Enduring: Yunior S Family and the Dominican Republic As a Character in Aguantando

Enduring: Yunior’s Family and the Dominican Republic as a Character in Aguantando

In JunotDíaz’s “Aguantando,” the reader watches the main character, Yunior, suffer through poverty in the Dominican Republic while pining silently for his absentee father figure. “Aguantando”, or to endure, is a word which represents both the grueling experiences of Yunior’s family and the experiences of the Dominican Republic as a whole, in the wake of the U.S. invasion. Yunior’s family (and particularly the figure of Mamí) are forced to endlessly struggle through day-to-day life, without any end to their misery in sight; their only hope is that their father will return to compensate for abandoning his family. I argue that the Dominican Republic serves as a silent character within “Aguantando,” existing as a parallel to Yunior’s family. The United States and its treatment of the D.R. representsYunior’s father and his treatment of his wife and children. Conversely, Yunior’s family serves as an example of the abuses suffered by the Dominican people: on a private level, the creator of the suffering is Papí, buton a public level, the U.S. is to blame. Both Yunior’s family and the Dominican Republic exist in a self-enforced culture of silence: instead of healing issues by discussing them and acknowledging the feelings that may go along with them, those issues are ignored and allowed to fester.Yunior’s family’s feelings of abandonment go ignored, both by each other and by Papí; similarly, the D.R. was quite literally abandoned by the U.S. without any structure to support itself, and its people were left to bear the brunt of that abandonment.

In order to describe the similarities between the historical treatment of the Dominican Republic and the treatment of Yunior’s family within the story, it is necessary to give a brief contextualization of the D.R., as Díaz does not within his short story. The Dominican Republic, previous to Yunior’s birth, had been self-governed for barely sixty years throughout its six hundred years-long history. Starting with the colonization brought by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the reigns of outside control were felt for the next four centuries. The final occupation ended in 1924, but then the abuses began from within the country, as provided by military dictator Rafael Trujillo. (“Dominican Republic: History.”) In the wake of the assassination of Trujillo in the 1960s, the outside world’s Cold War rhetoric was beginning to associate the D.R.’s efforts at self-government with communism. The U.S.’s anti-communist paranoia caused them to treat the Dominican Republic’s political unrest as grounds to invade and violently enforce their own political views, causing needles bloodshed. The U.S. installed a “conservative, non-military government,” assuming that their own political structure would be the one all countries could unanimously benefit from (“U.S. Troops Land in the Dominican Republic”). However, the D.R. was left bereft. After the physical assault against its people, and without the U.S. providing the infrastructure and actual assistance needed to create a government in the wake of disaster, the D.R. continued to struggle in poverty and squalor into the first decade of Yunior’s life.

Yunior’s family is an example of the type of problems forced upon the Dominican people in the wake of the invasion. Yuniorexpands continuously on the extremes of his poverty, from describing his and Rafa’s “annual case of worms” (Díaz71) which they can barely afford medicine for, to their being treated as pariahs by their fellow schoolchildren. Díaz describes the effects of their poverty in such detail in order to illustrate the poverty being condoned by the institutions and government, who were put in place to take care of them. The circumstances of Yunior’s family take on the nature of a sick joke, when put in the greater context of the post-invasion D.R.: this government was supposed to be an improvement on the governments that imposed human rights violations upon its citizens. Instead, the people of the D.R., and Yunior’s family, were forced to live in squalor for the mess left behind by the United States.

The character of Abuelo offers up commentary on this, as an interesting third party in contrast to the other adult figures in the story:unlike Mamí, he is no longer able to be a slave to his work, but in Papí’s absence he is the only male figure in Yunior and Rafa’s lives. This circumstance makes his perspective a unique one. The only point at which an adult is seen exercising their agency is a brief scene where Abuelo goes out to trap rats; he is only able to do so because he has been rendered useless to society by old age, thus unable to provide for his struggling family. Abuelo openly attributes this struggle to the U.S.; he talks to Yunior about “the good old days, when a man could make a living from his finca, when the United States wasn’t something folks planned on.” (Díaz73) Díaz inserts this quote from Abuelo to quietly slip in a truth:life was their own, before the U.S. invasion; it may not have been perfect, but it was a reality that gave the citizens of the D.R. dignity. This truly illustrates the dependency created by the U.S.: the people of the D.R. (like Papí) have to run to the U.S. in order to save themselves from the poverty and destruction created by the U.S. in their own home.

Similarly, the relationship between the family and the father figure represents the relationship between the D.R. and the U.S. Papí created a family with Mamí, but just like the troops, once he had enough, he left for U.S. soil (and for better opportunities), leaving Mamí, Yunior and Rafa to pick up the pieces. The family is left with this concept of a nuclear family – like the D.R. was left with the thin trappings of a government by the U.S. – and forced to attempt to make something that cannot exist for them a reality.

