How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)

Campo is the Spanish word meaning “the field.” The fact that this term is mentioned in a separate language distances the reader and the narrator from the idea or image associated with the word. It appears in reference to the narrator playing in said field with “half-naked kids dragging a goat on a rope” (Paragraph 2). The narrator’s active choice in phrasing makes a distinction between the familiar environment of New Jersey and his homeland of the Dominican Republic. This effectively shows one of the subtle ways that the narrator distances himself from the idea of being an immigrant.

This potentially offensive term is given to the girl who has a white mother and a Latinx father. The multiracial girl who is identified with this term has the most consistent characterization in the text. Yet, she is also a character who seems just as ambivalent about her racial identity as the narrator.

The Spanish term malcriado translates to spoiled in English, and it is a term that the narrator’s mother applies to him when he feigns illness to stay home for his date. The connection between the