After nearly two decades disconnected- by choice- from her family and from her homeland, Prodigal Daughter Mabel Valdiviezo gets her American visa to reconnect with her family in Peru only to learn that the family barely survived the Fujimori regime. Moreover, there’s a secret of her own that she’s compelled to reveal.
Once face to face with her aging parents and now grown siblings, expectations come down clashing on both sides threatening an already fragile bond. Her family recriminates Mabel for her absence and candidly recount how they struggled to survive both terrorism and the dictatorship.
In a desperate attempt to seek a better life just like Mabel did, her brothers immigrated to Japan only to be deported right back. Her father had a bigamous marriage to a Japanese woman for a visa and her mother almost committed suicide over a mounting debt to a loan shark. They view Mabel as the lucky one, yet she still has to tell them how immigration brought her more sorrow than happiness.
Negotiating between their withheld affection and requests of financial help and visa sponsorship, Mabel gathers courage to tell her secret and put their demands into perspective. Now, she must find a way to regain their love and respect or risk being shunned and disowned. Prodigal Daughter explores the complex relationship between parents and children when geography and mismatched expectations sets them apart.