Of course, the focal character of this story is Mamí, who we learn more about than anyone else. Yunior writes adoringly of his long-suffering mother, left as a single parent working twelve-hour shifts to provide for her two sons. Mamí allows men to walk her home, but never allows them inside, or even near the doorway. She knows Papí isn’t coming back (and even when he comes back, it will not be for long-term), but regardless she will wait for him anyway, and suffer alone through the responsibilities he has saddled her with. It would be understandable if she let Papí go, if even to reduce her suffering just slightly, but instead she relives the emotional hell of her loss every day. It proposes a question as to whether or not Mamí herself associates Papí with not only the United States but with the invasion: the only one of Mamí’s pictures of Papí that Yunior can remember was taken a few days before the invasion began in 1965.

Díaz also describes the physical effects of the invasion upon Mamí:

“She was a tiny woman and in the water closet she looked even smaller, her skin dark and her hair surprisingly straight and across her stomach and back the scars from the rocket attack she’d survived in 1965. None of the scars showed when she wore clothes, though if you embraced her you’d feel them hard under your wrist, against the soft part of your palm.” (Díaz71)

The scars from the rocket attack are a symbol of the baggage she carries with her from Papí: invisible to the men who pursue her and to almost everyone else, because she keeps the world at arm’s length distance; but for Yunior, who devotedly seeks her affections and who as a son is permitted to occasionally see her cracks, the scars from Papí are clear.Díazuses Mamí’s physical scars as proof of the interlocked damage done by Papí and by the U.S. as a whole, despite how Mamí may try to conceal that damage.

Mamí may have been able to heal both her own wounds and the wounds of her sons from Papí if those wounds had been addressed, but instead, Yunior and Rafa grew up crooked, with scars of their own which were never cared for. The problems of this family are not discussed, under any circumstances. When Yunior was younger, he tried to express his pain at the loss of his father by screaming, a typical childlike reaction, but he was punished by being locked in a room, smacked, and deprived of his clothes. This teaches a lesson: it is wrong to cry, or to feel sorrow, or to convey one’s feelings. When Yunior, in the present day, attempts to share the excitement of his father’s letter with his only friend Wilfredo, he is greeted with a slap and an admonishment from Rafa: “This is a family affair, Yunior. Don’t blab it all over the place.” (Díaz 81).RafacriticizesYunior, as his older brother, for confiding in someone outside of the family (Wilfredo); however, neither Yunior nor Rafa have anyone to confide to within the family. Due to the abandonment from their father and the absence of their constantly working mother, the only rule Rafa can firmly know to enforce is that of keeping one’s mouth closed tight.

This discomfort towards sharing and emotional openness is illustrated elsewhere in the story; for example, when Yunior is at Tía Miranda’s, he is made uncomfortable by her flamboyant affections and the constant chatter, instead seeking isolation and silence until he can be reunited with his family. Yunior does not know anything other than isolation and silence: it is what he is given at home. He does not feel like he has a steady support system waiting for him, because he rarely receives support. This is why Yunior “never wanted to be away from the family […] Intuitively, [he] knew how easily distances could harden and become permanent.” (Díaz75) His grasp on his own family is so tenuous that as a boy he is afraid to leave the family, worried the bonds will become strained with distance.

At the beginning of the story, Yunior discusses his feeble hopes for his father’s return, attributing them to ignorance: “I didn’t know him at all. I didn’t know that he’d abandoned us. That all this waiting for him was a sham.” (Díaz 70) Abandonment is the strongest sentiment from this sentence represented throughout the story.Yunior’s family suffers from severe emotional damage from Papí’s abandoning, resulting in the culture of silence which reinforces that trauma. With a wider view, this theme can also be seen in thesubtle depiction of the havoc wreaked (and left unrepaired) against the Dominican Republic. The U.S. invaded, supposedly, to save the D.R. from the evils of communism, and put itself in the role of savior, but in actuality did no such thing. The D.R. was left to wait for the support promised by the U.S., when the U.S. thought it had done its job by providing a figurehead to put in place of a government. Papí left the family with pictures, preserved with Mamí’s undying hope in a bag; the U.S. left the D.R. with bodies and institutions of poverty. Neither gave anything substantial, or what they had promised; so Yunior’s family and the D.R. were abandoned, left to endure.

WORKS CITED:

Díaz, Junot.Drown. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996. Print.

"U.S. Troops land in the Dominican Republic."History.com. A&E Television Networks, LLC.,n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.

"Dominican Republic: History."Global Edge. Michigan State University, n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.

Like Father, Like Son

In many ways, Aguantando, blurs the line between public and private issues by allowing them to parallel and bleed over to each other in order to create a haunting narrative that explores the hardships of abandonment. In a sense the characters in the story not only represent individuals affected by abandonment, but also represent the complex attitudes of a post-occupied Dominican Republic.

