening chapter of Jessica Hoppe’s stunning memoir, First in the Family: A Story of Survival, Recovery, and the American Dream, the debut author writes, “The most powerful weapon in the American arsenal is the story.” And what a storyteller she is. Moving between lyrical prose and straightforward narration, Hoppe weaves a multigenerational family saga with biting critiques of the oppressive systems that enable devastating pipelines of addiction.
Hoppe begins with her own alcoholism and path to recovery. But First in the Family is not your standard recovery memoir. Hoppe, who is a daughter of Honduran and Ecuadorian immigrants, writes that “the conditions caused by the traumas of migration, assimilation, colonialism, and marginalization . . . are never properly linked to substance use disorder: instead they’re pathologized and reduced to stereotypes.” If that sounds heady, keep reading. Hoppe illustrates this argument with memorable scenes that show the fraught histories of homelands and lingering harms passed down in families.
“I know we carry generations of pain, and because we don’t tend to this sorrow—because we don’t know how to—we continue to hurt others,” Hoppe writes after the passing of her grandfather, her mother’s “greatest tormentor” who abandoned the family when she was a child. Like Hoppe, he had substance abuse disorder. In early sobriety, Hoppe sought out more information about him to understand her own addiction. Her grandfather came of age during the “decades of dictators” in Honduras, working as a laborer for the American-owned United Fruit Company, which was known for its exploitation of workers. Like many others, the company introduced drugs and alcohol to workers, and addiction was used as a method of control. “Overworked and underpaid, alcohol dulled the pang of workers’ oppression,” she writes. Her grandfather “was no match against greedy imperial forces.” His dreams of success turned to disillusionment, and “conditions caused by the traumas” did their work.
As Hoppe digs further into her family history, she unearths hard truths that her loved ones have hid from one another and, oftentimes, from themselves. First in the Family stitches together recollections from her family with her historical and social investigations, balancing stories of harm and violence with the voice of a tender narrator. The result is a deeply moving memoir about how understanding our histories—both present and past—allows for recovery and healing rooted in the politics of liberation.
