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On this page: Biography,Translation of many of the words in the book, Article from Independent UK, Interview, Biography of Trujillo, Dominican Republic facts, Biography: Junot Diaz Born in 1968 in Santo Domingo, Junot Díaz moved to New Jersey at six, where his mother worked on an assembly line; his father drove a forklift. He supported himself while studying English at Rutgers, and completed an MFA at Cornell in 1995. His fiction debut, Drown (1996), led the New Yorker to name him one of the top 20 writers for the 21st century. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Faber) was picked as novel of the year by Time in 2007, and has been optioned by Miramax. Professor of creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is also fiction editor of the Boston Review. He lives in New York and is a resident literary fellow until June at the American Academy in Rome. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/junot-diaz-a-truly-allamerican-writer-789382.html Translation of Many of the Words in the Book by Aliza HausmanAsqueroso: dirty person (masculine)
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| By Paul Jay | April 14, 2008 |
Junot Diaz, who immigrated with his family to the United States from the Dominican Republic when he was 6, teaches creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His new novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award [Editor's Note: as well as the Pulitzer Prize, after ITT went to press] in fiction, tells the story of Oscar, a freakishly overweight young man fixated on computer games, Marvel comics and science fiction. He's ignored by women but obsessed with sex. His life is chronicled by Yunior, the novel's macho narrator, who tries to help Oscar while having an on-again, off-again affair with Oscar's sister, Lola.
Praised for its narrative inventiveness and virtuosic language, the novel shifts deftly between the lives of these teenagers in contemporary New Jersey and the experience of Oscar and Lola's mother, Belicia -- who, 50 years earlier, growing up in the Dominican Republic, was brutalized by a series of men associated with the former Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.
Diaz draws a compelling link between the violent masculinity of Trujillo and his henchmen and the contemporary forces that shape Oscar, Lola and Yunior. At turns outrageously funny and deeply historical, the novel's serious engagement with Oscar's nerdiness is matched by its interest in the persistence of historical memory and the politics of storytelling.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was on nearly everyone's list of the best novels of the year. What do you think is going on culturally, politically or in the world of contemporary literature that explains its popularity?
I wish that it was some sort of sea change, but I'm not so sure. This is the same culture that will turn around next year and nominate and celebrate a deeply conservative, deeply troubling text. I'm not so certain that this concept of linear progress is all that accurate. We have multiple, concurrent strands in literature and sometimes some of these strands are more dominant, and sometimes some of them are more recessive. It's kind of a dance.
We have far more sophisticated readers, whether its readers of literature or television. A serial show like "Lost" or "Heroes" wasn't possible when I was growing up. People weren't prepared to follow a story consistently; there wasn't the technology of DVDs to catch up. We've become much more sophisticated on a narrative level.
But again, I'm not so sure that the political follows hand-in-hand with that kind of narrative sophistication. I'm much more cautious about the politics of a country like ours that continually votes in war-mongering morons. It's made me much more cautious.
You're regularly referred to as a Latino or Dominican-American writer. However, you also seem connected to contemporary transnational writers like Zadie Smith, Hari Kunzru, Mohsin Hamid or Kiran Desai, who are interested in hybridized identities developing in response to globalization. Do you think of yourself as an American writer, a Latino writer or do you relate to these transnational writers?
I was a Dominican kid who immigrated to the United States in the '70s and settled in New Jersey. I was trying to write to that experience. I could never have imagined a Zadie Smith growing up -- that wasn't the sort of thing I was connecting to. I was sort of imagining, 'Could I possibly contain New Jersey and the Dominican Republic?'
Now, the sort of paucity of my vision doesn't de-legitimize this larger claim that there seem to be a lot of people wrestling with this issue. We've been doing this forever. That's the whole project of the New World. But I do think that now there are more languages, more narrative techniques and, like you said, there's a lot more permission. Writers give each other permission to write things. You read someone when you're a kid who is doing something interesting and you're like, "Damn, I can do that, too."
