“En los barrios de guapos no se vive tranquilo”1 Engendered Spaces in Puerto Rican Diasporic Short Stories
Oscar Alejandro Orlando / S3448576
Vera Alexander, Senior Lecturer; Secretary of the Programme Committee MA in Literary Studies; Exchange Coordinator for English; MA-Coordinator
18 June 2018
Word Count (including notes but not appendices and bibliography): 16,422
Master’s Thesis Literary Studies Track: English Literature and Culture. University of Groningen. Keywords: space; place; gender; US Literature; Latino Literature; Hispanic Literature; Puerto Rico;
Puerto Rican writers; female writers; diaspora; minorities; home; homeland; community
Abstract
This paper focuses on how Puerto Rican writers living in the United States write about their homes, community, and homeland. In looking at these three spaces, I explore how these writers are influenced by gender norms.
To help me in this exploration, I rely on the research of pioneering thinkers on space and place, such as Yi-Fu Tuan, Edward Relph, and Tim Cresswell, and modern geographers Mona Domosh, Joni Saeger, and James Tyner to analyze the space created by these writers.
I focus on six short stories published between 1983 and 1994. The stories encompass a wide variety of themes yet are bound by the Puerto Rican homeland. Three of the stories are written by female authors: Aurora Levins Morales’ “A Remedy for Heartburn,” Nicholasa Mohr’s “‘Happy Birthday,’” and Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “Monologue of the Spanish Gentleman.” These narratives are set in the past, inside of the home and with bounteous description of Puerto Rico. In striking contrast, the stories of Jack Agüeros’ “Dominoes,” Edward Rivera’s “In Black Turf,” and Abraham Rodríguez Jr.’s “The Boy Without A Flag,” set their stories in the present time, mostly outside the home and with little reference to Puerto Rico.
I conclude that the home, the community and the homeland are significantly engendered. Furthermore, I conclude that patriarchy and economic factors influence the distinctive perceptions of the female and male authors.
Acknowledgments
In keeping with the theme of my paper, I would like to acknowledge the following places: my home, the coffee spots within Groningen, and my schools.
First, I would not have been able to embark on this yearlong master’s if it were not for the support our home has provided. I am grateful for the love and support my wife has provided as we have gone through this journey. This has been a wonderful year as we brought meaning to our first home and we welcomed our second child.
Additionally, I want to acknowledge my workspaces. The cafés of the
binnenstad with their unlimited Wi-Fi, good coffee and atmosphere have allowed me
to work in an environment in which I work best, a busy one.
Lastly, I want to thank the schools that have fostered my pursuit of the English language. I’m referring to those in which I was a student and those in which I was given the opportunity to teach. Specifically, I want to thank the Hanzehogeschool and the University of Groningen (as well as their respective coffee spots).
Calle Luna, Calle Sol
Mete la mano en el bolsillo
Saca y abre tu cuchillo y ten cuidao Pónganme oído en este barrio Muchos guapos lo han matao Calle Luna, calle sol.
Calle Luna, calle sol.
Oiga señor si usted quiere su vida Evitar es mejor o la tienes perdida Mire señora agarre bien su cartera No conoce este barrio aquí asaltan a cualquiera
En los barrios de guapos no se vive tranquilo
Mide bien tus palabras o no vales ni un kilo.
Camina pa'lante no mires para el'lao Oye camina no mires pal lao
Camina pa'lante no mires para el'lao Tú tiene un santo pero no eres babalao Camina pa'lante no mires para el'lao Y ten cuidao y ten cuidao
Camina pa'lante no mires para el'lao Cuidao saca tu coco pelao
Camina pa'lante no mires para el'lao Camina pa'lante babalao
Camina pa'lante no mires para el'lao Saca los bolsillos tú estás arrancao Camina pa'lante no mires para el'lao Dile que fuiste a La Perla y pelao te han dejao
Camina pa'lante no mires para el'lao
Put your hands in your pocket
Take out your knife, open in it and be careful Take my advice in this neighborhood Many bad-asses have been killed
Calle Luna, calle sol. Calle Luna, calle sol.
Listen mister, if you love your life
Avoidance is best or you will loose your life Listen lady, grab your purse tightly
You don’t know this neighborhood here they rob anyone
In the bad-ass neighborhoods life is not peaceful
Measure your words carefully or you ain’t worth shit
Walk straight don't stare Listen walk don't stare Walk straight don't stare
You have your saint but your are not Babalao2 Walk straight don't stare
And be careful and be careful Walk straight don't stare Careful got you scalped Walk straight don't stare Walk straight Babalao Walk straight don't stare
Empty your pockets you are fucked Walk straight don't stare
Tell them you went to La Perla3 and scalped you got
Walk straight don't stare (Translation mine)
-Willie Colon and Héctor Lavoe,
2 Babaloa is a Yoruba deity. 3 San Juan neighborhood
Table of Contents
Introduction ……….……… 5
Chapter 1: Methodology and Framework ………..……… 8
Chapter 2: The Home as a Place ………..……….……….. 13
Chapter 3: Separate Communities ………..…………..……….. 31
Chapter 4: La Isla as the Homeland ………..……….. 47
Conclusions ……….……… 56
Introduction
In this paper I explore six short stories of the Puerto Rican diaspora. Specifically, I look at how the spaces of the home, community, and homeland are described and engendered.
The Puerto Rican diaspora residing in the United States is unique. Puerto Rico became a US territory after the Spanish-American War of 1898, and its citizens have held US citizenship since 1917 (Duany 176). Two big waves of migration formed the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York City: The first wave occurred during and after World War II to satisfy the demand of a labor shortage, the second wave came between 1980 and 2000 as a result of economic hardship on the Island (Davis 104). As a result, more than half of Puerto Rican citizens currently live on the US mainland (American and Quick). While the diaspora is mostly concentrated in New York City, it has continuously been dispersing to Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas since the 1980s (Duany 180-1). In addition, the Puerto Rican diaspora is made unique by its transmigratory subjectivity. Unlike many other diasporas, Puerto Ricans have a long history of migration to and from the island.
In 1990, almost 900,000 Puerto Ricans lived in New York City (Marzán 2). By then the Puerto Rican diaspora had changed the Lower East Side (“Loisada”) and East Harlem (“Spanish Harlem”) neighborhoods. Mike Davis, in Magical Urbanism, claims that Latinos “have a genius for transforming dead urban spaces into convivial social places (55). Specifically, Puerto Ricans were instrumental in re-shaping and inscribing meaning to spaces by claiming commercial and open areas as their own. Davis details:
Latin-American immigrants and their children, perhaps more than any other element in the population, exult in the playgrounds, parks, squares, libraries and other endangered species of US public space . . . Ibero-Mediterranean and Meso-American cultures . . . shared [the] conviction that civilized sociality is constituted in the daily intercourse of the
plaza and mercado. (55)
Davis refers to this changing shift as “the tropicalization of the barrio” (173). Puerto Ricans, Davis claims, have made New York City “their own with their daily practices . . . music, smells, meals, and cultural traditions” (173).
