...Junot Diaz’s “ How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)” is revolved around the idea of a young hispanic teenage boy, Yunior, who breaks down ideas in regards to preparing to date. Within this story, Diaz narrates how the Yunior feels the needs to hide aspects of his life from his “dates” depending on their race in order to impress them. Keeping in mind different ethnicities act and respond to situations. Even though many may think Yunior’s actions demonstrates how he may be ashamed, but Yunior hides who he is because he is more afraid of rejection from girls. One of the first things that Yunior hides is the government cheese. “Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator. If the girl's from the Terrace stack the...
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...studies, it seems that men and women differ towards wanting a relationship with the opposite sex. The stereotype about relationships is that every girl wants to be in a one, but guys just want to get laid. In the story of How to Date a Brown Girl, by Junot Diaz, describes how a boy and how he judges each girl by race and their willingness to give it up. The guy's mindset is different from the girl’s mindset about being with a special someone. Racism and subjecting a whole group, like gender, has clouded people’s judgment on others before they even get to know and understand them. Everyone grows up differently with different family backgrounds and wealth. No matter what race, religion, poor or rich background we come from, we are all human and we want to be treated the same. All people might be categorized by race but everybody has based their opinions on their own experiences....
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...Junot Diaz’s Drown short stories exemplify the struggles of a Dominican Republic immigrant in the United States to achieve the American Dream, the concept of racism and the idea of hyper masculinity pushed upon a young boy growing up. Moreno, Marisel. Debunking Myths, Destabilizing Identities: A Reading of Junot Diaz’s "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie." Fall2007, Vol. 26 Issue 2. This article is presented with an essay which analyzes the short story "How to Date a Brown girl, Black girl, White girl, or Halfie," by Junot Diaz. It reflects on racial ethics and how one generation can affect another by embedding in our psyche that racism is the fault of our ancestors; as it is something that has been handed down from generation to generation. I chose this article because the racism that the characters faced within Drown is quite similar to the ones faced by immigrants in the United States. There is a racial and ethnic tension among blacks and Hispanics which in some cases turns violent. Examples of this can be found in the short story that gives the name to the novel: Yunior´s mother relates to him of the attacks of African Americans on Hispanics in their neighborhood. Oulahan, Cain W. “The American dream deferred: family separation and immigrant visa adjudications at U.S. consulates abroad”. Marquette Law Review. Summer2011, Vol. 94 Issue 4, p1351-1379. 29p This article expounds...
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... English 111 B Essay 1 You Are Not Fighting Alone "The Dreamer" by Junot Díaz was first published in a women’s magazine in 2011. In this short essay Díaz writes about how his mother overcame great obstacles and barriers, fought family bonds and held on to a dream that she longed for. "The Dreamer" was initially directed at women, because women would find Díaz’s mother empowering. The audience grew as the story was shared more and more, anyone who has ever had a dream was reading it. This essay gives readers reinforcement that they are not alone overcoming any powerful setbacks they might have in achieving their own dreams. Díaz told his mother’s story of the struggles of living in a third world country, abuse that restrained her, and fate that opened the doors to a world of opportunity on the path to achieving her dream to become an educated nurse in the Dominican Republic. Díaz’s mother didn’t reach her initial dream, but she didn’t give up until she could present her kids with opportunities to achieve their dreams. The Dominican girl, Díaz’s mother, was never meant to leave the mountain she lived on. She was expected “to work on the family farm until she died or was married off” (Díaz 128). During her work on the farm, she was the one who tended to illness. Her grandmother did not like the idea of education, she insisted that “she stay on the farm, that she stay a mule” (Díaz 129). Díaz’s mother longed for an education more than anything. She wanted out of the life...
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...“How to Date a Brown girl, Black girl, White girl, or Halfie” by Junot Diaz Junot Diaz (born December 31, 1968). He is a Dominican American guy, born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Diaz immigrated with his family to New Jersey when he was six years old. He studied Arts degree from Rutgers University. He is the third child of five. Majored in English. His regularly contributed both fiction and nonfiction since 1995. Diaz teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is the fiction editor of Boston Review. His first story collection, “Drown,” received a praise, and his second story collection, “This Is How You Lose Her,” was a National Book Awarded finalist. Listed top 20 writers in the 21st century. Diaz writes this sorts...