But in the end I am part of a larger movement, and there is a lot of art trying to deal with what you're describing, whether we call it transnationalism or something else.
I'm from a family of illegal immigrants. That's very different from people whose parents were middle class or upper-middle class, South Asian or Caribbean, who came to the "metropole." But it doesn't change the fact that in our own ways and with our own class differences, we're attempting to deal with similar issues.
In your novel, you weave the personal with the political through your treatment of masculinity, drawing a clear line from Trujillo's masculinity to Oscar's and Yunior's. How conscious were you of exploring this through the interrogation of a Dominican or gangster masculinity?
I was obsessed with this idea that all these folks were dealing with this grand narrative of this Trujillo masculinity. What was interesting about this book was that it was making some sort of tremendous, bizarre claims about New World masculinity. I'm fascinated by this stuff because I grew up in a United States where this masculinity is the absolute operational model.
Look, everyone sits around and pretends that we're all in this new age of masculinity and this new age of sensitivity and that the kids don't play football anymore, they play video games, they watch the "X Games."
The truth is that if Trujillo was alive and well, he would feel extremely comfortable in the United States. I mean, for God's sake, the war in Iraq [would be] just perfect: He loved a civic society that misunderstood what it was and he loved an exceptionally violent governing elite.
Oscar's interests mark him as a classic nerd, and for this reason he's tremendously anxious about his masculinity, which the macho Yunior, the narrator, represents. But doesn't Yunior learn a new model of masculinity through his relationship with Oscar?
And from telling the story. Yunior is attempting to unlearn and expiate himself, repent in some way, do penance. But, unfortunately, he's doing it in exactly the same way that the masculinity he's trying to undermine has always perpetuated itself, by being the only voice speaking.
Yunior keeps giving clear messages, that in some ways, "Look, guys, I'm trying to lay out a map of how fucked up I am and how fucked up this is." But the very map is a product of that power, and so is the reader's desire for that authoritative narrative. People want to feel like the person telling them the story has facts.
I was particularly moved by the last page, where Oscar talks about the paramount importance of intimacy. He's been in search of sex, but he discovers intimacy. How did you come to that idea?
I guess I knew it from the beginning. It's basically what's true about every quest narrative. What you discover is that the object of the quest is just a MacGuffin, and that what you learn in the journey is actually what was valuable, but you didn't know it. You were so focused on getting the ring, getting the spear, killing this creature, that you don't realize that there was something else.
Isn't there a political dimension to your emphasis on the importance of intimacy? The hyper-sexuality and violent masculinity we see in Trujillo has seeped into Yunior, and that's politically important because the capacity to experience intimacy is ultimately going to determine the way you exercise political power.
The first rule of intimacy is that you have to drop your performances, that the "masks" have to drop.
This book is filled with characters wearing masks. We're narrative animals, we love to wear masks, that's the way we live. We perform. But yet, it's very difficult to connect without the dropping of masks.
For me, that's the art of stories. Stories are there so you can get to the point where you can finally take off that last mask. That's what growing up is, because when you take your last mask off, you are utterly vulnerable, you are utterly in another person's power.
And what contemporary masculinity, what contemporary power structure, ever puts itself utterly in someone else's power? Isn't storytelling the desire to put everything about the world in your power?
You know, when I write a book, I'm the only one who speaks in it. That's really disturbing, dude. Think about it. It's like a person who is sitting there with little dolls and going, "Hello, Billy, do you want a falafel?" "Yes, I do." There's something really reclusively weird about it.
But I just can't imagine, as a man, you can become a human without encountering other humans, and the only way to encounter a human is by being vulnerable.
Which I would want to connect back to intimacy.
Well, that's it. The access to intimacy is vulnerability.
I think we have a pun here in masculinity spelled with a "k": mask-ulinity.
Well, there's no question about it.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/article/3616/
Rafael Trujillo was born in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic, in 1891. After leaving school he worked as a telegraph operator. At the time Dominican Republic was occupied by the United States. In 1918 Trujillo joined the Dominican National Guard that had been created by the Americans. He made rapid progress in his new career and by the time the US Marines left in 1924 he was the head of the Dominican National Guard.