Perhaps, from mimicking these waves of immigration, two literary movements arose. The first literary movement, which developed during the sixties and seventies, is a counter culture reaction to the minority movements (mainly Mexicans and Blacks) in America (Miguela 166). The second movement came with the generation of Puerto Ricans who would write in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Domínguez Miguela would call the works created in the first wave examples of ghetto literature, while the second wave is preoccupied with “Barrio Building” (166-71). In this exploration, I will look at how Puerto Ricans write about place during this second wave of production. The selected works span the most abundant period of short stories produced by the Puerto Rican diaspora. To gather a sample, I’ve chosen the works of six of the most prolific writers of the time: Jack Agüeros, Aurora Levins Morales, Nicholasa Mohr, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Edward Rivera, and Abraham Rodríguez Jr.
Specifically, this work focuses on short stories because of their selective nature. In a summary of the work of Gerald Prince, Bucholtz and Manfred state, “it is space, not temporal sequence, which can be radically minimised without any obvious loss in “‘narrativehood’” (551). Thus, it can be surmised that when place is mentioned in short stories, it carries great significance. Since the 1960s much literary attention has
been given to the creation of place within written works (Tally 159). In studying urban settings, a great deal of attention has been given to the works of Edward Relph on place and non-places. Additionally, much of the work along gender lines has followed the concept of private and public spaces (Domínguez Miguela 170).
Leaning on this research, I explore beyond private and public spaces, employing a more comprehensive definition of place to reveal how meaning is codified into concrete areas. In doing so, I examine how these authors engender areas in new and startling ways, ultimately turning place into space. The guiding questions of this research are: How are the home, community, and homeland created? What meaning is given to these spaces? Do these meanings vary by gender?
Chapter 1 details the historical evolution of the definition of place towards an inclusive, six-part definition. It provides justification for such a selection and details how each component of place can be engendered. Chapter 2 is an analysis of the home space through the lens of the six components of place, and how the household is engendered. This same framework is applied to the community in Chapter 3, and to the homeland in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 is the conclusion.
Chapter 1: Methodology and Framework
It becomes necessary in any work on narrative space to define place and to explore how writers shape it. When speaking of place, Yi-Fu Tuan asserts that “place is a pause in movement” (138) and that “[s]pace is transformed into place as it acquires definition and meaning (Tuan 136).” Yet, how does place actually acquire this meaning? Edward Relph builds on the works of Philip Wagner to make a link between place and identity (6). Consequently, Relph proffers three elements that give place an identity: the static physical setting, the activities of a place, and the meanings actors place onto a space (44-7). Seymour Benjamin Chatman, in his work Story and
Discourse, writes on the concept of the “story-space.” The literary critic argues that
both the writer and the reader bring meaning to a space (101-2). To this end, Cresswell introduces a new concept to the definition of place, built on the theories of John Agnew, Tuan, Relph, and Chatman, to say that place is also defined by a “sense of place” or, rather, by the emotional attachment people have to a place. In summarizing the spatial narrative, Sabine Bucholtz and John Manfred suggested the following definition:
Narrative space is characterized by a complex of parameters: (1) by the boundaries that separate it from coordinate, superordinate, and subordinate spaces, (2) by the objects which it contains, (3) by the living conditions which it provides, and (4) by the temporal dimension to which is it bound (552).
Bucholtz and Manfred introduce two important new elements to the definition of a place: the objects of a place, and time. Bucholtz and Manfred argue time is central to a place as a place may evolve physically or through the meaning actors attribute to it (552). Thus, I would define a place by the inclusion of six components: its boundaries (physical and temporal), objects, activities, living conditions it provides, and its “sense
of place.” During the process of this investigation, I will apply this definition to the texts selected and analyze gender through the process of a close reading.
Boundaries are an essential component of the definition of place: “Space is transformed into place as it acquires definition and meaning” (Tuan 136). As all space cannot be place, place must have its limits and thus the limits of place become a fundamental component of its definition. In looking for defining spaces of place, Jurij Lotman suggests examining physical borders as a spatially reified intersection of meanings among different groups:
What is more important is that the boundary, which divides space into two parts, must be impenetrable, and the internal structure of each of the subspaces must be different. For example, the space of a fairy tale is clearly divided into ''home'' and "forest." The border between them is clear-cut - the edge of the forest, or sometimes a river (the battle with the snake almost always takes place on abridge). The personae of the forest cannot enter the home; they are allowed a definite space. Only in the forest can terrible and miraculous events take place. (Lotman 229-30)
Similarly, Tuan believed limits of social groups were important as they contributed to identity building. Tuan espouses that boundaries of a place may not be invisible to outsiders. However, to the locals they are places where “the integrity of place must be ritually maintained” (166). Thus boundaries are not only important to how locals define space, but also to how they maintain it. During the course of this investigation, I will focus on the physical boundaries of space and the temporal boundary of space and how they are engendered.
The objects of a place are also markers that help define a place. In speaking about how landmarks define a homeland, Tuan stated that “[t]hese visible signs serve to enhance a people’s sense of identity; they encourage awareness of and loyalty to a
place” (159). Furthermore, the geographers Domosh and Seager stated that these landmark objects also serve to engender a place: “the design and use of our built environment is determined in part by our assumptions about gender roles and relations” (xxi). Additionally, they state that objects do not only engender a place, but that they can also propagate gendering: “[F]ormal parlor suites and rocking chairs, pink refrigerators and chintz curtains . . . are sites of living that are not simply backdrops to the enactment of gender roles. Instead, these places both create and reflect notions of femininity and masculinity” (Domosh and Seager 34).
It has been stated that in defining boundaries, locals perform two activities: They define boundaries and they maintain. James Tyner, in his work Space, Place and
Violence, argues that this is done through violence and punishment, concluding that
“a place is a disciplined space where people can contest its social construction” (20). They are disciplined spaces because “we as human beings are socialized into an understanding and expectation of the appropriate uses of space and, in turn, these actions contribute to the making of place” (34). Tyner proposes that studying how authority figures and vigilantes enforce the moral, social, and political code of a place, will serve to uncover the definition of place and its engendering.
In addition, “[p]laces,” Tyner states, “are lived and embodied spaces” (20). Bucholtz and Manfred define “lived spaces” in the following manner:
A lived space is a deictically oriented space as perceived and talked about in everyday life. The term itself indicates that human (or ‘natural’) conceptions of space always include a subject who is affected by (and in turn affects) space, a subject who experiences and reacts to space in a bodily way, a subject who ‘feels’ space through existential living conditions, mood and atmosphere. (553)
Therefore, considering the conditions that a place affords its locals showcases how spaces become “lived spaces.” Consequently, if a place is engendered it will also produce conditions that perpetuate this engendering.
