Junot Diaz Crash Short Story

Junot Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated with his family to New Jersey, where a collection of his short stories are based from. Out of that collection is a short story “Fiesta, 1980”, which was featured in The Best American Short Stories, 1997. This story is told from the perspective of an adolescent boy, who lives in the Bronx of northern New Jersey with his family. He is having trouble understanding why things are the way they are in his family. Diaz shows Yunior’s character through his cultures, his interaction with his family, and his bitterness toward his father.

It is not just the language of the Dominican culture that we find characters struggling to hold onto in Díaz’s Drown. We also find that the characters walk a fine line of defining themselves as newly Dominican American, and it seems they feel pressured to leave behind their old ways and traditions to join their new society. In the short story “Fiesta, 1980,” we find many examples of the family being torn between their Dominican customs and assimilating to their new American life. This story begins with the explanation of Papi’s most prized possession: a brand-new, lime-green, Volkswagen van. Much to Yunior’s chagrin (due to the fact that he gets sick every time he rides in the vehicle), this van means a lot to Papi, because to him, it represents an American family. According to John Riofrio (2008), “it[the van] is the embracing of the American way which has reenabled Papi’s masculinity,” (p. 33). After arriving at their Tia and Tio’s home for the party, Yunior sneers at his relatives’ apartment stating, “the place had been furnished in Contemporary Dominican Tacky” (p. 32). It seems as though Yunior, after only a short period in America, is already feeling embarrassed by his culture’s traditions. This chapter of the book also discusses the betrayal of Yunior’s father to his family, by having an affair with a Puerto Rican woman, whom

In “The Cheater’s Guide to Love”, Junot Díaz presents a story about love that goes sour after the primary character, Yunior’s infidelity is discovered. But beyond just an emotionally bleak story, Díaz also uses the background of a love story gone bad to explore issues of race through Yunior’s narrative style, second-person point of view, and the characterization of the various women Yunior meets.

You can see how Maria’s El Salvador is empty of people, full only of romantic ideas. Jose Luis’s image of El Salvador, in contrast, totally invokes manufactured weapons; violence. Maria’s “self-projection elides Jose Luis’s difference” and illustrates “how easy it is for the North American characters, including the big-hearted María, to consume a sensationalized, romanticized, or demonized version of the Salvadoran or Chicana in their midst” (Lomas 2006, 361). Marta Caminero-Santangelo writes: “The main thrust of the narrative of Mother Tongue ... continually ... destabilize[s] the grounds for ... a fantasy of connectedness by emphasizing the ways in which [Maria’s] experience as a Mexican American and José Luis’s experiences as a Salvadoran have created fundamentally different subjects” (Caminero-Santangelo 2001, 198). Similarly, Dalia Kandiyoti points out how Maria’s interactions with José Luis present her false assumptions concerning the supposed “seamlessness of the Latino-Latin American connection” (Kandiyoti 2004, 422). So the continual misinterpretations of José Luis and who he really is and has been through on Maria’s part really show how very far away her experiences as a middle-class, U.S.-born Chicana are from those of her Salvadoran lover. This tension and resistance continues throughout their relationship.

Based on Cisneros’ works of literature, gender roles in a Hispanic culture revolves around patriarchal rule. The repercussions of a patriarchal rule includes the limitations of female liberation and development. Cleofilas’ abusive situation exemplifies the limitations of her independence and development as she can not make her own decisions and has to solely depend on her husband. This situation is illustrated when Cleofilas explains that the towns are “built so that you have to depend on husbands... You can drive only if you’re rich enough to own and drive an own car. There is no place to go” (Cisneros 628). Cleofilas reveals that men are the dominant gender and have more authority, and that women are compelled to depend on them in her society. It is an exceptionally rare case that a woman can afford her own car, for the men usually control the finances in a household. Additionally, Cleofilas has nowhere to seek refuge from her husband. Although she yearns to return to her father’s home, she decides not to due to the social standards imposed on her. In her society, the act of returning home after marriage is socially unacceptable. She understands that her family will be viewed in a negative light if she were to return home, as seen when Cleofilas refers to her town as a “town of gossips” (627). Similar to other men in the society, Juan Pedro’s authority is shown through his abuse. Cleofilas recalls, “He slapped her once, and then again, and again; until the lip split and bled an orchid of blood” (626).

The chief character of the story is Clemencia. Clementia is a US born Mexican-American woman. As opined by Clemencia herself, she is “vindictive and cruel, and…capable of anything” (Cisneros 68). At the same time Clemencia is a victim of racial bias. Involved in an unhappy marriage, her mother exhorted, “Never marry a Mexican” (Cisneros 68) and at the end of the affair with her beloved Drew, he confesses he could “never marry a Mexican” (80). Thus, Clemencia is a perpetrator of racial bias towards men of a Hispanic descent, “I never saw them. My mother did this to me” (69), while being a victim of racial bias herself. Although middle-class, she flees the comforts of a middle class life to live in a lower-class Latino neighborhood and sells her art among the upper-class. Hence, she also feels like she is, “Amphibious…a person who doesn’t belong to any class” (71). Clemencia is also a betrayer of women. Feeling betrayed and abandoned by her mother for marrying an Anglo man and betrayed by her ex-lover for ending the affair, Clemencia seeks gratification through her affairs with married men. The overall theme of Never Marry a Mexican is overcoming racial stigmas and finding the beauty in humanity.

