Wildwood

“Wildwood” is a short story by Junot Diaz that was included as a chapter in his 2007 book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Born in the Dominican Republic, Diaz came to the US as a young boy with his family. In “Wildwood,” he presents issues of immigration, colorism, coming of age, family, and sickness. Diaz centers his stories on the immigrant experience in America and infuses semi-biographical details, though this short story is from a woman’s perspective. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is Diaz’s first novel. “Wildwood” is the book’s second chapter, and it was also published as a short story in the June 11, 2007 issue of The New Yorker magazine. This guide refers to that version.

Language Considerations: Junot Diaz does not use quotation marks to indicate dialogue in this story, and quotations from the source text preserve this choice throughout the guide. While some strong language appears unaltered in direct quotations, the use of racial slurs is obscured. 

“Wildwood” opens with its overarching message: “It’s never the changes we want that change everything” (Paragraph 1). The story begins in the second-person point of view when 12-year-old Lola is summoned to the bathroom by her mother, Belicia. The girl is engrossed in a book, Watership Down, and reluctant to respond until her mother raises her voice. Lola walks into the bathroom and is somewhat startled to find her mother standing before the mirror, naked from the waist up, revealing her large breasts. The narrator suspends the action to describe the enormity and physiology of Belicia’s breasts. So far, Lola looks everything like her mother—tall, dark-skinned, straight black hair—except for the breasts. The contentious and often violent relationship between them makes Lola reluctant when her mother asks her to feel one of her breasts for a knot. In an unusually gentle manner, her mother takes Lola’s hand and guides it to the spot where the girl feels the knot. Almost too excitedly, Lola says she feels it and is struck with an otherworldly sense that something is about to change for her. She’s had premonitions before, but the details of this one are unclear. Soon, her mother undergoes a double mastectomy, and her hair falls out. Belicia saves the fallen hair in a plastic bag. Lola knows for certain that a change is imminent.

Diaz switches to first-person narration, signaling the beginning of Lola’s evolution. She turns into a self-described punk chick, taken to that style of dress and partial to bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees. She stands out in her neighborhood of mostly Puerto Rican families in Paterson, New Jersey. Those kids tease her for her punk hair and clothes and for hanging out with her friend, Karen, who is pale and goth. While the Puerto Rican kids call her “devil bitch,” her mother calls her “fea,” which is Spanish for ugly.

Lola recalls how her mother often reacts with belittling, hitting, biting, throwing shoes or “chanclas,” and landing a “correa” or strap across the body. Lola and her brother, Oscar, are frightened of their mother, who shows none of the affection or nurturing they read about or see on TV. When Lola was eight years old, her pen pal from Japan stopped writing after three letters. Belicia told Lola she would not write her back either. In that same year, Lola was molested by a neighbor. When she finally told her mother what happened, Belicia said to stop crying and shut her mouth. Once, her mother told her she could go to a sixth-grade sleepaway event, then declared she was not going at the last minute, calling her a child of the devil. Lola acknowledges her mother’s resilience after leaving her home in the Dominican Republic to come to the United States alone, raising two children after their father abandoned them, and working as many as three jobs to buy a house.

One day, Lola asks Karen to cut her hair. When Karen questions the request, Lola again gets that excited feeling that something is about to change. As Karen raises the clippers, Lola guides her hand until her hair is gone. Belicia is livid when she sees Lola’s bald head. She throws her wig at her and threatens to kill Lola if she does not wear it every day. Lola burns the wig with the gas burner on the stove. She tosses the flaming wig into the sink just before it burns her hand. Belicia slaps toward Lola, who strikes her mother’s hand.

In the months that follow, the mother and daughter are constantly at odds. Belicia throws away the posters in Lola’s room, threatens to rip up her clothes, and forbids her to work her restaurant job anymore. Lola perseveres and meets 19-year-old Aldo at a club, and eventually they have sex. He lives in Wildwood with his cantankerous father and works near the boardwalk. As the two develop a relationship, things at home continue to spiral for Lola and her family. Belicia works two jobs amid her sickness and is unable to do any of the cooking or cleaning. Lola refuses to do it, and her aunt comes over sometimes to help out. One evening, Belicia sits down at the table with Lola and Oscar and announces that the doctors are running more tests, fearing the cancer is back. Oscar cries, and Lola asks her to pass the salt. Belicia slaps Lola, and the two fight, knocking over the kitchen table. They shriek at each other while Oscar cowers in the corner begging them to stop. Lola tells her mother she hopes she dies from the cancer this time.

Days later, Lola runs away, getting on a bus to the Jersey Shore to live with Aldo and his father. She is unhappy living with Aldo and his father, who expect her to cook for them. Lola feels powerless in her relationship now that Aldo and she have had sex. Lola also worries about her brother. After Aldo makes a racist joke one night, she calls home and speaks to Oscar, who cries. She asks him to meet her at a coffee shop with some clothes, her books, and money from their mother’s stash. He agrees. Lola then dreams up a plan for the two of them to run away together. When the brother and sister meet at the coffee shop, they hug for a long time. Their mother, aunt, and uncle come rushing up. Belicia grabs Lola, but she manages to break free and run. Her mother sprawls to the ground, her wig flies from her head, and she bawls with her head down. Lola looks back to see this and comes to help. Her mother grabs her again with even more fury and sends her to Santo Domingo to live with her grandmother.

Diaz shifts the story to the present tense and the setting to the Dominican Republic, where Lola is going to school, running with the track team, and making new friends. She shifts away from her punk chick phase, wears makeup, and styles her hair. Lola is enjoying life with her Abuela and considers staying beyond the planned six months. Things at home in New Jersey are normal, and Lola speaks to her mother on the phone. She tells her that she would die for her. It is their last conversation. Lola has the recurring premonition of some monumental change yet again. One night after returning home from a date, Lola sees Abuela looking at old photos of her mother, Belicia. She takes in her beauty, and her grandmother tells her that they are more alike than she realizes. Lola assumes she means running away from home. Then Abuela corrects her, saying that she sent Belicia away to protect her and the family from murder after she fell in love with a dangerous man.