Through raw and imaginative imagery Diaz tells us two stories; the family’s hardships lay on the surface, while the identity crises faced by the Dominican Republic rests sorely underneath the surface like a Band-Aid covering a deep wound. The environment surrounding the family is fragmented, with immense poverty influencing the community, the family exists in a literal and figurative broken household. It’s only natural that the narrative of the family, especially Yunior, would be fragmented. In fact, the entire flow of the novel is indeed in fragments; asYunior struggles at some points to paint a complete picture. Yunior in many ways represents a few characteristics of the Dominican Republic; the abandonment of the Father has instilled anxiety and turmoil into Yunior the way that America’s forceful occupation and withdrawal has haunted the Dominican Republic like a specter, even to this day. Diaz utilizes the father figure as a focal point of the story, whether physically present or not. Diaz also masterfully tells an overarching story through the lens of another story, it is through the father figure in Aguantando where we derive critiques of the U.S.Occupation, rather than it being spelled out directly. When Yunior stayed at his Tía’s house for a few weeks, notice the language and word choice being used by Tía when speaking ill about Yunior’s father, “He took too much. If only your mother noticed his true nature earlier. He should see how he has left you” (76). On the surface it is straightforward and logical in describing the negative aspects of the father, but deep down Diaz is including a critique on the tenacity of the occupation and abandonment of the U.S Government. The occupation was essentially for the protection of American interests, so in that sense the Americans took ‘too much’ power as they pleased, and left the Dominican Republic with skewed attitudes and corrupt political entities.

The introduction of a different environment other than the barrio also provides the collision between private and public spheres as well as serving as another social critique disguised in Yunior’s narrative. The description of the house and the neighborhood is juxtaposed heavily with Yunior’s own home; the roof of Tía’s house only provides minor discomfort to her cats whereas the roof of the family home leaks water during a rainstorm. “It was that sort of neighborhood” (75), a neighborhood filled with administrators and lawyers, a neighborhood that symbolizes the government favoring the rich and neglecting the poor. It is also through the text where we find hints of class struggles and anxieties experienced by Yunior’s family. “Her hair would be cut, her nails painted; she’d have on the same red dress she wore on every one of her outings” (77). In a society of slow social mobility, Mami experiences the pressures of class scrutiny and attempts to assuage the anxiety through her appearance.

It seems as if the characters in Drown experience the intoxicating effect of a more idealistic life and experience. In Ysrael, we see Rafa’s constant references to romantic and sexual conquests with various women and wonder if it was in fact reality or rather just the reflections of his desires. In Negocios, we see Papi’s overwhelming desire to pursue the ‘American Dream’, only to find that the dream didn’t end up turning out to be as pure as he thought. For Mami and Yunior the dream of a normal family life had addictive effects over them. The first time Papi had promised of his great return, there was a spark in Mami’s eyes that were ultimately distinguished upon the disappointment. Her actions afterwards are in the same vein as symptoms of withdrawals experienced by addicts, she disappears for a while and returned “thinner and darker and her hands were heavy with callouses” (84). So Papi in that sense represents a drug that Mami is addicted to, full of false promises and detrimental effects. After the letter and the promise, we immediately see the transformation of Mami and her attitude. In her naivety, or overwhelming desire for a static family, she embarks on a family trip and indulged themselves on simple luxuries. When leaning on the rail, Mami provides insight into her first encounter with Papi, and says, “…That part of the city isn’t here anymore”. This serves to provide a glimpse into her deeper understanding between the ideal and the actual reality, an understanding that is often glossed over by the false promises.

The promise of the father takes over the family members, without understanding who or what he really was, they hold on dearly to the concept of the father. He would come in unannounced like a savior bringing with him the clichéd luxuries of North America; the conceptualized version of the father was the American Dream reaching out towards them and saving them from poverty.

Through the lens of Yunior we are introduced to the daydream of his father’s triumphant return, and it is exactly on Yunior where the burden of enduring lays. In the dream Yunior’s father squats down and looks deeply at Yunior, who hesitantly hides in the background since he does not actually know him, and proceeds to trace the scars over his arms while finally tracing a circle on his cheek. A term of endearment on the surface is actually a symbol of duality; where Yuniors’ scars represent the veins that carry the blood of his father and the circle representing a closed loop, a constant reminder that everything can be traced back to it’s origin. Throughout his life Yunior must endure the specter of his father, and as he struggles with a bourgeoning identity crisis brought on by immigration, he begins to realize that he cannot escape his father’s narrative, and instead must understand it in order for his own narrative to break free from the closed loop.

Works Cited

Diaz, Junot.Drown. Riverhead Books, 1996. Print.