Cultural Hybridity: The Latino Youth’s Search for Identity

The word “Latino” encompasses a large variety of cultures, and as a result, Latino literature covers just as broad a field. Mexico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic are just a few of the countries whose cultures are represented in this genre of literature. Regardless of the many unique aspects of these cultures, many of the novels coming out of Latino identities share very similar themes. Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz writes about a Dominican-American boy named Oscar, who struggles with depression and obesity, and obsesses over women in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Oscar tries to make sense of his Dominican values and his American interests, and in the end, cannot make sense of either. In Rudolfo Anaya’s novel Bless Me, Ultima, Mexican-American Antonio must chose between his mother’s and father’s wishes for his future, and choose whose culture is the most important to him. Pilar, a young Cuban-American in Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban, must learn to reconcile her mother’s American dreams and her grandmother’s Cuban lifestyle. Despite the differences in cultures, languages, and locations, these four novels in Latino literature are strung together by the quest for identity. In these examples of Latino literature, the coming of age journeys of the Latino characters requires them to reconcile their traditional home culture and the American culture they are immersed in to create their own hybrid culture.

In the United States, it used to be commonplace for immigrants to abandon their identities upon arrival and to quickly assimilate to the standard American culture of the time. According to William Deresiewicz in his article "Fukú Americanus," published in The Nation in 2007, the immigration experience is very different from once was. Deresiewicz writes that in the “nineteenth and early twentieth centuries left their homelands, they left them forever” (36). Now, Deresiewicz notes that immigrants hold on to their home cultures more, and as a result, cultural “assimilation is less certain” (36). Even families that have lived in the US for multiple generations may feel that they “remain suspended between two places” (36). Deresiewicz goes on to say that European immigrants do not feel this suspension between two places as much as Caribbean immigrants do, because of the distance between their country of origin and their new lives. On the other hand, Caribbean roots and “lands are so close” that immigrants’ “status and plans are so often unclear” (36). Deresiewicz’s claims can be easily applied to Pilar, whose parents come from Cuba, and Oscar, whose mother comes from the Dominican Republic. Although Antonio’s family is not from a Caribbean nation, he and his family still fits into Deresiewicz’s theory as Mexico’s proximity contributes to the unclear status and plans of many Mexican immigrants. Pilar, Oscar, and Antonio all experience a suspension between two places and two cultures, especially as they begin creating their own identities separate from those of their parents. However, rather than picking either their home identity or the American identity, these characters all strive to create a new hybrid identity that combines both.

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Oscar spends his entire life trying to balance the Dominican expectations of his family and his immersion in American culture. Deresiewicz says that Oscar’s is an American story overshadowed by a Dominican one (39). Because of this, his “divided identity” makes Oscar, “as a character…remain something of a blank” (39, 41). Throughout the novel, Oscar tries to figure out which culture will save him from being a blank. When Oscar was only seven years old, his family members embedded aspects of their home culture in his mind. His uncle, Tío Rudolfo, was one of the only male role models available to Oscar in his youth—and he served as the perfect icon of a machismo Dominican man. At many of the many parties that Oscar went to, his tío or “some drunk relative inevitably pushed Oscar onto some little girl” and everyone else would laugh as the children “approximated the hip-motism of the adults” (Díaz 12). Oscar’s love for females began with encounters like those, and through his younger years he “had ‘girlfriends’ galore” (Díaz 12). His Dominican family loved that Oscar was acting like “a ‘normal’ Dominican boy,” and his “nascent pimp-liness was encouraged by blood and friends alike” (Díaz 11). Although he did not realize it at the time, Oscar was strictly adhering to the Dominican ideals of machismo that his family instilled in him.

As Oscar grew older, he left his Dominican machismo behind. His interests shifted from his family’s Dominican machismo to the new American trends of comics and science fiction. According to Yunior, the narrator of Oscar’s story, “Oscar had always been a young nerd…but by high school his commitment…had become absolute” (Díaz 20). Tío Rudolfo was replaced a collection of white males ranging from Asimov to Tolkien to the Marvel superheroes. As American nerd culture of comics and science fiction begin to consume Oscar’s interest, his Dominican roots get left behind. Suddenly, he has a “triple-zero batting average with the ladies” and because he is Dominican, “everybody noticed his lack of game” (Díaz 24). Tío offers him advice, but Oscar’s nerd-dom has destroyed any “game” he may have had. Every time he tries to talk to a girl now, he ends up scaring her away with nerd culture references, such as “If you were in my game I would give you an eighteen Charisma!” (Díaz 174). Oscar’s inability to get a girlfriend is extremely detrimental to his self-esteem, making him depressed and eventually leading to his attempted suicide.