A final construct of place is the “sense of place” for the locals. The academic discourse of “sense of place” has revolved mostly around attachment/detachment and place identity as evident in the research of Relph, Tuan, and Cresswell. Cresswell simply defines it as “the subjective and emotional attachment people have to place” (7). Tuan believes that sense of place is more tied to identity: “an awareness of other settlements and rivalry with them significantly enhance the feeling of uniqueness and of identity” (Tuan 166). Relph also believes identity and “sense of place” are interlocked as he sees it as the glue that holds both the static physical setting and the meaning of that setting together (44-7). However, Ashworth clarified that “[i]dentity and place identity are not the same” (186). More recently, geographers John Eyles and Allison Williams provide a more complex definition:
As a result of exhaustive theoretical/conceptual and empirical review of the literature specific to sense of place, the core elements of the construct are found to include: rootedness, belonging, place identity, meaningfulness, place satisfaction and emotional attachment. (Williams et al 74)
One important factor in this definition is place satisfaction. When looking at “sense of place,” I will focus on emotional attachment or detachment to a place, place identity, and place satisfaction. Such “sense of place” can also become engendered as it relies on the individual’s feeling toward a particular place.
I will apply this six-part definition to analyze the places created by the Puerto Rican diasporic writers. In Space, Place and Violence, Tyner chooses to focus on home, school, street, and community as four places where socialization,
normalization, and discipline are used to make spaces into places. These are the places where the locals feel comfortable programming their members or fighting off intruders. However, upon reading the selected texts, the school and the street become increasingly difficult to separate from the community and the “sense of place” the author’s display towards the community. Furthermore, the homeland takes a prominent role in these narratives, and thus any lack of an analysis seems like a tragic flaw in an examination of place in Puerto Rican Diasporic literature. Thus, this analysis focuses on the home, the community, and the Puerto Rican homeland. While the separation of these places remains elastic, and while there undoubtedly exists overlap among the three different spaces, there is also value in seeing how these three spaces are created and engendered differently.
To this end, I apply a close read methodology. First, I will analyze similarities and differences within same sex authors. Then, I will look for contrasts across gender. To be clear, I am working with the assumption that places can be engendered both by the author and by their characters. As a result, during this investigation, I treat the author and the characters as equally capable of engendering space.
Chapter 2: The Home as a Place
“Home” is a loaded word with many definitions and interpretations. The geographers Mona Domosh and Joni Seager, in Putting Women in Place, define the home as a house “we invest … with personal meanings and associations” (xxii). Tyner settles on the definition of home as a disciplined “place where we eat, sleep, and interact with family and friends” (25). The literary critic Robert Tally Jr., in his work
Spatiality, points out that home has long been gendered: “something pointedly
addressed in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own . . . [is] the notion that the home or the domestic sphere is a feminine space” (133). Since Woolf’s publication, much work has been done to show that the engendering of the home space is much more nuanced. Specifically, Domosh and Saeger show that home is not a monolith, and thus it is best to speak in terms of spheres of femininity or masculinity. These spheres can be as small as an armchair in a living room (1-34). Despite this nuanced approach, the home is still considered a mostly feminine space. “Women themselves,” Domosh and Seager assert, “seem to derive more of their identities from their domestic life” (1) and “shoulder the lion’s share of the housework” (2). Tyner proffers that this is mostly a consequence of (the) patriarchy as it is the dominant structure that “work[s] to discipline the space of home.” (26). At the same time, Tyner warns that oversimplifying patriarchy as the sole force that engenders the home may overlook racism and capitalism as other contributing factors. (26-7).
This chapter focuses on how the home’s boundaries, objects, activities, living conditions, and emotional attachments define its sphere. Furthermore, it attempts to uncover the differences in the way female and male authors create the home. By
exposing the contrast between these authors, this chapter delineates how home spaces are engendered.
Many diasporic Puerto Rican writers were drawn to write about the home. Ortiz Cofer sets her home in colonial Puerto Rico. In “Monologue of the Spanish Gentleman,” the Spanish Gentleman relates the story of his childhood from the veranda of his present-day home, drawing a connection between his story and the space he inhabits. Levins Morales and Rodríguez Jr. provide moderate details of the home as their fiction oscillates between the home and other spaces. Levins Morales’ “A Remedy for Heartburn” seems to be centered in the narrator’s American home but details her childhood home in Puerto Rico. And, Rodríguez Jr. shifts his narrative space between the young narrator’s school and his New York City home. The three remaining author’s provide few details of the home. Agüeros frames his short story on a New York City street just below an overlooking apartment window belonging to young women named Alma. Mohr places her narrative in a hospital ward, but describes the childhood Puerto Rican home of the main character, Lucía. And lastly, the storyline of “In Black Turf” departs at front stoop of the narrator’s New York City home and never mentions the place again.
In the male fiction, the street bounds the home. Agüeros and Rivera mention the entryway as the clear distinction from the private and the public space. Agüeros makes use of two distinct boundaries. One is the window: “Alma leaned on the ledge of her second floor window” (11). The other boundary is between the home and the semi-private hallway of the apartment building. The narrator testifies that Pee Wee, Alma’s boyfriend, “could see Alma come screaming out of her hallway like a train out of a tunnel onto the street” (18). Rivera also makes use of the semi-private and public
boundary of the home: “I came down and found Panna sitting on the steps of my stoop” (1564). When Santos Ramírez, the main character and narrator, uses “came down,” he is presumably referring to his trip from his private apartment through the semi-private spaces (stairs, hallway) of his building. Rodríguez Jr. also uses the street as the physical boundary between the home and school: “Across the street, the dingy row of tattered uneven tenement where I lived” (349). Yet Rodríguez Jr. departs radically from Agüeros and Rivera’s use of boundary, as the contours of the home boundary are not defined. Instead, the words “home,” “bedroom,” “living room,” and “kitchen” become the frontiers between the private and the public spaces. The boundary between the home and school is clearly a private/public one. Furthermore, the boundary connotes Lotman’s concept of impermeability, as there is no mention of windows or doors.
