Drown

This theme is most powerfully explored in “Fiesta, 1980,” “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie,” and “Drown,” but is at least partially a theme in the majority of stories in the collection.

In “Fiesta, 1980,” we see a preadolescent Yunior being relentlessly policed by his father, as Ramón attempts to initiate Yunior into the cult of masculinity through brute force and psychological abuse. Yunior, a sensitive and frail boy, fails at performing the masculinity that his older brother, Rafa, so flawlessly and naturally embodies. This makes Yunior Ramón’s target. Ramón, a prototypical hypermasculine man, views Yunior as a failure, and seeks to get him in line through physical and emotional abuse. Tellingly, he hopes that this abuse will shape Yunior into a more “ideal” young man. Through this toxic dynamic, Díaz forwards the thesis that a prototypical masculine identity is a form of abuse which hurts all men, seeking to turn them into unfeeling predators who scapegoat each other in a self-perpetuating toxic cycle in order to meet with the supposed ideals of stoic and strong manhood.

“How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie” sees Yunior internalizing the dictums of hypermasculinity, fastidiously coaching himself to uphold the sharply proscribed and narrow definitions of heterosexual manhood.