For Oscar, the American nerd culture he has adopted distances him from his family’s Dominican macho culture. Strong role models from each culture, Tío Rudolfo and his Abuela as well as his many comic book and science fiction characters, beg for Oscar’s alliance and adherence to their values. Eventually, the attempt to reconcile American and Dominican culture becomes too much for Oscar and in trying to please both, he overdoes it and consequently gives up. For Oscar, there were too many standards and ideals presented by his family and America, and he could not resolve their conflicting interests—women and fantasy—to create a new identity for himself. In the end, Oscar dies. His death does not happen entirely of his own free will, yet it is obviously connected to his lack of cultural grounding and his need to prove himself worthy of both cultures—an impossible task when trying to adhere to all the ideals from each culture. It appears that sometimes cultures are too strong to be melded into a hybrid culture.

Although Pilar in Dreaming in Cuban must also reconcile her traditional home culture and American culture, she succeeds where Oscar could not. When Pilar was very young, she chose to follow her Abuela Celia’s traditional Cuban culture rather than her mother Lourdes’s American culture. Before she even knew what the word atheist meant, Lourdes told Pilar that her grandmother was one, and Pilar “knew immediately it was what [I] wanted to become” (Garcia 175). Even without understanding the meaning of culture or beliefs, Pilar chooses her grandmother’s culture first. According to Rocío G. Davis in her article, “Back to The Future: Mothers, Languages, And Homes In Cristina García's Dreaming In Cuban," Pilar identifies with her grandmother “for roots and connectedness,” which she cannot get from her mother (66). Later, Pilar begins to develop reasoning for her adherence to her traditional Cuban culture and resists her mother’s culture. Davis writes that he process of creating one’s own identity involves “pain and resistance,” which shows itself as Pilar hurts her mother (61). Teenaged Pilar makes fun of her mother in her “auxiliary police” uniform, preparing herself “to fight the communists when the time came” (Garcia 132). Pilar has learned about Cuba and the politics there that her mother so strongly disagrees with, even going so far as to give her mother a “book of essays on Cuba called A Revolutionary Society,” which her mother then destroys (Garcia 132). It is only once Pilar goes to Cuba itself that she realizes that Cuban culture is not as ideal as she once held it to be. She tells the reader that now, Cuba feels “kind of dead to me” (Garcia 137). Instead of staying with her grandmother in Cuba, she decides that she belongs in the US. She occasionally longs for its culture, but “every day Cuba fades a little more inside me” (Garcia 138). Davis writes that mother-daughter texts “tend to favor the pattern of separation and later bonding,” noting that Garcia never brings the bonding to completion, only leads up to the moment of reconciliation (67). At the end of the novel, Pilar is now closer to her mother, even her “breathing falls in time with [her] mother’s,” and is realizing the good of the American culture, but still has not made the transition to bonding with her mother or her culture (Garcia 221).

As Pilar realizes the flaws in the Cuban culture and the benefits of the American culture, she begins to meld the two together. Although she now sees the validity and importance of her mother’s American culture, Pilar does not know how to combine the cultures. Instead of immediately adapting her own culture to parts of American culture, Pilar starts by showing her respect to both cultures. When Pilar’s mother asks her “to paint a mural for her second Yankee Doodle Bakery,” Pilar agrees to do it (Garcia 138). Although Pilar does not completely respect the Statue of Liberty that her mother requests her paint, she feels “guilty in [her] own way” at her take on the American icon (Garcia 177). Pilar goes to her mother in the early morning, after she “can’t sleep all night thinking maybe this time [she’s] gone too far” (Garcia 143). The remorse that Pilar feels is proof that she is growing more sympathetic to her mother’s views and the American culture. Davis writes that it is here that the reader learns through Pilar the “distinction between division and differentiation, understanding that while division prevails there can never be completion” (61). By this, Davis means that it is acceptable to have differences, but that differentiation is not a separation, but a “particular way of being connected to others” (61). The ability to see the good in different cultures is an important step in integrating both cultures into one’s new culture. As Pilar continues to see the good in her mother’s culture, she will continue incorporating it into her life; by combining her mother’s and grandmother’s cultures in harmony, Pilar will create her own hybrid culture.

Rather than the combination of different countries’ values, Antonio in Bless Me, Ultima struggles between the cultures of his parents. Even though his parents are only two people, the differences of their cultures can be seen as a metaphor for the differences between Mexican and American cultures. His mother is a Luna, “the daughter of farmers”; his father is a Márez, a “vaquero” and a man of the llano (Anaya 8). According to Debra Black in "Times Of Conflict: Bless Me, Ultima As A Novel Of Acculturation,” the Márez and Luna cultures will have to become acculturated. Black writes that this requires “some form of change within one of these groups must result from the contact” (146). Typically, the weaker culture will submit to the stronger culture, but in Antonio’s parents’ case, both cultures remain strong. Although his parents are married and have learned to accept parts of each other’s culture, both his mother and his father try to instill their cultural values in Antonio. Antonio’s father wants him to grow up to “make a fine vaquero” (Anaya 5). Meanwhile, his mother wants Antonio to be a “man of the people, and perhaps a priest” (Anaya 8). Although Antonio is so young, the novel makes it clear that he “will serve as a bridge between the two cultures he inhabits, being a part of both” (Black 150).