In contrast, the home boundaries used by the female writers differ greatly from the men. It is the land, (not the street) which binds their fictional homes. For example, when Levins Morales describes her narrator’s childhood home, one space seems to blend into the other: “[Mami’s] house was ramshackle, but spotless, her food exquisite, her garden plot was in order, and she always knew where a sweet orange tree was ready for picking, or when a bunch of the best cooking bananas had gotten big enough to cut” (434). The “land,” in this example a “garden plot,” must end before one enters the “house,” but two factors muddle that distinction. Firstly, the Mami character enters the land, as one would use a household appliance. The other factor is that nature also enters the home as is later revealed when Mami receives a new home: “It was made of cement, with nothing a termite might fancy to eat. The rain stayed out and so did the rates” (435). In this way, the two previously distinct spaces become conflated, and the simple dichotomy of “outside” versus “inside” is both overturned
and inverted. A similar pattern arises in Mohr’s “‘Happy Birthday.’” In this story, Lucía recalls being at the river when her first menstruation occurs: “Frightened, she and her little brother ran all the way home. Confused and bewildered, Lucía had listened to her mother who forbade her to bathe or swim at that end of the river” (453). Lucía’s entrance into the home is seamless; there exists no borderline between the land and the home. This line is further blurred, as Lucía’s recollection of the home is synonymous with a nearby river. Likewise, in Ortiz Cofer’s “Monologue of the Spanish Gentleman,” the narrator’s home and farmland blend into as one: “One thing I learned from my old man: if you have the biggest house in the region, make sure everybody knows it. That is why I build my casa on this hill. I am the overseer, and I see everything” (464). The boundary between the home, the land, and the hill is blurred, and the line between the private and public is exposed.
However, the female writers create clear temporal boundaries. Mohr begins her short story by placing 2o year old Lucía on “Welfare Island, 1954” (450). The childhood home is described from her first menstruation until Lucía leaves for domestic work. Thus, it can be concluded her childhood home is bounded temporally within the late 1940s. Cofer Ortiz is almost equally exact with the temporal dimension of her narrator’s childhood home. When the Gentleman tells his playmate of the elaborate plan to expose his mother’s adultery, he sets the historical boundary of the home: “I purloined a letter from my father announcing his unscheduled arrival on the island – due to political conflict brewing between Spain and the United States . . . I was about thirteen years old then” (462). With this reference to the Spanish American War of 1898, the Spanish Gentleman’s childhood home is bounded between 1888 and 1898 as the narrator begins his story at the age of three. Furthermore, it can be concluded that his current home is set at the beginning of the twentieth century
since it is inconceivable he would have had a wife and child before the turn of the nineteenth century. Levins Morales is most unclear about the time limits of her narrative. “A Remedy for Heartburn” swings between the present and an indistinct past. Yet her present home is bound during the 1980s and her childhood home sometime during the 1950s and 1960s. In her narration, Levins Morales mentions her character avoids pregnancy like her husband’s mistresses: “I had never mentioned to Papo that a little outpatient surgery I’d had done a few years back had insured that I would not end up like Cindy or Sara” (434). As abortion in the United States did not become legal until 1973, it can be conceived that the character is a child during the 1950s or ‘60s.
These temporal boundaries use by the female authors become more striking when contrasted to their male colleagues. Significantly, the male author’s do not use dates or any time markers. Rodríguez Jr. in his fiction mentions the rock group the Beatles: “the Beatles blared from my father’s stereo” (344). The band, who’s popularity in early 1960s was called Beatlemania in the United States, is mentioned again as Miss Colon is consoling the narrator: “‘If it’s any consolation, I’m on your side,’ she said, squeezing my arm. I smiled at her, warmth spreading through me. ‘Go home and listen to the Beatles,’ she added with a grin.” (349). While Miss Colon’s urging to listen to the Beatles could signal the story is set in the ‘60s, it could equally signify an attempt by Miss Colon for the narrator to reconnect with the father through a shared love for the Beatles. As a result, all the homes, of the male authors are undated and thus reside in the near distant past.
In general, Puerto Rican writers left household objects to the reader’s imagination. However, Rodríguez Jr., Levins Morales, and Ortiz Cofer stand out for
their intense and detailed descriptions of household objects. One commonality is that few objects (if any) are given to their respective female characters. Rodríguez Jr. describes no household objects as belonging to the story’s mother. Levins Morales gives her Mami character fruits, herbs, and kitchen appliances. And, Ortiz Cofer gives her mother character her own bedroom and white, lace gowns. As stated earlier in Chapter 1, objects engender places, thus, in these stories, the kitchen and bedroom show up as feminine spheres within the home.
While the men are not given domain over the entirety of the fictional home landscape, these three authors seem to agree on some objects as exclusively male. Electronic equipment is one such object. Rodríguez Jr. gives the narrator’s father domain over the typewriter, the reel-to-reel tape deck, and the stereo. In a similar manner, Levins Mora gives the father control of similar electronic gadgets: “[Papi] would play the TV and the radio at the same time” (433). In these narratives, the kitchen table and living room are the male spheres.
Perhaps no component of space, tells us more about how place acquires meaning (and is engendered) than the activities performed in the home. Tyner asserts the power of activities: “It is the activities that are performed in these domestic spaces at given time and in given relational contexts that reflect and/or subvert particular ideas about gender, age, sexuality and so on” (29). Furthermore, Tyner believes that activities that enforce discipline are the central marker of engendering: “Dominant meanings of home, therefore, are continually contested and ‘require’ discipline. Discipline though is never complete and, as such, threats or acts of violence are often invoked in an attempt to (re)establish control” (Tyner 34-5). Thus, looking at how and
when discipline is enforced in the household, as well as who provokes or enforces it, should lead to a better understanding of gender within the home.
The characters of Levins Morales, Mohr, and Ortiz Cofer continually perform patriarchal-maintaining activities. Likewise, at home, the women seem to perform stereotypical feminine roles. Levins Morales presents a mother who is characterized as the typical martyred female: “Everyone called [Mami] a saint. You know the way Puerto Rican country women can look at a woman’s suffering and turn it into a kind of special attention from God?” (433). This representation plays into the Madonna/whore trope as the mother is characterized as the suffering victim. “‘Happy Birthday’” also plays with this stereotype. In Mohr’s short story, Lucía’s mother and grandmother indoctrinate their girl by setting her up to maintain her most prized possession: “My little brand new virgin. Lucía, my sweet little precious virgin . . . just born, my little virgin” (453). And Ortiz Cofer, presents a flat, female character that is pigeonholed by the Madonna/whore trope: “Her name was Prudencia, did I mention that? What irony, that woman lacked many virtues, but the one that did her in was the very same she was named after” (460). The three short stories represent the patriarchy’s view on women’s sexuality within the home: Sexuality should only inhere in the mother, otherwise, it should be repressed.
In these stories, the men are continually presented as violent. Levins Morales’ sole male character, Papi, hits his wife, walks around the house drunk, and delivers “cocotazos” – a Spanish euphemism for a spanking. Mohr’s male character, Eddie, is a pimp, who seems incapable of maintaining a peaceful home, much to Doña Nora’s (his mother) chagrin:
Sometimes, the police come for him. Sometimes, there’s some strange woman, a prostitute, or some man who’s after him . . . Do you know he hid drugs in our house? That he gave his younger brother a gun to hid? A loaded pistol! Dear Virgin Mary, I can’t cope with him no more! (456)
And in Ortiz Cofer’s narration, the father character (Don Juan), upon witnessing his wife’s adultery, disciplines with violence: “He called it a rape and shot the boy” (463). This corresponds with Tyner’s assertion that “for many women and children, violence is most experienced at ‘home’ (27). These women author’s, while seemingly appearing to conform to patriarchal expectations, are in fact breaking them by uncovering such stereotypical characters. Tyner explains this was not always the case: “Violence in the home has been hidden, in part, because of our dominant representations of home. Early writing on ‘home’, for example, were both uncritical and highly masculinist” (Tyner 27-8). So perhaps by having their women character’s perform feminine activities, Levins Morales, Mohr, Ortiz Cofer are not supporting patriarchy but rather exposing the reality of it.
