Reviews
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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I was fortunate enough to be in college during the ‘great’ 90’s boom of Latino fiction where Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love(Oscar Hijuelos, 1990), The House On Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros, 1984, 1991) and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent (Julia Alvarez, 1992) reigned as champions of some sort of supposed new rise in of Latino American literary culture. As a young man thirsty to see my own alongside Baldwin, Kafka, Neruda, and Wright, I embraced and jumped head first into this Latino literary “boom”. Yet for some reason, I left feeling a little empty, a little unsatisfied. In pure demographics, I think it achieved that boom, but as a literary rise, I think it came short.
For one, the one critique was that the market had a stronger role in shaping this “rise” than the movement itself did, focusing mostly on female writers (Julia Alvarez, Cristina Garcia, Sandra Cisneros, etc.) with the occasional droplets of male voice. This focus of attention on female writers reminds me of how most of us get through the major mass market media, where females are the first “presenters” of culture to mainstream TV, Film, and Literature (Rita Moreno, Charro, Eva Morales, J-Lo, Shakira, Selena, etc.) Juxtapose this with a “(white) man” dominated publishing market; letting “the fellas” in would be somewhat threatening? Also, the underepresentation of males places us further away from visibility on intellectual terrain, diminishing our roles in, and contributions to, the mainstream. I do not think this is exclusive to Latinos as you can see the biggest stars for other identity groups, especially in literary circles, seem to be overrepresented by females.
The other issue is that most of these books’ subject matter focused primarily on the negotiation and admission to assimilation/acculturation in a linear/dichotomous view of a US Latino identity, where each of these books have their protagonists resolve their issues on a scale between US and Latino culture. As a result, most of the work felt like we got defeated, eventually, by gringo culture, that we had to find a resolution on how these cosmic forces of immigration, language, exploitation and racism have affected us. It felt like we were defenseless against the forces around us.
My final gripe with the works of the past, which now extends to what I see as the genesis of Latino literature, Piri Tomas’s Down These Mean Streets (1967) is the use of language. I felt very proud that these authors used “our words” in the mostly English texts. Yet, it felt soo much like sprinkles of authenticity, a “lets teach these gringos some Spanish words” approach. I kept asking myself if most of the words written in Spanish could have simply been kept in English and not lose any value. I know there were some words here and there that couldn’t be translated. But for the most part, I felt like we were tokenizing our words, we kept the English syntax and grammar “standards” and threw the Spanish (mostly colloquial, street, or slang… in comparison to proper English) words in for some spicy flavor to show we are “caliente!!!”
But now we have The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao! And what a glorious piece of writing it is. I have not seen so many hyper-specific references to all our inter and intra-cultures as much as this book. I’ve never felt more comfortable with the use of Spanish, the complexity of how our cultures are presented. For instance, using Sci-fi, Hip Hop, Street, and college contexts removes the dichotomous and tokenized feel of previous Latino based literature as we see a multiplicity of cultures shaped not just by race or history, but by interests, SES, Popular Culture, and so forth. The book’s scope covers various themes and subgenres of literature which allows 2nd generation Latinos (like myself) to feel the immigrant experience and not be on the outside of it, as we see multiple entry points of the United States between characters. It resonates, legacy, cultural fantasy, cultural code switching and all who we are with ease.
It’s this disregard of traditional barriers of navigation and the ease of code-switching between subgenres and subcultures that makes the book wonderful. I remember seeing B-Boy Latinos who didn’t dress like Black B-Boys. I see Reggaeton as a removed version of “Rudeboy Culture”, which Hip Hop was to Dancehall in the 80’s. I remember seeing the occasional Indian or Puerto Rican Goth in the clubs. I also remember seeing the highly acculturated Latino who lives with the most down family. These ruffles present our people as complex hybrids of hybrids… a truer expression of Latinidades. Intra-differences among family and friends, alongside parallels between generations shows a circular motion, where we progress as a wheel moving forward, yet returning to common themes and elements over and over again. Diaz’s writing,offers multiple lines of entry to our cultures and histories, showing multiple representations and interpretations of us. It is this ease that I relate to most of all. It feels as comfortable and liberating as I know we are. We are all of it simultaneously, without remorse, regret, or a sense of defeat because as much as I may like Star Trek or the Beastie Boys, I also like Immortal Technique and Tego Calderon just the same.
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