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Dominicana

Angie Cruz

Start date: January 1, 2020

Finish date: January 31, 2020

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Jan 04, 2020 Brina rated it really liked it

Shelves: coming-of-age, new-york-city, fiction, immigration, hispanic-culture

In anticipation of new books by Isabel Allende and Julia Alvarez this year I decided to get a heads up on my Latina amiga reading with Dominicana by Angie Cruz. Dominicana has been touted as a story of immigration for all times that every American can relate to. It has been lauded by Alvarez and Sandra Cisneros, another favorite author of mine, and even was the inaugural pick for Good Morning America’s book club. Always on the look out for fresh Latina writing, I decided to pick up a copy.

It is In anticipation of new books by Isabel Allende and Julia Alvarez this year I decided to get a heads up on my Latina amiga reading with Dominicana by Angie Cruz. Dominicana has been touted as a story of immigration for all times that every American can relate to. It has been lauded by Alvarez and Sandra Cisneros, another favorite author of mine, and even was the inaugural pick for Good Morning America’s book club. Always on the look out for fresh Latina writing, I decided to pick up a copy.

It is the early 1960s and the Canción family lives in poverty in Guayacanes, Dominican Republic. The parents have almost no education and live a life of poverty but the mother believes that if they can move to New York, everything will be better, an adherent of the American dream before even stepping foot on American soil. The Ruiz brothers have been eyeing the Canciones’ land for years, businessmen determined to expand their fledgling empire that consists of all of one restaurant. A match between the two families would insure that the Ruiz’ would get their land and the Canciones could begin to immigrate to New York. One issue preventing the coming together of the two families is that Juan Ruiz, a so called savvy New York businessman is thirty years old, and his would be bride Ana is a mere fifteen, a school girl, and uninterested in leaving her family. Yet, with political unrest surrounding the island, Ana’s mother pleads with her to marry Juan and leave, paving the way for the rest of the family to follow her to a better opportunity.

Cruz has said that Ana’s story is her mother’s story of immigration to New York, and research for this book has been pulled from years of interviews with family and friends. Ana’s voice rings clear as she navigates being a newly arrived teenager to an intimidating city, not being able to speak the language, knowing no one. Juan is a stereotypical Hispanic male and rubbed me all the wrong ways. He has a woman on the side after years as a bachelor, tells Ana to always remain in their apartment and do his bidding, and even becomes abusive if she does not measure up to his mistress. Getting Ana pregnant with his future child does nothing to alleviate Juan’s behavior patterns that appear all too often in Hispanic machismo culture. My dislike of Juan, even though he managed to make it in New York to a certain extent, downgraded my overall like for this book, but I was determined to make it work for me.

Ana Ruiz is also a archetypal portrait of an immigrant. Juan has to return to return to the Dominican Republic amidst the political unrest there, and Ana flourishes. She takes English classes, ventures out of her apartment with her brother-in-law Cesar, cooks traditional foods to stay rooted to her culture, and actually appears to be making it in America. This is only because Juan has left her in Cesar’s care, and Ana, full of hormones, finds herself falling for her brother-in-law, in a way she could never love her husband. I thought this relationship was too cliched but I enjoyed how Cesar convinces Ana to sell food to factory workers and earn her own money, her own American Dream. He takes her to the movies and dancing, to Coney Island and the World’s Fair, and the two of them fall for each other, making plans to start a new life without Juan. Whether this aspect of the story is part of Cruz’ mother’s story or not, the love triangle turned an otherwise quality Latina written story into a telenovela.

Maybe I have been spoiled after all these years reading Allende and Alvarez, Cisneros and Garcia. They were the pioneers and their early work paved the way for new generations of Hispanic women writers, writers like Angie Cruz. The historical fiction in this story- upheaval in the Dominican Republic, the assassination of Malcolm X, Juan Marichal- worked for me. The stereotypical Hispanic characters did not. I do like how Ana gets stronger as the novel progresses, determined to make it in New York to give her family a better chance in life. If this was actually the case for Cruz’ mother, then her family did just fine in the United States. I am willing to give this author a second chance and hope that her characters work better for me a second time around.

3.5 stars ...more

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