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...ENGL 2201 Essay #1 Due 10/8/14 “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie” by Junot Diaz “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie” is a short story by Junot Diaz. The short story takes the semblance of an instructional manual, or guide, asserting guidance as to how to act or behave depending upon the ethnicity and social class of the reader’s date. Diaz’s dating guide, aimed toward teenage males, accomplishes authority of knowledge by delivering the short story in second person. It can easily be concluded that the narrator is to be a teenage boy, Yunior, whom the story is centered around. Yunior is trying to win impress and win over the local girls, hoping to get sexual favors in return. Nonetheless, because of his background and culture, he knows he has to withdraw his identity in order to please a white girl or a “halfie”. In the story, it can be implied that a halfie is person of mixed ethnicity. You see the numerous scopes of this one character, all transported out by race. Diaz gives directions about meal accommodations, politeness toward the date’s parent, hygiene, and household cleanliness. Basically, these directions are administered in effects to win over the young lady. Certainly, Diaz is not afraid to assert trivial signs that disclose ethnic insolences, even if they diminish Dominican ethnicity. Certainly, there is a power relationship of race in “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie”. Color is an immense...
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...In Junot Díaz’s novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Díaz shows how a curse can overtake a person’s life, but can eventually be escaped. In the novel, Oscar is the main character who has been seen as dorky throughout his life, and who could never get a girl to like him. Oscar’s inability to obtain love is the curse that hovers over him throughout his life. In the end of the novel, Oscar finally breaks his curse when Ybón falls in love with him and his virginity is taken. Oscar dies soon after his love with Ybón is formed, which shows that even if a person breaks a curse, the curse will prevail until death. By looking at a passage on pages 286-287, the reader can analyze how falling in love breaks Oscar’s curse, and changes his life...
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...In “The Dreamer,” Junot Diaz reflects on his mother’s childhood. Diaz’s mother lived in a Third-World country, Dominican. His mother worked on his grandmother’s farm and would not let her get an education. Although one day the county got a new dictator Trujillo, which he put into effect mandatory education to children under fifteen-years-old. Diaz’s mother tried so hard to acquire an education because her dream was to one day become a nurse. I am inspired by Diaz's essay both because of what his mother did in order to education and also because of what a mother’s abilities can go on their son. To begin with, Diaz’s essay was an inspiration to me because his mother had to go a remarkable length to get an education. Firstly, Diaz writes “Her...
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...to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie” by Junot Diaz Every red-blooded American male reaches a zenith in his life when he has finally joined the company of men, and been deemed worthy to receive a lifetime of collected wisdom and tutelage from his elder “packmates”. This knowledge comes in both lewd and often brutally honest sentiments that can induce feelings of excitement and unabashed shame, but regardless of the emotions evoked, it is a necessary rite of passage signifying a young man’s entrance into the world of his peers. This transformation and the hesitance involved is masterfully scripted in Junot Diaz’s “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie”. The dialogue that plays out in this story is remarkably descriptive but demonstrates often the characterizations we accept as young men that masquerade as truths and become almost necessary for our acceptance by our gender. Diaz removes the veil on this time in a young man’s life and allows the reader into a world of confusion, pressure, and eagerness which highlights the extraneous difficulties of being both male and a minority in America during these crucial formative years. In life, the first step of any journey begins with preparation and Diaz opens his story with an older male, which who believe to be a friend, instructing a younger pupil on how to organize and clean his house in accordance with the economic status of the girl he will be having over to his home. The young man receives...
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...every human being participates. The initiation process helps adolescents grow and mature into reasonable adults, and it is the basis of many artists’ paintings, songs, and written stories. A few notable works about the orientation into adulthood are Junot Diaz’s essay called “They Money”, Lynda Barry’s essay “The Sanctuary of School”, and finally John Updike’s story titled “A&P.” All three of these stories provide a glimpse into the path to adulthood. First of all, Diaz’s “The Money” speaks of a teenager who lives in a home where money is scarce. He says “She chipped dollars off from the cash Papi gave her for our daily expenses, forced our already broke family to live even broker” (Diaz 912)....