In 1930 Trujillo ran against incumbent Horacio Vasquez for president. Trujillo was able to use his power to win the election. He afterwards claimed he had won ninety five percent of the vote. After he gained power Trujillo established a secret police force that tortured and murdered the opposition to his rule.
Trujillo used his political control to obtain great personal wealth. He achieved support from the United States by becoming Latin America's leading anti-communists. Cordell Hull, US Secretary of State (1933-1944), defended Trujillo by saying: " He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he is our son-of-a-bitch."
President Dwight Eisenhower began to change his opinion of Trujillo after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro in January, 1959. Eisenhower observed that: "It's certain that American public opinion won't condemn Castro until we have moved against Trujillo."
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also warned Eisenhower that Trujillo was so unpopular in Dominican Republic that it was only a matter of time before he became the victim of a left-wing revolution. Therefore it was suggested that the CIA should become involved in replacing him with a more suitable pro-American supporter. CIA's Black Operations (Executive Action) was brought in to remove Trujillo.
This plan had the support of President Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela. He told Eisenhower: "If you don't eliminate him, we will invade". A training camp was setup in Venezuela by Dominican exiles flown there from the United States and Puerto Rico by the CIA. This group had been recruited from the privileged sectors of Dominican society in order to make sure that the overthrow of Trujillo did not result in the establishment of a communist government.
Rafael Trujillo was assassinated on 30th May 1961 when his car was machine-gunned by a group of men on a quiet road outside the capital. Before the CIA could get their people in power, Rafael Trujillo Jr. rushed home from France and installed himself as the country's new ruler. Over the next six months he executed all his known opponents.
President John F. Kennedy favoured Joachim Balaguer as the temporary ruler of the Dominican Republic. As Kennedy remarked at the time: "Balaguer is our only tool. The anti-communist liberals are not strong enough. We must use our influence to take Balaguer along the road to democracy." To reinforce this policy a US naval task force with 1,800 US Marines aboard appeared off the Dominican coast on 19th November, 1961. As a result Trujillo and his supporters left the country. Once in power Balaguer began deporting all the major left-wing leaders in the Dominican Republic.
Juan Bosch was elected as the new president and took power in February, 1963. He was more left-wing than Kennedy and the CIA wanted. Bosch immediately announced a programme of public works, land reform, low-rent housing and the nationalization of selected businesses. He also ruled that communists and socialists would not be persecuted as long as they obeyed the law. The United States press now began comparing Bosch to Fidel Castro. The Miami News reported that: "Communist penetration of the Dominican Republic is progressing with incredible speed and efficiency."
The CIA now decided to use the Dominican Army to overthrow Bosch. In July, 1963, a group of army officers warned Bosch that the military would only continue to support him if he adopted a policy of "rigorous anti-communism". Bosch responded by going on television to announce that in a democratic society the military must remain out of politics.
Juan Bosch was overthrown as a result of a military coup in September, 1963. Newsweek Magazine reported that: "Democracy was being saved from Communism by getting rid of democracy
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKtrujillo.htm
Dominican Republic Facts
Identification. "Dominicans" is the term used to describe the people of the Dominican Republic. The native population of Taino Indians was decimated during the Spanish Conquest, which began in 1492 and came to be characterized by forced labor and newly introduced diseases. Africans were imported as slaves to replace the Indians on the plantations and in the mines. Today Dominicans physically reflect the ancestry of Europe and Africa; over 70 percent of Dominicans are now officially considered mulatto. Even though the majority of the Dominican people are classified by the government as mulattoes, social status and skin color are correlated, with lighter-skinned Dominicans dominating business, government, and society. Mulattoes constitute most of the Dominican middle class; the working classes are mostly Black or dark mulatto. Other ethnic groups in the Dominican Republic are Lebanese, Chinese, Italians, French, Jews, Japanese, Haitians, and West Indians.
