Blog Post Three: Drown

The stories in Drown portray the lifestyle and culture of Dominicans and Dominican-Americans. One of the dominant aspects most of the stories is the behavior of men and their relationships with women. Dominican masculinity is based upon control and dominance, typically through physical violence or verbal abuse. On page 5, Diaz describes the relationship between Yunior and his older brother Rafa, when Yunior says “[when] he was mad he had about 500 routines he liked to lay on me. Most of them had to with my complexion, my hair, the size of my lips,” and that “he pounded the hell out of me.” Rafa’s sense of manliness is based upon his ability to dominate other people, included but not limited to his younger brother. Rafa also displays his dominance when he decides to beat up Ysrael because he wants to see his face without the mask on. Rafa “brought his arm around and smashed the bottle on top of his head…kicked him in the side…took off his mask and threw it spinning into the grass.” (Page 18) That mask helped protect Ysrael from revealing his heavily-damaged face to the world—in effect, it was a piece of him. Rafa did not allow Ysrael the dignity of keeping his face secret, simply because he wanted to see it and prove his masculinity. The violence of Dominican masculinity does not end with Rafa, as Yunior’s father is also portrayed as having a similar sense of masculinity in Fiesta, 1980. However, since Papi is an adult, his violent behavior is not limited to just children. While Papi does hit his children (Page 26) and even denies Yunior food at a family party because he is afraid Yunior will vomit on the car ride home (Page 37), Papi also displays more violence towards women than Rafa does. Neither Rafa nor Papi are perfect Western gentlemen when it comes to women. Rafa sees them as playthings. In the Campo, Rafa’s only documented interaction with women (besides his mother) is that “he’d take the girls down to the dams to swim and if he was lucky they let him put it in their mouth or in their asses.” (Page 5) Papi has a similar view women. During his marriage to Mami he has sex with at least three other women—the puta in Santo Domingo, the Peurto Rican woman, and Nilda. He even ends up marrying Nilda and having children with her, though he eventually leaves her for Mami. It is later revealed in Negocios that he ends up leaving Mami as well. (Page 206) Both Rafa and Papi are prototypes of typical Dominican masculinity—dominance through violence and sexual promiscuity. Men in Dominican culture are expected to be strong and hardy, which means being able to fight and physically dominate others and also display sexual prowess demonstrated by having sex with lots of women. This definition of masculinity is deliberately showcased by Diaz as an overarching theme that interconnects all the stories in Drown.