describes the young Dominican American man who is looking for to date either a Latina girl, black girl, white girl or half girl how to judge and approach girls from various social classes and ethnicities differently based on his opinions. Throughout the story, the author uses the second person omniscient point of view to make it easier for the reader to relate to the story and assimilate the case because it’s the referring to something we have all done no matter what our ethnicity is. This point of view is necessary to the story because both he is talking to himself and giving advice to himself by using “you/your” throughout the text, therefore, as a reader, I personally, can easily put myself in the narrator’ shoes and, also, the author addresses the reader or listener directly as if he were talking to them by sharing his observations.

Psychoanalytic Theory on Junot Diaz’s, "How to date a brown girl (black girl, white girl, or halfie)"

He starts of the story with the setting of his house and how he is preparing for his first date to arrive. He is doing extraordinary preparations to impress the girl he is currently dating. As he is explaining how to prepare for the date he gives simple suggestions such as “If she’s an outsider her father will be bringing her, maybe her mother” (page 178). This is stating that the girl will not be urban or Hispanic since she is considered an outsider. He is also giving a hint that he has to act differently because the young lady is from a different cultural background. Diaz also gives the acquisition in his quote “If she’s a whitegirl you know you’ll at least get a hand job” (page 178). Which implies that every white girl gives hand job which is a simple stereotype that Diaz might have heard from his friends or believing this from an experience he has

Oscar is the antithesis of his culture’s idea of manliness. In the beginning we meet an Oscar who is called “Porfirio Rubirosa” (21). Everyone is proud of the boy because this is exactly what he needs to be to be a Dominican man. Men from Dominican Republic, and perhaps Spanish Caribbean men, are expected to take care of their family especially their mothers and sisters, yet they are also expected to be “playboys” who have multiple women. as the first line of the story communicates, “Our hero was not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about—he wasn’t no home-run hitter or a fly-bachetero, not a playboy with a million hots on his jock” (21). Oscar is the type of man who women say they want; kind, sensitive, considerate, smart, and romantic. He truly want to find true

As children grow up in a dysfunctional family, they experience trauma and pain from their parent’s actions, words, and attitudes. With this trauma experienced, they grew up changed; different from other children. The parent’s behavior affects them and whether they like it or not, sometimes it can influence them, and they can react against it or can repeat it. In Junot Díaz’s “Fiesta, 1980”, is presented this theme of the dysfunctional family. The author presents a story of an adolescent Latin boy called Junior, who narrates the chronicles of his dysfunctional family, a family of immigrants from the Dominican Republic driving to a party in the Bronx, New York City. “Papi had been with

One thing all human beings, have in common is the struggle for self identity. Children are raised by parents or guardians who have struggled and fought for their own identities. In many cases, parents are still trying to figure it out, while raising their own children. Such is the case with the characters in Junot Diaz’s, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The theme of identity is conveyed through the characters’ Dominican culture, social standing, and in finding love. Oscar, Lola, and Yunior are three central characters in Oscar Wao, who’s Dominican cultural and family expectations were major obstacles as they struggled to establish their identity.

One thing all human beings have in common is the struggle for self identity. Children are raised by parents or guardians who have struggled and fought for their own identities. In many cases, parents are still trying to figure it out, while raising their own children. Such is the case with the characters in Junot Diaz’s, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The theme of identity is conveyed through the characters’ Dominican culture, social standing, and in finding love. Oscar, Lola, and Yunior are three central characters in Oscar Wao, who’s Dominican cultural and familial expectations were major obstacles as they struggled to establish their identity.

To practice machismo, also known as masculinity in a Dominican culture, males have to hide their flaws and act a certain way. If men express their un-masculine nature, they will be seen as expressing their weakness. In Drown written by Junot Díaz, contains many stories about Dominican Republic male struggles as an immigrant in America. One of the struggles Díaz expresses in his text is appearing masculine in society’s eyes. From the story “Drown”, the unnamed narrator expresses what it means to be masculine. “Boyfriend” is a story about another unnamed narrator observing his neighbor’s relationship, and comparing it to his own past. Yunior, the narrator of the story “Negocios”, explains the history of his father Papi, also known as Ramón. Society creates many definitions for what it means to be masculine, leading the narrator from “Drown”, the narrator from “Boyfriend”, and Ramón struggling to choose between doing what they want for themselves, or do what society wants to see.

Crash. One, two, no, three plates hit the floor. I could for all intents and purposes feel my spirit drain from my body as that sound rung throughout the restaurant. I paused for a moment to recollect my thoughts, looking up to see a collection of dirty plates, bowls, and pans stacked nearly a foot high on the shelf and beginning to collect around my feet as there was nowhere else to put them. With a stack of plates so tall, the grease had allowed a plate to slip and take several others with it to crash onto the stone floor. Ah yes, this was dinner hour, the busiest hour of the night, on Friday, the busiest day of the week in general, and it was my first week on the job. Straightaway came the manager, Rachel, as well as a few of my coworkers. She looked to see glass scattered