Location. The island of Hispaniola, one of the Greater Antilles, lies between Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea. The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern two-thirds (i.e., 48,464 square kilometers) of Hispaniola and is strikingly diverse geographically. The Dominican Republic contains mountain ranges interspersed with fertile valleys, lush rain forests, semiarid deserts, rich farmlands, and spectacular beaches. The western third of the island of Hispaniola is the nation of Haiti.
Many Dominicans have migrated to other countries in search of employment and increased opportunity. Between 5 and 8 percent of the population of the Dominican Republic live and work in the United States—most of them in New York City, but substantial numbers have also settled in New Jersey and Florida. Migration between the Dominican Republic and other islands of the Caribbean is less well documented.
Demography. There were about 7,915,000 Dominicans in 1993. About half of them lived in the campo (countryside) and worked mainly as peasant farmers. Because of the relative poverty in the countryside, more and more Dominicans have migrated to cities such as Santo Domingo (the capital city), Santiago de los Caballeros, La Vega, San Francisco de Macorís, La Romana, and Puerto Plata on the north coast.
During the period of Rafael Trujillo's rule, from 1930 to 1961, Dominican immigration to the United States was severely limited, given Trujillo's domestic agenda, which depended on a steady supply of an expendable labor source. Dominicans did migrate however, even with Trujillo's restrictive policies. Between 1950 and 1960, almost 10,000 Dominicans emigrated to the United States and became legal residents. Following the overthrow of Trujillo in 1961 and the lifting of his restrictive policies, migration to the United States increased substantially. Between 1961 and 1981, 255,578 legal immigrants entered the United States from the Dominican Republic. It is much more difficult to estimate the number of undocumented Dominicans in the United States. Reports suggest that Dominicans are third among immigrant groups from Latin America admitted into the United States. The economic crisis of the early 1980s has further increased the number of Dominicans seeking to emigrate to the United States. Research suggests that those Dominicans who succeed in doing so are most often young, predominantly urban in origin, often skilled and semiprofessional, and better educated than Dominican nonmigrants.
In 1993 the crude birthrate in the Dominican Republic was 25.2 per thousand, the crude death rate was 5.8 per thousand, the infant mortality rate was 49.3 per thousand, and total life expectancy at birth was 69 years.
Linguistic Affiliation. Spanish is the language spoken by Dominicans. Although there are some regional dialects of Spanish in the Dominican Republic, Dominicans pride themselves on the "purity" of their Spanish. Dominican Spanish is considered by some to be perhaps the clearest, most classical Spanish spoken in Latin America. According to some authors, this may be the result of the virtual elimination of the native population and the fact that the Dominican Republic was the first Spanish-settled colony in the New World.
http://www.everyculture.com/Middle-America-Caribbean/Dominicans-Orientation Asqueroso: dirty person (masculine)
Abuela: grandmother
Ande: to go, to travel
Abrazo: hug
Alegre: happy
Azaroso: unfortunate, disgraceful person (masculine)
Algiuen: someone
Arroz: rice
Amor: love
Azabaches: a fossilized form of wood that is black in color and is carved and polished into pieces of jewelry to protect against the evil eye
Asesino: killer
Acabaron: finished
Acabar: finish
Aqui: here
Bueno: good
Buenmoso: handsome
Blanquito: white boy
Barrio: neighborhood
Brutos: stupid people (masculine)
Brutas: stupid people (feminine)
Bebe: baby
Que dios te bendiga: God should bless you (response to “bendicion”)
Bendicion: blessing
Bacalao: dried salt cod
Bachata: a type of music
Braceros: migrant worker, laborer
Burbuja: bubble, blister
Bailarina: ballet dancer
Bella: beautiful
Bochinche: gossip
Boca: mouth
Bien: good
Ciguapas: mythological creature of Dominican folklore. They are commonly described as having human female form with brown or dark blue skin, backward facing feet, and very long manes of smooth, glossy hair that covers their otherwise naked bodies. They supposedly inhabit the high mountains of the Dominican Republic.