The male diasporic writers seem unaware or disinterested in female activity within the home. In fact, killing time, and consoling a child are the only activities women perform in their households. This coincides with geographer Stuart Aitken’s conclusions that as men went to work, women’s work in the home “became invisible and spatially isolated” (as qtd. in Tyner 31). However, this does not mean the men are absent from the home sphere. Quite the opposite; the male characters engage in disciplinary activities. In fact, with the exception of “The Boy Without A Flag,” men are only represented as the castigating family agent. Agüeros’ Wilson chastises his niece on what type of men she should date: “‘The trouble for you Alma is that you fool around with men who are not machos’” (15). Rivera shows a disciplinarian brother: “One [of Panna’s teeth] had been knocked out in a fight with his older brother” (1566).
And Rodríguez Jr. presents a father who continually disciplines. “‘You have to find something serious to do with your life,’ he told me one night, after I had show[ed] [my father] my first play, eighty pages long” (341). These observations seem to coincide with Tyner’s assertions that discipline and violence are closely related and within the home, the male feels most powerful (26-9).
Home activities closely interconnect with the living conditions the household provides. Domosh and Seager remind us that the home is particularly “complex” for women. On one hand, “home seems to be a geographical anchor for many women - their identities are bound up with their homes” (31), yet, on the other hand they can be “spatial traps where women get stuck in domestic roles with no way to escape” (68). Tyner concurs; he explains that as men left and saw the house as a haven, women stayed and saw their house as a workplace (Tyner 31-4).
The homes of these Puerto Rican diasporic writers reflect this haven/workplace reality. In Agüeros’ short story, the home offers a refuge to play dominoes during New York winters. Rodríguez Jr. also uses the home as a refuge for man’s enjoyment. In “The Boy Without A Flag,” the father partakes in the hobby of writing and takes refuge from the condemning words of his family who insist he should find “real work.” Likewise, Ortiz Cofer paints the home as an entertainment refuge. In her narrative, the Spanish Gentleman is playing dominoes on the veranda of his adulthood home. These representations of the home as a haven are more striking against Levins Morales’ representation of home as a workplace: “[Mami] worked twice as hard as Papi, in the house and on the farm” (434).
More so than a workplace, the home connotes a “spatial trap” for women as evidenced by the preponderance of monotony they endure in it. Agüeros’ fictional home in “Dominoes” is an apartment that provides Alma with unfilled time: “Alma leaned on the ledge of her second floor window. With a cushion under her elbows she could sit like this for hours, enjoying the street life” (11). It is the street, not the home that provides the enjoyment. While Alma’s window provides some reprieve from tedium within the home, Levins Morales describe a dullness that drives her character away: “At home . . . [t]here was boredom enough to make you go crazy looking for something to gossip about” (433). In “‘Happy Birthday,’” Lucía also apparently escaped the boredom of her childhood home:
She used to sit for hours [by the river] just watching the tiny darting fish and tadpoles, the bobbing twigs and dry leaves as the tropical sun bounced on the water . . . she had loved that part of the river. It had all been magical and wonderful, and belonged to her (453).
Similarly, Ortiz Cofer presents boredom as a subjugating force. Since Doña Prudencia is in fear of the Puerto Rican sun, she retreats to her rooms where she fills her idle time with illicit affairs with servant boys.
For the boys, the home tenders a livelier place as it is presented as a contested space. Ortiz Cofer and Rodríguez Jr., both present boys who engage in conflict at the home front. In Ortiz Cofer’s story, it is unclear which place in the house is contested: “my mother kept to her rooms most of the days . . . afraid that she would have to face me” (462). In this story, the conflict centers on the mother, Doña Prudencia, and her lasciviousness:
We then turned for love to this stranger we were supposed to call Madre. But she had no interest in us . . . She was taking young men to her bed . . . By the time I was old enough to understand the nature of the scandal, it was too late to save her . . . I wanted to kill her and her lovers. But I
was too young to kill. I did the next best thing. I exposed her infamy. (460-1)
Here, a reader witnesses a variation of the phenomenon of domestic violence as explained by Tyner: “acts of violence by men are not used to maintain patriarchal systems as a whole, but are used to maintain their own personal and unique understanding of gender role and relationships” (42, italics original). The boy, who is acting as a man, believes that his mother should be dutiful and present, unlike his adulterous and absent father.
In Rodríguez Jr.’s fiction, the contested space is the kitchen table. The boy narrator and his father conflict in this space over who will be the writer:
I was five years old when I first sat in his chair at the kitchen table and began pushing down keys . . . I was entranced . . . By the time I was ten, I was writing war stories . . . I wrote unreadable novels . . . My father wasn’t impressed . . . “This is a fun hobby,” my father said, “but you can’t get serious about this.” His demeanor spoke volumes, but I couldn’t stop writing. (341)
The Kitchen table is the space where both characters dispute who will be the writer. Furthermore, this is a trans-generational argument, as the father also partook in the same debate:
[M]y father . . . was a frustrated poet . . . but his family talked him out of all of it. “You should find yourself real work, something substantial,” they said, so he did. He dropped all those dreams . . . and got a job at a Nedick’s on Third Avenue. My pop the counterman. (340)
Contested domestic spaces in Puerto Rican diasporic fiction seem to revolve around questions of gender roles and, particularly, affect boys. Following, Tyner’s concept that male discipline is a normalizing force, it might be that these quarrels are resolved by adulthood.
A trend that cuts across gender suggests that the home pushes the characters out. In “Dominoes,” two of the players, Wilson and Paco, leave their homes at the age of sixteen to join the merchant marine. Levins Morales sheds more specific detail as to how the home propels the characters outward:
[E]veryday of [Mami’s] life she contrived and conspired for me . . . She saw to it that I stayed in high school by doing the extra work I would have done, and she picked coffee for don Luis three years in a row to send me to secretarial school in the city. I stayed with a cousin of hers who gave me room and board for helping out with the house and kids. (434)
The mechanism that impels the children out of the home is poverty. In “‘Happy Birthday,’” Mohr presents a similar push from home “into service as a domestic” (453). Even in Ortiz Cofer’s fiction, in which the Spanish Gentleman is afforded a more privileged life, the home creates the same impetus: “I had to give up the farm. It was too much for a boy to run” (464). In these examples, a lack of resources pushes the children from their home. As a result, the home provides a precarious living situation in which escape is inevitable and necessary.