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...The book start by talking about the “fuku”, which was a curse that was brought on as a result of African invaders killing many Tainos when Europeans invaded hispaniola (Diaz 1). The beginning of the novel describes the life that Oscar had when he was seven years old. At an early age, he was beginning to represent the stereotypical Dominican man. They would call Oscar a casanova because of his ability to get girls (11). At that early of an age, he was already expected to show the tendencies of a Dominican man. At that time, he was still considered a normal Dominican, implying that when he no longer showed these tendencies, he would not be considered normal. Diaz’s novel describes a Dominican man as being a loverboy, good at playing baseball, as well as other sports, good music taste, able to get any girl he wanted, and most of all as having the looks, which were some of the characteristic that Oscar no longer possessed when he got to high school (...
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...between Spanish and English, the language of the streets and the academy. Over the course of three books, and nearly two decades, Junot Díaz has used the character of Yunior to explore the intersections between love and loss, displacement and desire, within the American immigrant experience.In This Is How You Lose Her, Díaz focuses on Yunior’s own life as a successful writer and college professor struggling through a series of passionate romantic relationships. From the neighbourhoods of Santo Domingo through the rough streets of New Jersey to every brick of Harvard’s halls, Yunior’s journey closely mirrors that of his creator. In This Is How You Lose Her, Yunior’s voice holds all of these worlds at once in a singular and intoxicating balance.The collection begins with “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars.” Yunior paints a cynical picture of the upscale Dominican resort to which his girlfriend has dragged him on the eve of their ailing relationship’s demise: “A goddamn fortress, walled away from everybody else,” with “beaches so white they ache to be trampled.” Isolated there, he finds himself surrounded by “Garcías and Colóns” who “come to relax after a long month of oppressing the masses,” and the “melanin deficient Eurofucks” who look like “budget Foucaults … too many of them in the company of a dark-assed Dominican girl.”In this passage, as in much of Díaz’s work, Yunior interrupts his narrative descriptions to directly address the reader—“Let’s just say my abuelo has never been here...
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...which causes men to lose respect for them. Women are seen as sexualized beings that cause feelings of fantasy and desire, which is also shown in all aspects of media. For years, women have been trying to escape these secular images, but as long as men have an imagination they will never go away. And although, “How to date a brown girl (black girl, white girl, or halfie)” by Junot Diaz was meant to be a humorous story, it was degrading and demeaning towards women of all races. He proves the point of men only sexualizing women by saying, “A local girl may have hips and a thick ass but she won’t be quick about letting you touch” (3). This sows that most men, not all, only have one motive when they are out seeking women, and that is whether or not she will sleep with him anytime soon. And that when they look for women they are seeking certain body types, facial features, gender, whatever pleases them, they are basically shopping for women. This is also really dangerous because this is what drives predators and rapists to attack the women they do. When they see a woman they like, it seems that they have no control over themselves after that. Diaz’s story proves a great example on how the man sees a woman when it comes to sizing them up. In his story he writes that “If she’s a whitegirl you know you’ll at least get a hand job “(1)....
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...Language in literature has always been a way to express yourself about how you feel and need to say. Language makes the world go round in order to constantly communicate with one another from different cultures and diversities. In the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, he has a mix of high and low culture, Spanish slang, and Standard English. Instead of Díaz straightforwardly advising the story to the reader, he makes a different approach by talking through the novel's storyteller Yunior. Yunior or “The Watcher” gives examination and analysis to the occasions he is handing-off in the novel. His dialogue regularly expresses code changing, changing quickly from an enthusiastic, loaded with successive use of foulness to...
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...to retain one’s identity; however, as they become more assimilated in their new communities their language no longer reflects that of their identity but of their new cultural surroundings. When an immigrant, immigrates to a new country they become marginalized, they’re alienated from common cultural practices, social ritual, and scripted behavior. It’s not without intercultural communication and negotiation do immigrants conform to new surroundings. In “Drown,” the title story of his narrative collection, Junot Diaz enumerates the story of a Hispanic youth growing up in New Jersey. Though Diaz explores issues of queerness, shamelessness, and familial relations within this selection, it is his use of language that proves most intriguing. Rather than simply describing the struggles of adapting to a new language or customs, Diaz portrays how, at an early age, he manipulated language as a tool to makes sense of his new hybrid identity. The use of language in Junot Diaz’s Drown is spare and unadorned, often rendered in "Spanglish," an unpredictable mixture of both English and Spanish. Diaz uses Spanish words in the midst of standard English sentences to fortify the differences between Dominican and American cultures. Although, the integration of street slang with Spanish may confound the typical reader, it accurately depicts the taxing experience of new immigrants struggling to make sense of new phenomena in the United States and engages the harsh reality of the multilingualism...
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