Cuidate: Take care
Cuero: slut
Correa: belt
(el) cuco: a mythical monster, a ghost, witch; equivalent to the boogeyman found in many Hispanic and Lusophone countries
Coje: take
Culo: butt (slang)
Cabeza: head
Chancletas: slippers, sandals
Caramba: exclamation of surprise or dismay, darn! heck!
Cibaeños: northern Dominicans, from el Cibao
Chinos: Chinese people
Con: with
Candela: candle
Comunista: communist
Chulo: sexy guy
Caracol: snail, seashell, ringlet
Capaz: capable
Clavo: nail
Comparona: snotty girl
Ciclon: cyclone
Capitalenos: people from the capital
Campesinos: country-dweller
Colmado: store?
Cabana: hut
Capitan: Captain
Comeme: Eat me
Campo: countryside
Compañero: companion
Cochinos: dirty people (masculine)
Coño: damn
Chacabana: type of shirt
Cuarenta: 40
Cojones: testicles, courage
Carajito: the most common way a Dominican would refer to a child whose name he or she doesn't know
Corona: crown
Callejon: alley
Culenado: ?
Chica: girl
Dale: give
Dique: like
Diosa: goddess
Dios: god
Diablo: devil
Dentista: dentist
Diario: diary
Digas: speak
Desgraciado: disgraceful person (masculine)
Dura: hard (feminine)
Diaburlas: ?
Dulces: sweets, candies
Dejame: leave me
Doña: title of courtesy preceding a woman’s first name
Dime: tell me
Dio: gave
Delincuencia: delinquency
Dolores: pains
Dos: two
Esta: this, these
Eres: are
El: he
Ella: she
Existe: exists
Exigente: demanding
Esponja: sponge
Esa: her, that woman
Esposa: wife
Esto: this
Encendida: passionate, burning, flushed
Entiendes: understand
Educado: educated
Fuku: ? I think he made this up?
Fua: bam!
Fea: ugly (feminine)
Flaca: skinny female
Fulano: that person, that someone
Feminino: feminine
Fuera: away, outside
Fuego: fire
Guapo: handsome male
Guapa: handsome female
Galletazo: great big slap
Gordo: fat male
Gran: big
Ganas: desires
Gallo: chicken
Gallear: to show off
Gringo: white male
Hombre: men
Hija: daughter
Hijo: son
Hambre: hungry
Hermanita: little sister
Hamaca: hammock
Haitianos: haitians
Infierno: hell
Insuperable: insufferable
Jodido: screwed (masculine)
Jurona: savage animal?
Jefe: boss
Jodiendome: bothering with me
Jodas: f--k
Jipeta: jeep
Junta: military government coalition
Llamas: calls
Lambesacos: see document
Muchacho: boy
Muchacha: girl
Maldito: maldito:
Meteselo: Shove it
Moreno: dark-skinned male
Mio: mine
Mami: mom, sexy girl
Madre: mother
Malecon: street along the seawall
Maestra: teacher
Mesera: waitress
Mas: more
Mujer: woman
Monita: monkey girl
Mataron: killed
Madrugada: early morning, day break
Maldito seas: damn you, dammit
Mamahuevo: see document
Muy: very
Maricon: faggot
Mariconsito: little faggot
Muchachita: little girl
Merengue: a type of music
Mirador: lookout
Madrinas: godmothers
Malapalabras: bad words
Negra: black female
Nino: boy
Negrita: little black female or affectionately black female
Novio: boyfriend
Norte: north
Numero: number
Puta: slut
Perrito: little dog
Puerca: pig female
Paliza: beating, pummeling
Pariguayo: weak man, coward
Pequena: small (female)
Pulperia: small grocery store
Princesa: princess
Paso: pass
Pendejada:
Parque: park
Pista: trail
Popola: female sexual organ
Pela: beating
Prendas: jewelry
Primavera: Spring
Palacio: palace
Pendeja: moron, idiot (feminine)
Plataneros: people of the plaintain
Politicos: politicians
Preocupas: preoccupied
Peledista: (According to helpful commentator, Joe) a member of the Dominican Liberation Party. The PLD, as it is known in Spanish, is the political party of current president Leonel Fernandez Reyna.