Finally, the home imposes on its members an overwhelming pressure to avoid embarrassment. Santos, “In Black Turf,” becomes distraught after he falls into a stream as a result of horseplay with his best friend:
“See what the fuck you did?” I screamed, already worrying about what Mami would say when she saw what I’d done to my best pair of pants. Panna was too busy laughing to hear me.
“You black fuck!” I snapped. “You think it’s funny?”(1566)
Soiling his church pants is a clear transgression that brings humiliation to the home. Agüeros places the home on the second floor, so that the noises, but not the actions of
the street reach it. Yet, when the outdoor violence reaches the home, the street becomes stupefied:
When Alma looked she let go a scream and yelled, “Paco, Paco, stop it, stop it, Wilson stop them. Tito for God’s sake do something. PeeWee call the police.” And she screamed again. But no one moved. (18)
Alma, who represents the home, brings humiliation to the players for allowing the argument to escalate into such a state. In Ortiz Cofer’s story, the Gentleman feels it was his duty to “save” his mother from the embarrassment her adultery brought onto the house. Clearly all members of the family are complicit in stopping indignity from entering the home.
The female characters are also tasked with this responsibility. Even in the face of imminent death, Mohr’s Lucía is afraid to transgress against the childhood home:
“All right, Lucía, let me help you. Let me contact your family. I can write to them. They will want to know where you are and what is happening to you.”
“No…” Lucía hesitated, “I don’t want them to know.” “But, child, why?”
“Please, Doña Nora, I don’t want to talk about them….” “You are being foolish not to let your people know.” “It’s better like this.”
“How can you say that? They are your family after all, and your parents should know where and how you are.”
“No … Doña Nora, it’s better like this . . . I don’t want them to wish me dead! (457)
Lucía is afraid to let her family know she is dying because it would require her to tell them she was a sex worker. The shame brought to the family is greater than not knowing the whereabouts of the family members. The childhood home is, likewise, afraid of not transgressing against the adult home. In “A Remedy for Heartburn,” the mother living in Puerto Rico did not want to notify the New York home of her terminal illness: “Migdalia says they offered to drive to the farmácia and call me, but
[Mami] wouldn’t let them. She didn’t send any special message, no last words for me” (436). Rodríguez Jr. encapsulates the reason why it is important to keep shame away from the home:
Are you crazy?” my father half-whispered to me in Spanish as we stood there. “Do you know how embarrassing this all is? . . . Don’t you know anything about dignity, about respect? How could you make a spectacle of yourself? Now you make us all look stupid. (348)
Shame insinuates to be a sentiment that cuts across gender in the Puerto Rican writers of the diaspora. However, different things bring shame to the house. One example is sex; men are seen as formidable, while women are seen as harlots. In “Monologue of the Spanish Gentleman,” Ortiz Cofer expresses this dichotomy through her narrator: “[My mother’s] sexual appetite was tremendous (you smile, perhaps thinking that my own legendary prowess can be explained by inheritance, but what is a gift in a man may be a curse for a woman)” (461). While this may be dismissed as a conception that was more prevalent one hundred years ago, it is continually touched upon in Mohr’s and Levins Morales fiction.
Not surprisingly, the characters of these short stories emit a low satisfaction with the home and possess a negligible home identity. As mentioned in the above paragraphs, poverty, boredom, violence, and the heavy burden of shame account for this. One exception is Santos, as he appears satisfied with the home. “In Black Turf” the writer does not express much about the home, but Santos resistance to growing up is telling of his satisfaction with the home: “growing up, I knew, was a slow process, and I was in no hurry to become a full-grown man before my time” (1564). The home bids Santos a safe place for a fourteen year old to dwell in his adolescence.
Levins Morales’ Mami character is the only character that possesses a strong home identity. As noted earlier in this chapter, the home is hers; she works hard to maintain it, struggles for her children, and excels at the art of cooking. Furthermore, the narrator divulges that her mother had always dreamt about a proper home:
[Papi] finally built Mami the house she always wanted. It was made of cement, with nothing a termite might fancy to eat. The rain stayed out and so did the rats. It had a real kitchen . . . It even had a water heater, and with fifteen or twenty minutes notice, it was possible to have a hot shower, something my mother had never had before in her long life of cold water bucket baths at noon.” (435)
To Mami her place identity is tied to the home and, thus, she worked and dreamt hard to make it perfect.
The Puerto Rican diasporic authors seem to show a weak emotional attachment to the home. The narrator of Levins Morales’ tale does not describe her current home and does not seem to show ownership over her home: “I got home from Mami’s funeral and that Monday after work I began this book” (436). This is contrasted by the possessive pronoun used to describe her childhood home: “Her house was ramshackle” (434). Likewise, the characters of Agüeros, Mohr, and Rivera also do not mention the home, nor show attachment to it. Rivera and Ortiz Cofer provide the more complex emotional attachment as their characters swing within the gamut of attachment/detachment of the home.
In “The Boy Without A Flag,” the narrator equates the home space with the father. At the beginning of the narrative, the narrator shows a strong emotional attachment towards the home, as the father can do no wrong. However, after his father tells him he must stand for the national anthem, the narrator’s emotional
affection for the home wanes: “Like the flag I must salute, we were inseparable, yet [my father’s] compromise made me feel ashamed and defeated. Then I knew I had to find my own peace, away from the bondage of obedience” (350). This breaking away from the “the bondage of obedience” is the home. It occurs not only because the home is no longer an idealized place, but also because the narrator still has to find his “own peace” with his status as a Puerto Rican and an American. Ultimately, the home cannot offer him that solution.
“Monologue of the Spanish Gentleman” likewise offers a changing perspective of emotional attachment over time. The boy, in Ortiz Cofer’s fiction, is certainly bounded physically and emotionally to the home as he likens the home space with the mother: “I loved her. I was a lonely child. My brothers were already involved in the farm business, and they accompanied my father to Spain most of the time. I resembled her . . . And so in my solitude I would have given anything to come near this woman” (462). Nonetheless, as an adolescent, the physical bind between Spanish Gentleman and his home is weakening: “The six months that Don Juan was away I had traveled with the messengers over the cordillera, the mountain range that divides the island, taking routes only these men knew. I was getting old enough so that no one questioned my decisions” (462). The apex of his detachment from the home comes when his family relocates to Spain, and the gentleman stays behind: “I had no intention of following them anywhere. So I stayed at the hacienda . . . declaring myself the new master of the place” (463). Cofer Ortiz’s choice of “place” to describe the home is telling, as the home no longer has the meaning without his mother. Despite this, the Gentleman’s emotional attachment to his childhood home does not seem to have been broken. Many years later, the Spanish Gentleman is still retelling the story of his childhood home. Furthermore, he recreates it in his adult home. Physically, his
adult home overlooks the town of Río Seco as his childhood home overlooked the port city of Ponce. And emotionally, the Spanish Gentleman recreated the familial relationships of his childhood home: “My wife hates me. My lovely Minerva fears me . . . The other women look at me as if I had a dagger between my legs and not the most vulnerable organ in my body” (460). The gentleman has mirrored his father’s relationship with his wife as he too is hated, and is an adulterer.
