Who Is Immigrant Struggle In Junot Diaz's Drown
The story of immigrant struggles is the major theme in Drown by Junot Diaz. Every immigrant has a personal story, pains and joys, fears and victories. This book captures the fury and alienation of the Dominican immigrant experience very well. Drown brings out the conflicts, yearnings, and frustrations that have been a part of immigrant life for centuries. In each of his stories, Diaz uses a first-person narrator who is observing others. Boys and young drug dealers narrate eight of these tales. Their struggles shift from life in the barrios of the Dominican Republic to grim existence in the slums of New Jersey. The characters in these stories wrestle with recognizable traumas. Yunior and Rafa in Ysrael and Fiesta 1990 confront the pain of growing up, the loss of innocence, and how misfortune just happens to fall upon them. The book argues of a world in which fathers are gone; people fight with determination for their families and themselves.
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Drown tells of an impoverished, fatherless youth in the Dominican Republic and his struggle with immigrant life in New Jersey.
It shows pain and suffering very accurately. For example, the picture inside the plastic bag of the father in Aguantando is one of the symbols. This is a symbol of an absentee father; present in more than one story. The narrator writes, “I live without a father for the first nine years of my life. He was in the States, working, and the only way I knew him was through the photographs my mom’s kept in a plastic sandwich bag under her bed” (69) Also the last and the longest stories, Negocios, reconstructs the adventures of Ramon, the father who left his wife and children behind to try to make it in the States. It is told from the point of Yunior, the youngest son. Negocios , points up this collection's one weakness. It is a chronicle of his father's immigration, remarriage and, finally, the rescuing of his children and first wife from their bleak life in the Dominican
Republic.
Some people think there really is no problem to live as immigrant and to immigrant in the USA is to find a better life than to live in the Dominican Republic. To a certain extent, they are right. Some immigrants may still maintain that and some may not, everything depends on time. However, in Drown, Edison, New Jersey, Aurora, we glimpse into anger stemming from unearned suffering, the embarrassment of poverty, the confusion of loving a Crackhead, and shock of reality.. For example, Yunior talks on how to impress a women even if your are poor. “Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator” (143) The government cheese was also a symbol of hunger and poverty. It was both treasured and hated. He was amazed at the generosity of Americans but at the same time, he was ashamed by it.
Díaz never loses sight of the telling details of immigrant life stateside. He describes food from the perspective of a Dominican boy who eats only boiled yucca and platano. The narrator say, “Almost everything on our plates was boiled: boiled yucca, boiled platano, boiled guinea, may be with a piece of cheese or a shared of bacalao” (70) The yucca and platano is a symbol of his poverty and hunger in Aguantando. Then he writes about everyone getting obese in America; even the immigrants themselves. This simple abundance of food gets to the imagination of immigrants, enduring for many years as the newcomer's fascination with the United States.
Having said these, Drown is Díaz's ability to dramatize the tragedies of immigrants without making everything seem over dramatic or fake. As an immigrant who shared several of these experiences, as a young stranger in a strange land, I find this narrative very accurate. Drown offers a dignified portrayal of immigrant life because of the reality behind it.
Drown tells of an impoverished, fatherless youth in the Dominican Republic and his struggle with immigrant life in New Jersey.
It shows pain and suffering very accurately. For example, the picture inside the plastic bag of the father in Aguantando is one of the symbols. This is a symbol of an absentee father; present in more than one story. The narrator writes, “I live without a father for the first nine years of my life. He was in the States, working, and the only way I knew him was through the photographs my mom’s kept in a plastic sandwich bag under her bed” (69) Also the last and the longest stories, Negocios, reconstructs the adventures of Ramon, the father who left his wife and children behind to try to make it in the States. It is told from the point of Yunior, the youngest son. Negocios , points up this collection's one weakness. It is a chronicle of his father's immigration, remarriage and, finally, the rescuing of his children and first wife from their bleak life in the Dominican
Republic.
Some people think there really is no problem to live as immigrant and to immigrant in the USA is to find a better life than to live in the Dominican Republic. To a certain extent, they are right. Some immigrants may still maintain that and some may not, everything depends on time. However, in Drown, Edison, New Jersey, Aurora, we glimpse into anger stemming from unearned suffering, the embarrassment of poverty, the confusion of loving a Crackhead, and shock of reality.. For example, Yunior talks on how to impress a women even if your are poor. “Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator” (143) The government cheese was also a symbol of hunger and poverty. It was both treasured and hated. He was amazed at the generosity of Americans but at the same time, he was ashamed by it.
Díaz never loses sight of the telling details of immigrant life stateside. He describes food from the perspective of a Dominican boy who eats only boiled yucca and platano. The narrator say, “Almost everything on our plates was boiled: boiled yucca, boiled platano, boiled guinea, may be with a piece of cheese or a shared of bacalao” (70) The yucca and platano is a symbol of his poverty and hunger in Aguantando. Then he writes about everyone getting obese in America; even the immigrants themselves. This simple abundance of food gets to the imagination of immigrants, enduring for many years as the newcomer's fascination with the United States.
Having said these, Drown is Díaz's ability to dramatize the tragedies of immigrants without making everything seem over dramatic or fake. As an immigrant who shared several of these experiences, as a young stranger in a strange land, I find this narrative very accurate. Drown offers a dignified portrayal of immigrant life because of the reality behind it.