Pobre: poor
Paja: straw
Plantado: planted
Pulpo: octopus
Pollo: chicken
Pana: corduroy
Paloma: dove
Pueblo: people, village
Semana: week
Santa: saint
Senora: woman
Sancocho: to parboil, traditional soup/stew
Santisimo: sacred?
Sindicatos: union, guild
Saca: to pull out
Sueno: dream
Sola: alone (female)
Senorita: young girl, young woman
Surenos: southern
Serio: series
Supermercado: supermarket
Sientase: felt like
Sacrificio: sacrifice
Tio: uncle
Tia: aunt
Tu: you
Tuya: yours (feminine)
Tesoro: treasure
Tengo: have
Tranquilidad: tranquility
Tetas: breasts
Tetua: big breasted female
Todavia: still, yet
Tienes: have, has
Taza: cup
Tormenta: turmoil, storm
Traquila: tranquil female
Todopoderoso: all powerful
Tranquilisate: calm down
Toto: derogatory term for vagina
Taxista: taxi driver
Uno: one
Una: one (female)
Unica: only (female)
Vayanse: leave!
Veras: you will see
Ven: come
Verguenza: disgrace
Viejos: old males
Vieja: old females
Zafa: to loosen
Zangana: drone
Lo siento: I’m sorry
No lo pareces: you don’t look it
Poco hombre: barely a man
Pan de agua: bread of water
Gente de calidad: quality people
Fuera de serio: out of series this is the author of the blog
Aliza Hausman Biography
Only the juicy tidbits you really need to know....
Aliza Hausman is a native New Yorker and first-generation American of Dominican descent. She was raised a skeptic Catholic on the "Dominican side" of Washington Heights. Leaving the neighborhood at 14 for the Bronx, she would return as an adult to join the "Jewish side" of the Washington Heights community to complete her conversion to Orthodox Judaism. During the conversion process, Aliza taught English at a NYC public high school (infamous for a school shooting) and completed a Master's degree in Adolescent Education.
Before pursuing her teaching career, Aliza worked as a Copy Editor at America Online and an assistant at a telecommunications company along with various other Administrative and Editorial Assistant positions in publishing. In the past, Aliza has interned, freelanced and worked part-time at publications like CosmoGIRL! magazine, Seventeen magazine and New York Family magazine.
At 17, while pursuing a Fashion Illustration major at the High School of Art & Design, Aliza ran away from home. Aliza returned to help one sister escape the same home. Two weeks later, Aliza, an undergraduate at Fordham University, kidnapped her fourteen-year-old sister. Fighting her abusive mother for custody for three years, Aliza won and was named her sister's legal guardian. A short documentary about the story behind the custody case was filmed to help promote In Motion, the organization that helped Aliza obtain legal counsel.
Debilitating fibromyalgia at 25 ended Aliza's illustrious teaching career but led to incredible new opportunities. Aliza married a "nice Jewish boy," a rabbinical student who whisked her away from her life of Manhattan cockroaches to the less than boogie down Bronx. With her husband's support, Aliza returned to her love of writing and began a burgeoning career as a freelance writer.
Today, Aliza writes about race, culture, religion, community, family, relationships, films and pop culture. She blogs daily on her personal blog, Memoirs of a Jewminicana. She has also been published in Latina magazine, The Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Chronicle, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Jewish Living magazine, Interfaithfamily.com, TheJewishWoman.org magazine (Chabad.org), The Jewish Planet, Chicago Jewish News, PresenTense magazine, the YU Commentator: Kol Hamevaser, New York Family magazine, New York Family Brooklyn magazine, Tail Slate magazine, Tertulia Magazine, Verdad Magazine and other publications. She also speaks on request, often with her husband, on Jewish conversion, race, culture and all the other issues she loves to write (and talk) about.
Aliza is currently writing a memoir about her conversion to Orthodox Judaism.