This weakened “sense of place” for the home exhibited by the writers of the Puerto Rican diaspora may be accounted for as a result of migration or of modernity. Tuan, notably said movement is the opposite of applying meaning to spaces:
The ideas "space" and "place" require each other for definition. From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place. (6)
In other words, movement does not allow places to have meanings. To this end, Tuan looked at nomadic cultures and pondered if nomads could retain “sense of place”:
Do nomads, who are frequently on the move, have a strong sense of place? Quite possibly. Nomads move, but they move within a circumscribed area, and the distance between the two extreme points of their peregrination seldom exceeds 200 miles. Nomads pause and establish camp at roughly the same places (pastures and water holes) year after year; the paths they follow also show little change. (182)
Evidently, Tuan believes a strong sense of place can be established in spite of movement as long as it cyclical. And while the Puerto Rican diaspora is unique in its flow to and from the island, it does not seem to fulfill Tuan’s conditions. A more plausible explanation for the enfeebled “sense of place” towards the home might be
Modernity. Tuan hypothesizes that modern times may account for a waning sense of place:
Modern man is so mobile that he has not the time to establish roots; his experience and appreciation of place is superficial . . . Abstract knowledge about a place can be acquired in short order if one is diligent . . . But the "feel" of a place takes longer to acquire. It is made up of experiences, mostly fleeting and undramatic, repeated day after day and over the span of years. It is a unique blend of sights, sounds, and smells, a unique harmony of natural and artificial rhythms such as times of sunrise and sunset, of work and play. The feel of a place is registered in one's muscles and bones. (183-4)
Tuan believes that modern people simply cannot or do not have the time to interact repeatedly and lastingly with the spaces around them. However, these writers do not seem to describe a modern, hectic world. Quite the opposite, the places described, thus far, are mostly areas of leisure and boredom. I proffer “sense of place” in the Puerto Rican homes are attached to a parent. Tuan echoes this sentiment: “mother is the child's primary place” (29). In modern times, the first adult home is usually a single (uncoupled) home. Until the home becomes a family home (as the “Monologue of the Spanish Gentleman” shows), a sense of attachment, place identity, and satisfaction are negligible.
The Puerto Rican Diaspora writers thus see the home along gendered lines. The men treat the home as a clear and divisible space from the street. They detail very little about what the women characters do and their characters show a detached “sense of place” with the home. The female writers show a stronger attachment to the land than to the home. They do not present the home as a safe space but rather as a place of boredom and of violence (either to them or their mother’s). They see the home less as male or female but rather as spheres of femininity and masculinity.
Chapter 3: Separate Communities
Like the definition of home, the term “community” has also been used in a variety of ways. Specifically distinguishing between the community and the street is complex. Tyner, when attempting to make a clear distinction between the two, remains dubious: “Ideals of community . . . underscore our discussion of the public street . . . There, we saw how neighborhood - community - groups often band together in an attempt to rid the streets of unwanted” (136). To further conflate matters, Tyner argues the distinction between the home and the neighborhood (which I include in the community) can also be troubling: “The spatial practice of our home . . . would include the neighboring homes (or apartments) - what we might conveniently call a neighborhood. However, the home itself . . . likewise has its own spatial practice” (25-6). (The spatial practice of the home itself is what I focused in Chapter 2.)
McDowell describes two definitions of community. The prevalent definition defines community as the “small-scale and spatially bounded area within which it is assumed that the population, or part of it, has certain characteristics in common that tie it together” (100). This definition accords with Tuan’s, who associates community with visible (and sometimes invisible places) such as: villages, standard marketing communities of China, and neighborhoods (166-71). The size of this space, he relates, is dependent on the individual (166-71). McDowell’s second definition of community avers that community is built on relationships; she states that a community is:
a fluid network of social relations that may be but are not necessarily tied to territory. Thus a community is a relational rather than a categorical concept, defined both by material social relations and by symbolic meanings . . . their boundaries are created by mechanism of inclusion and exclusion” (100).
Tyner agrees with this definition arguing that communities have “vigilantes” that enforce these relational bonds (135-40). Vigilante, Tyner defines, is “one that watches or guards over a place” (137). Tyner Further proffers that these “vigilantes” enforce that sense of inclusion/exclusion: “very often, specific collectivities, or social groups, assume the right to decide (and police) matters of communal, or civic, participation” (137). Tyner describes vigilantism as having five characteristics: vigilantes believe their violence is “rational and justified,” vigilantes are “non-state” agents, vigilantes act without “the state’s sanctioned authority or support,” vigilante justice is applied to an individual or group – usually a “marginalized” one, and finally the applied violence is centered around enforcing group norms and values (139-40).
This chapter does not settle on one definition of community, but rather utilizes the numerous conceptions of community to draw insights into its relationship with space. This approach is possible because, as Tuan asserts: community is in the eye of the beholder (166-71). In writing about community and sense of place, the geographers James S. Duncan and Nancy G. Duncan reiterate this sentiment: “Yi-Fu Tuan coined the term topophilia to refer to ‘the affective bond between people and place.’ He argued quite cogently that this bond varies greatly in intensity from individual to individual” (41). What lies ahead is thus an exploration of different conceptions of community in its application to Puerto Rican diasporic fiction. By examining their fictional communities, I hope to demonstrate how these writers both converge and diverge from traditional definitions of community.
As in their conception of the “home,” the Puerto Rican diasporic writers build their communities along gendered lines. To the male authors, community develops as a geographical neighborhood. McDowell referenced this as the “commonly” used one.
To Agüeros and Rivera the community of their narratives is the Spanish Harlem neighborhood of New York City. In “The Boy Without A Flag”, the locality of the story is unknown, therefore, for the purpose of this analysis I will refer to the school as the representation of the narrator’s community. On the other hand, the definition of community that the female Puerto Rican female writers describe in their fictions seems to agree with the relational community espoused by McDowell. The community in “A Remedy for Heartburn” is the intended reader/audience: Puerto Rican woman presumably of 1994 - the publish date of her narrative. Levins Morales’ community is also the audience, however, in this case it is the Spanish-speaking men of the early 19th Century. Lucía’s community, in “‘Happy Birthday’”, is the extended family of Eddie, her pimp.