Throughout the novel, Antonio is constantly being tugged in both directions, and feels at a loss, as he wants to please both of his parents, and in turn, both of the cultures he is a part of. For a while, Antonio chooses the Luna way of life, working with his uncles at their farm, being deemed a priest by his peers and finding solace in Catholicism. However, the appeal of the Luna culture soon fades. At church, Antonio called out to God, “but there was no answer. Only emptiness…It was over” (Anaya 211). For Antonio, the Church no longer can satisfy his needs of living a complete life. It is only now that he realizes that there is a third way, one that chooses neither his father nor mother over the other. His father admits that while he has tried to lead his own life, he must also give “other men room and respect to live theirs” (Anaya 217). Although his father is talking to Ultima, the message is also passed on to Antonio, who is no longer being forced in the directions of Márez or Luna. Antonio realizes that he has learned vital things from his mother and his father, such as love of the earth, and the importance of family (Anaya 220). Bless Me, Ultima shows how the future of the family, as seen in Antonio, must forge “a collective identity that reveals a search for a distinctive identification and a recognition of cultural differences” (Black 161). It is only once Antonio realizes this that he must love and become part of both his Márez and Luna roots that he comes of age. Through Ultima’s guidance and help, Antonio realizes that both cultures are alive within him and he must embrace them both, creating a new hybrid culture, in order to live fully and “love life” (Anaya 247).

The formation of identity is the most pivotal part of any young person’s coming of age, but it is especially so for Latino youth. Living between two different identities and cultures—American and the culture of their home and family—Latinos must reconcile the differences between these differing cultures they are a part of. Often, Latinos go through a period of disliking their family culture, then move into a period of realizing that their home culture has its good points, and then finally move into a period where they create a blend of the two cultures in their lives. Davis writes it is of utmost important for those caught between two cultures to see differences not as division. For some, such as Oscar, the two cultures may be too strong and the task of creating a hybrid culture becomes too daunting and ends abruptly without reconciliation. But for other Latinos, combining the two parent cultures into a hybrid culture that allows them to move freely between both cultures is the final test of their maturity and newfound adulthood. As we can see through the examples of Pilar and Antonio, the opportunity to identify the valuable parts of each culture and incorporate those into one’s own hybrid culture is an exhilarating coming of age experience.



Works Cited
Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima. Berkeley: TQS Publications, 1991.
Black, Debra B. "Times Of Conflict: Bless Me, Ultima As A Novel Of Acculturation." Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe 25.2 (2000): 146-162. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
Davis, Rocío G. "Back To The Future: Mothers, Languages, And Homes In Cristina García's Dreaming In Cuban." World Literature Today: A Literary Quarterly Of The University Of Oklahoma 74.1 (2000): 60-68. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
Deresiewicz, William. "Fukú Americanus." Nation 285.17 (2007): 36-41. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. London: Faber and Faber, 2008.
Garcia, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.

The Mongoose in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

In Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, he includes many footnotes to explain Dominican history, nerd culture, and anything else the author finds important. One of the footnotes that caught my attention the most was one explaining “the Mongoose” that keeps appearing as a savior character in the book.

A mongoose is a small, ferocious animal that lives in Southern Europe and Asia, and in Africa. This carnivore, which looks similar to a weasel, was also introduced to many of the Caribbean islands by settlers from across the ocean.

The Mongoose appears in many folktales, seemingly originating in India (as Díaz’s footnote says). The first Mongoose folktale can be found in the Panchatantra, which is a legendary Indian collection of short stories, estimated to be written around 200 BC. This link is a video representation of the story, told in the original Hindi. For an English version of the story, you can read the Mongoose story from the Panchatantra translated here.

The Mongoose story was so popular and well-known that European men heard and recorded the tale. Rudyard Kipling, perhaps best known for The Jungle Book and Just So Stories, wrote the story of the Mongoose in “Rikki Tikki Tavi,” a short story that appears in The Jungle Book (click here for the best part of the movie adaptation).

The most interesting connection between that I have made between the Mongoose story and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the moral at the end of the folk tale. It says that it is best to not make hasty decisions that you may regret later. The Mongoose appears to Beli and Oscar, and when it does, it seems to be directly responding to each character making a hasty decision that they will regret later. For Beli, it is after she proudly talks about having an affair with a powerful government man and disrespecting his wife. She made a rash decision to openly admit to such an affair. For Oscar, it is as he is standing on the bridge, waiting to jump to his death. The Mongoose appears and keeps him from dying, only injuring himself, and Oscar gets to continue living. Later, the Mongoose appears again in the canefield after Oscar is beaten the first time, a result of his blatant interest and love for Ybón, the girlfriend of a policeman. With each of these appearances, the people the Mongoose appears to have just made hasty decisions that they will soon regret.