On the whole, the boundaries of the feminine community are both unclear and relational. This can be seen in “A Remedy for Heartburn” as the narrator begins with an exposition on what it is like to be Puerto Rican:
Our people have always been good at digesting even the most ingestible items on life’s menu. Insults that would give a conquistador a heart attack - we have learned to wipe them off our faces and put on the handkerchief away for later consideration. (432)
Is the narrator addressing the Puerto Ricans of the island? Those of the diaspora? The community becomes even more ambiguous as the story concludes with a call to action of her female readers: “But my favorite recipe is the one at the very end. Remedy for
Heartburn. This is the most challenging recipe in my book, comadres. The
ingredients? You already have them. In your pockets, your purses, in your bellies and your bedroom” (437). The relational bond is the shared experience of swallowing insults and mistreatment. The excluded group alludes to be the American community and/or abusive men. Ortiz Cofer recounts a similar community bound by gender and
not geography. Like Levins Morales’ fiction, the reader (in this case a male listener) is the relational community. Women are the exclusionary group that also serves to bind the male group: “Women have their sinister ways of undermining a man. Their minds work differently from ours; they live by guile and deceit” (461).
The communal boundaries of Mohr’s narrative are more restricted. In “‘Happy Birthday’”, Lucía’s community is the extended family of Eddie; the pimp into whose hands Lucía has mysteriously fallen after coming to New York as a domestic for a Puerto Rican family. This community is much more bounded by its members and place: “Lucía wished she could have stayed in the city. It had been easier for people to visit her when she had been in Manhattan. At the beginning the girls had come from time to time, and Eddie’s mother had been to see her once” (452). The community is bounded by the relationship “the girls,” Lucía, and Doña Nora have with Eddie. A geographical boundary is also present as the community resides in New York City. Consequently, this group seems susceptible to distances as evident when Lucía is transferred to Welfare Island and when Eddie disappears.
In contrast, the male writers see the community as the streets directly surrounding their homes. In “Dominoes”, Agüeros’ community begins on the street just below Alma’s apartment in East Harlem:
[Alma] was hoping [Pee Wee – her boyfriend] would come over from 112th Street, where he lived near Third Avenue. And perhaps he would invite her for a walk in Central Park or better still, to a movie. She hadn’t been to a movie in a few weeks, and the Star Theater on 107th and Lexington was playing two good films. (12)
Agüeros defines the community by the streets and its attractions - Star Theater and Central Park. Rivera, who’s fictional community also includes East Harlem, uses
almost the exact markers to define the community boundaries: “The north end of Central Park was right across from our block . . . Afterward, holding hands we would walk off towards Loui’s Luncheonette on the corner of 108th and Fifth . . . If we found enough empties, we could get them ‘changed’ at Miguel’s bodega on Madison” (1565). Finally, in Rodríguez Jr.’s fiction, the street is the boundary between the home and the school community: “I stared at the towering school building . . . Across the street, the dingy row of tattered uneven tenements where I lived” (349).
While there exist no physical objects in the communities of female authors, there is an intangible object: the Spanish language. The language asserts itself as the glue that holds these relational communities together. This linguistic connection is so powerful that their mother tongue Spanish permeates and alters the foreign English. Levins Morales explains the cause and effect of this phenomenon:
As for this jaw-breaking language that gets pushed into our mouths every time we asks for a piece of bread, we’re the best there is at digesting that. We roll it around in our sweet tropical saliva and spit it back, sweeter and sharper and altogether more sabroso. Everything they dish out to us, we soften and satirize with our acrobatic tongues. We wash with Palmolíveh and brush with super-white
Colgáteh. We rub Vick Vaporú on our chests when we get
a cold. (432)
In Morales’ conception, English is a harsh language that needs modification. This modification is effected within the linguistic community of the Puerto Rican diaspora. The community also uses Spanish to evoke endearment. Hence characters are referred to as “Doña Nora” and “Señor” instead of “Mrs. Nora” and “Mister”. Otherwise, the community space is devoid of objects, as they do not appear to be land-bound communities.
On the other hand, the communities of the men have a plethora of objects. Everything from the foul - “a used condom” - to the sacred - the Church; from the trivial - “dried chicken bones” to the important - the flag - is described. One important feature of the male objects is they are used for the purposes of vigilantism. Specifically, these narratives show that these “objects of discipline” are a result of happenstance; they are available when the community is threatened. As Tyner states, vigilantes tend to be more reactive: “When vigilantes perceive a threat to their security, a sense of emergency is generated and with it a willingness to take extraordinary measures, including violence” (Tyner 138). Thus the items described in the male community are closely linked to activities of vigilantism.
All three of the male plot lines revolve around male vigilantism. In “Dominoes,” two of the domino players (Paco and Ebarito) break with the community norm by insulting the mother and accusing the other of cheating. As a result, these two transgressors must be disciplined:
[Paco] grabbed the milk crate and pushed it back into Ebarito’s chest. And Ebarito went backward, loosing his balance, down. And Paco was on top of him, both massive hands tightly around Ebarito’s throat . . . Ebarito reached into his jacket and pulled out the long thin trimming scissors with the loop that cradles the pinky and adds balance and control to the tool. He began to drive the scissor into Paco’s rib cage. (17)
This is not merely a fight. This is an act of vigilantism, as each player believes they cannot overlook the slight and must discipline the other. As Tyner notes these are “private agents” and they believe their actions are “justified and rational” since moral norms have been broken. Furthermore, we see the everyday objects of discipline: Paco uses a “metal milk crate” and Ebarito uses a barber’s “trimming scissors” to exact justice (17). Additionally, it is noted that vigilantism is a responsibility of males: As
one of the onlooker comments, “‘They are machos’ . . . ‘they know what they want’” (18).
Not all acts of vigilantism need provoke such strong responses. In Rivera’s fiction, Santos is being disciplined by a group of four high school students, for entering the wrong turf: “‘Let me tell you somethin’, white boy,’ he began. ‘This here’s our turf, understand?’” (1573). As a way to discipline Santos, one of the group members uses his bat to threaten him: “He wasn’t much taller than me, but he had the arm muscles of a professional athlete or a truck loader in the garment district . . . he was holding a stickball bat out in front of him like a fishing pole” (1569). First, the stickball bat is as much an everyday object as it can get since it is a wooden broom handle. Secondly, its use is a clear act of vigilantism as the ad hoc group is clearly enforcing discipline over the “marginalized group” – the Puerto Ricans.
In Rodríguez Jr.’s school community, there are many vigilantes. One such group is the teachers because they are operating outside of their educational role and apply violence as keepers of American norms. Specifically, the teachers try to forcefully infuse patriotism into their school: “‘You’re supposed to salute the flag,’ [Mr. Rios] said angrily, shoving one of his fat fingers in my face. ‘You’re not supposed to make up your own mind about it’” (342). Clearly the teachers are acting beyond the “state’s sanctioned authority.” The students are another group of vigilantes present in “The Boy Without a Flag”. Normally students force compliance to the community norms from their peers via some form of bullying (Tyner 71-95). Rodríguez Jr.’s work also shows this. In this work, however, another form of student vigilantism is present: the enforcement of the patriarchy on a teacher. To teach Miss Colon a lesson for her misinterpreted impropriety with Mr. Rios, the students work subversively:
