Full Rough Draft

2nd Draft 5/25 Cale Houghton

Junot Diaz’s Drown is the only book to really capture my attention in over a year. This was a surprise to me, because there's nothing specially pertaining to me in this book. Nothing in my life really connects to what Junior had to go through. Yet I felt like I had a personal connection to his characters anyway, and that I had known the characters for a long time.

I think that the reason I felt so attached was I felt like I had been there for all of the difficult moments. And Junot Diaz’s style to bring the reader into the moment by putting us through the exact same experiences that the characters in his stories go through, through the way he tells the story.

He does this by confusing the reader with a lack of information.

One way Diaz does this is by making the character’s names very difficult to find. We don’t find Junior’s real name until the second story, where we hear it from his mom calling his dad Ramon (Diaz 26). From this, we are expected to deduce that because Junior takes his name from his father, his name must also be Ramon. So Diaz really makes you pay attention if you want to know the name. Also, Lucero’s name is never directly told to the reader. It is just used to label a paragraph relating to his name, so it is difficult to tell what it is. A character’s name is their label, an essential piece of information for keeping them straight. Yet Diaz withholds this, so to the reader the characters become one confusing jumble without characterization.

Diaz also doesn’t tell us who the narrator is. We don’t know who the narrator is because he speaks in the first person for every story, even though the stories jump from main character to main character.

What this mirrors is how the characters have confusing relationships with the people around them.

Lucero has a confusing relationship with Aurora because he never knows anything about her or stays in touch with her, even though they are dating. For example, she comes to him in the middle of the night, and he doesn’t know where she has been. Even though she doesn’t tell him anything about it, he can see from looking at her that she is going through drug withdrawal, because she has “the shakes”. She doesn’t bring up that she is in withdrawal from drugs, which seems very deceitful to me. That seems like the sort of thing you would tell your significant other, which is why it is so confusing that she doesn’t tell him.

Junior has a confusing relationship with Beto. He has an extremely intimate relationship with Beto in that they are best friends, and have had sexual relations. This is complicated by the fact that he calls gay people “fag” and “pato” after he has these sexual encounters (Diaz 103). And immediately after the second encounter, he compares his mood to “junk against the shore” (Diaz 105). So he obviously has something against being homosexual, which is confusing because he has had homosexual experiences himself.

Ramon Senior has a confusing relationship with Junior’s mother. We can see that she neither trusts him, or likes the way he treats her family. We know that she doesn’t trust him because in the Dominican Republic, she used to catch him cheating, and kick him out of the house (Diaz 163). Of course you wouldn’t fully trust someone who had cheated on you at least once. We know she doesn’t like the way he treats her family, because she unsuccessfully tries to stand up for Junior, by saying things like “Ya, Ramon, Ya. It’s not his fault” (Diaz 26). But in the end she comes back to him which is confusing. She agrees to move to New York, even after she finds out he lied to her and took her father’s money.

Diaz does this by putting the reader in a position where they feel like they shouldn’t be.

One way he does this is by letting us into his characters drug problems when we barely know them. He starts Aurora by saying, “Earlier today me and Cut drove to South River and bought some more smoke” (Diaz 47). Later in Aurora he gives us information that his girlfriend is in withdrawal (Diaz 49). In Drown he tells us that two kids see him, “recognizing the guy that sells them their shitty dope” (Diaz 93). It feels like we shouldn’t be here because selling drugs is illegal, and looked down upon by some in our society, because it is said to ruin lives. So by knowing that these characters sell drugs, the reader gets put in this position where they have to make the decision if these characters are bad people, which puts the reader in an uncomfortable and awkward position.

Another way he does this is by putting us right in the middle of his characters family problems. During the first story, he mentions that Junior’s father has been missing from his life, but Junior still believes that his dad will come back. I didn’t feel like this was information I should know, because I am not part of their family, and at this point in the story, I barely knew their family. So it seems like I am intruding into their business. The same is true when Junior mentions how his father abuses him (Diaz 30). Junior is admitting to a major fault in his family, and after this, I kind of judged them by this, which makes me think I shouldn’t have been told this.

What this mirrors is how his characters get forced into positions where they are let into secrets that they shouldn’t know.

His father thrusts these secrets on him. Junior says, “I don’t remember being out of sorts after I met the Puerto Rican woman, but I must have been,” (Diaz 42). We know from later in the story that Junior really wants to tell his mother about this other woman. He longs for his mother to be able to expose his father, and he feels really bad for his mother, knowing everything she goes through just to be cheated on by his father. Ramon Senior doesn’t even think of the things he is putting his son through when he tells him this secret. He just tells it to him, forcing it on him whether he likes it or not.

His brother forces him to keep his secrets. He says, “Rafa had me guarding the door. Him and Leti were in there,” (Diaz 40). So obviously he is using Junior here as a person to cover for him, and he does not care about what Junior wants. And this is not the only time his brother forces him in on his own sexual secrets. In the Dominican Republic he tells Junior about the girls he has had sex with. So Junior is put in the middle of this situation that he didn’t ask to be in at all by his brother.

Diaz does this by putting the reader through very sharp changes in what they read.

Readers experience a sudden change in who the story is about. Without warning, the story changes to the point of view of the character Lucero from being from the point of view of Junior. In fact, the change is so sudden that the narrator jumps right into the story without filling us in. The only way we are able to figure out his name is Lucero is the title of one of the sections titled “Lucero” (Diaz 59). The plot flows so fast from one part of the book to another, that the narrator doesn’t give a transition, it goes straight to the plot.

Readers experience sudden changes with the chronology. We can see this in how Ysrael starts off when he was a kid, Fiesta skips to when he was in New York, Aguantando skips back to when he was in the Dominican Republic, and then later stories skip to his teenage years. Again, there aren’t any transitions, making the change from each time to another very sudden.

What this mirrors is how the characters have very sudden changes in their lives.

One of these sudden changes happens to Junior when he has to move to New York. To support this, he says “The year Papi came to us, the year I was nine, we expected nothing” (Diaz 77). So for him at least, there was no warning from his father, as we can gather from this quote. And we can compare this to how his father was suddenly decided to bring his family back to New York, even after establishing a marriage with his wife in New York. So if even for him it was a sudden change, for his family it would be all the more so. So just like the reader experiences sudden changes in reading this story, Ramons family experiences sudden changes in moving to New York.

In conclusion, Diaz puts the reader through the same feelings his characters go through. This was what drew me into the story, and maybe even accounts for some of the success this book has had.

Latest Draft 5/26

2nd Draft 5/25 Cale Houghton

IDK intro yet. What I need to know is how do I lead my reader to the claim?

Junot Diaz’s style is to put the reader through the exact same experiences that the characters in his stories go through.

He does this by confusing the reader with a lack of information.

One way Diaz does this is by making the character’s names very difficult to find. We don’t find Junior’s real name until the second story, where we hear it from his mom calling his dad Ramon (Diaz 26). From this, we are expected to deduce that because Junior takes his name from his father, his name must also be Ramon. So Diaz really makes you pay attention if you want to know the name. Also, Lucero’s name is never directly told to the reader. It is just used to label a paragraph relating to his name, so it is difficult to tell what it is. A character’s name is their label, an essential piece of information for keeping them straight. Yet Diaz withholds this, so to the reader the characters become one confusing jumble without characterization.

Diaz also doesn’t tell us who the narrator is. We don’t know who the narrator is because he speaks in the first person for every story, even though the stories jump from main character to main character.

What this mirrors is how the characters have confusing relationships with the people around them.

Lucero has a confusing relationship with Aurora because he never knows anything about her or stays in touch with her, even though they are dating. For example, she comes to him in the middle of the night, and he doesn’t know where she has been. Even though she doesn’t tell him anything about it, he can see from looking at her that she is going through drug withdrawal, because she has “the shakes”. She doesn’t bring up that she is in withdrawal from drugs, which seems very deceitful to me. That seems like the sort of thing you would tell your significant other, which is why it is so confusing that she doesn’t tell him.

Junior has a confusing relationship with Beto. He has an extremely intimate relationship with Beto in that they are best friends, and have had sexual relations. This is complicated by the fact that he calls gay people “fag” and “pato” after he has these sexual encounters (Diaz 103). And immediately after the second encounter, he compares his mood to “junk against the shore” (Diaz 105). So he obviously has something against being homosexual, which is confusing because he has had homosexual experiences himself.

Ramon Senior has a confusing relationship with Junior’s mother. We can see that she neither trusts him, or likes the way he treats her family. We know that she doesn’t trust him because in the Dominican Republic, she used to catch him cheating, and kick him out of the house (Diaz 163). Of course you wouldn’t fully trust someone who had cheated on you at least once. We know she doesn’t like the way he treats her family, because she unsuccessfully tries to stand up for Junior, by saying things like “Ya, Ramon, Ya. It’s not his fault” (Diaz 26). But in the end she comes back to him which is confusing. She agrees to move to New York, even after she finds out he lied to her and took her father’s money.

Diaz does this by putting the reader in a position where they feel like they shouldn’t be.

One way he does this is by letting us into his characters drug problems when we barely know them. He starts Aurora by saying, “Earlier today me and Cut drove to South River and bought some more smoke” (Diaz 47). Later in Aurora he gives us information that his girlfriend is in withdrawal (Diaz 49). In Drown he tells us that two kids see him, “recognizing the guy that sells them their shitty dope” (Diaz 93). It feels like we shouldn’t be here because selling drugs is illegal, and looked down upon by some in our society, because it is said to ruin lives. So by knowing that these characters sell drugs, the reader gets put in this position where they have to make the decision if these characters are bad people, which puts the reader in an uncomfortable and awkward position.

Another way he does this is by putting us right in the middle of his characters family problems. During the first story, he mentions that Junior’s father has been missing from his life, but Junior still believes that his dad will come back. I didn’t feel like this was information I should know, because I am not part of their family, and at this point in the story, I barely knew their family. So it seems like I am intruding into their business. The same is true when Junior mentions how his father abuses him (Diaz 30). Junior is admitting to a major fault in his family, and after this, I kind of judged them by this, which makes me think I shouldn’t have been told this.

What this mirrors is how his characters get forced into positions where they are let into secrets that they shouldn’t know.

His father thrusts these secrets on him. Junior says, “I don’t remember being out of sorts after I met the Puerto Rican woman, but I must have been,” (Diaz 42). We know from later in the story that Junior really wants to tell his mother about this other woman. He longs for his mother to be able to expose his father, and he feels really bad for his mother, knowing everything she goes through just to be cheated on by his father. Ramon Senior doesn’t even think of the things he is putting his son through when he tells him this secret. He just tells it to him, forcing it on him whether he likes it or not.

His brother forces him to keep his secrets. He says, “Rafa had me guarding the door. Him and Leti were in there,” (Diaz 40). So obviously he is using Junior here as a person to cover for him, and he does not care about what Junior wants. And this is not the only time his brother forces him in on his own sexual secrets. In the Dominican Republic he tells Junior about the girls he has had sex with. So Junior is put in the middle of this situation that he didn’t ask to be in at all by his brother.

Diaz does this by putting the reader through very sharp changes in what they read.

We can see this in the sudden change in main characters.

What this mirrors is how the characters have very sudden changes in their lives.

One of these sudden changes happens to Junior when he has to move to New York.

[Just thought of this idea and I need to explore it a bit more in my notebook].

In conclusion, Diaz tells the story in this confusing way to put the reader through the same feelings his characters go through. During an interview, Junot Diaz said that he meant this book as a kind of cultural mirror for, “people like him”. So maybe he is trying to convey that as a whole, “people like him” have a confusing experience, and that his reason for writing this is to convey that.

Letters to Miles and Malik

Dear Miles,

I think your idea is really strong already, but I thought that maybe if I tried to play devil's advocate it would become a little bit stronger, and maybe warrant a few things that you haven’t yet.

If you are showing us that Junot Diaz’s characters are just shells, that we can input our own meanings into them, then doesn’t that mean that this whole story is meaningless? What is the difference between this book and a choose-your-own-adventure book? Do they eventually come down to just catering to the reader, in what the reader wants or relates to?

One thing I think you most need to address is the quote by Junot Diaz that says he created this book in order to create a cultural mirror. To me, making a story to give a group of people place in the media is very different than making a story that everyone can relate to. And because this is a major argument people have been using, I think that it is something you have to acknowledge and respond to or at least warrant. Maybe you could find a way to make your idea fit within these reasons that he made this story. Like how a mirror (what Diaz compares it to) reflects who you are, regardless, and you are trying to prove that everyone gets reflected in this story.

From, Cale

Dear Malik,

As you said, it was late when you were writing your story and you made some typos, so I don’t really think correcting them would be very helpful to you. It seems more like something you would focus on in later stages. Instead, I’m going to focus more on your arguments.

One thing that I think you could work on that I mentioned in class is that you say the Junot Diaz quote is directed at people who are monsters. I don’t think Junot Diaz is calling would call his own people monsters, I think what he means by this is that he wants to stop them from becoming monsters, and he thinks it will help them to not be perceived as monsters if they have a cultural mirror.

Here are some possible objective correlatives within the story that you could work with: In the fantasy Junior has, the Americanized clothes his dad wears are maybe supposed to induce a feeling from the reader, although I’m not sure what. I think Mr. Garces Kiley also mentioned that the Ginkgo trees could be an objective correlative, so I think it would be worth checking out. Also I think as you mentioned in class, giving the mask Ysrael has might be worth a try, and I just thought of using the pictures of his father that he finds when he was young. To me these seemed really important, and maybe were added to create a feeling in the reader.

And I am still confused as to why the names Lucero and Aurora are objective correlatives. I think you understand why, but for me it lacks a warrant. So adding what warrants your thinking would clarify this a lot.

From, Cale

5/21 Rough draft

Rough Draft 5/19 Cale Houghton

Stories are supposed to be geared towards the reader, and the narrator is supposed to walk the reader through the story.

But, when I was reading this story, the narrator did nothing to help me. I was confused on the chronology, the point of view, and the plot.

Junot Diaz’s style is to put the reader through the exact same experiences that the characters in his stories go through.

The confusion Junot Diaz puts the reader through is a reflection of the confusion his characters go through, because they don’t really know each other yet they still have close relationships.

Junior has a confusing relationship with his brother in that he never tells his brother about what he really feels, yet he still wants to be around his brother all time. After he gets molested by a man on the bus, Junior never even mentions this to his brother, even though his brother was on the bus to. He obviously doesn’t have an open relationship with Rafa if he can’t tell him this major thing that just happened. But then at the same time, he says “I always followed Rafa, trying to convince him to let me tag along,” (Diaz 6). If he follows Rafa around, it would seem that he has a close position to him, but he decides not to tell him about this traumatic event, which signals that he doesn’t actually connect with him that much.

Junior has a confusing relationship with his mother because he loves her and cares for her a lot, but still won’t share information with her. One way I know he loves her is that Junot Diaz dedicates this book to his mother, and it is suspected that this book is at least partly autobiographical. This shows that he wants to accomplish things for her, and that he cares for her. He also just says several times in the story that he loves her. [Needs evidence]. Yet at the same time, he says that because of issues with his father, they were, “no longer as close” (Diaz 84). Because they are described as not “close”, it seems like they wouldn’t know very much about each other.

Lucero has a confusing relationship with Aurora because he never knows anything about her or stays in touch with her, even though they are dating. For example, she comes to him in the middle of the night, and he doesn’t know where she has been. Even though she doesn’t tell him anything about it, he can see from looking at her that she is going through drug withdrawal, because she has “the shakes”. She doesn’t bring up that she is in withdrawal from drugs, which seems very deceitful to me. That seems like the sort of thing you would tell your significant other.

These are similar to how the reader gets left high and dry in terms of information. We didn’t know Juniors real name until part way through Fiesta 1980. Not knowing a characters name real name can be very disorienting. But more so than this, in the story Aurora, I thought it was Junior talking the whole time, which completely twisted the story from what it was. Throughout all these examples the characters have ongoing relationships with people around them, but there is still a lack of information shared between them. We read this book, so we had an ongoing relationship with it

The personal information that the narrator dumps on us is similar to how Junior gets stuck in the middle of these family secrets.

His father thrusts these secrets on him. Junior says, “I don’t remember being out of sorts after I met the Puerto Rican woman, but I must have been,” (Diaz 42). We know from later in the story that he really wants to tell his mother about this other woman. He longs for his mother to be able to expose his father, and he feels really bad for his mother, knowing everything she goes through just to be cheated on by his father. He Ramon Senior doesn’t even think of the things he is putting his son through when he tells him this secret. He just tells it to him, forcing it on him whether he likes it or not.

His brother forces him to keep his secrets. He says, “Rafa had me guarding the door. Him and Leti were in there,” (Diaz 40). So obviously he is using Junior here as a person to cover for him, and he does not care about what Junior wants. And this is not the only time his brother forces him in on his own sexual secrets. In the Dominican Republic he tells Junior about the girls he has had sex with. So Junior is put in the middle of this situation that he didn’t ask to be in at all by his brother, who doesn’t seem concerned about what he gets Junior into.

These examples are similar to how the reader is given very secretive information about the characters in the stories. One example of this is how in the story Ysrael, Junior just casually drops in that he was molested by a random man on the bus. He says, “he was pinching at the tip of my pinga through the fabric of my shorts,” (Diaz 12). This isn’t even the main point of the story. To me, this felt awkward, because it was like I was in on a secret that I shouldn’t be. Yet the story forces it on you, just like how Junior gets stuck with his family's secrets, even though he feels awkward with them.

In conclusion, Diaz tells the story in this confusing way to put the reader through the same feelings his characters go through. During an interview, Junot Diaz said that he meant this book as a kind of cultural mirror for, “people like him”. So maybe he is trying to convey that as a whole, “people like him” have a confusing experience, and that his reason for writing this is to convey that.

Text Explorations 5/19

Cale Houghton

Text Explorations due 5/19

Passage 1: Junior says about his mother and father, “I guess the whole night I’d been waiting for a blowup, something between Papi and Mami, this was how I always figured Papi would be exposed, out in public, where everyone would know,” (40).

• It seems like Junior is almost romanticizing this vision of his father getting humiliated. The reason I say this is because he says he was waiting for it, and it goes over this fantasy he has of his father getting caught. This makes me wonder, why does he do this? Maybe he really just hates his father, and wants revenge on him.
• Blowup - An angry argument. So Junior is picturing his mom actually being angry at his dad. Most of the time, she just acts afraid of him. This shows how it’s almost a dream for Junior that his mom would become angry at his dad. I think he sees how miserable she is because his dad is always pushing her around. So to me it seems like he is dreaming of his mom having an excuse to yell at and humiliate his father.
• I also am curious why it’s different that everybody would know, besides his father's humiliation. Maybe this is just part of giving his mom an excuse to yell at his dad, and break free from him. Because if it was in front of everyone, he would not be able to twist the story at all, and his mother would have her family backing her up. So maybe that is what Junior wants.

Passage 2: About Aurora, Lucero says, “She’s got the shakes - even in this light I can see that. It’s hard to kiss anyone like that, hard to even touch them - the flesh moves like it’s on rollers,” (49).

• “The shakes” isn't in the Merriam Webster dictionary, but I think it probably means that she is in withdrawal from some drug. So if she is obviously having such a hard time being away from this drug, why is she hanging out with Lucero? Maybe to her, he is actually a relief from the drugs, and this story really is about love, at least on her part.
• But at the same time, we can see how on his side the relationship is very confusing, because he seems disgusted by her. This goes back to my claim that the narrator tells the story in such a way that keeps a lot of basic details from the reader to model the confusion that the characters go through in the story. I think in my essay I could use Lucero’s relationship with Aurora as support for this.
• Junior says it’s hard “to kiss anyone like that”, and yet he just did kiss her. This brings up the question, why did he kiss her, is she disgusts him, and makes him not want to kiss her? It seems like he is almost addicted to her. He can’t help but open the door when she knocks, even though he knows it's not going to turn out well. It’s kind of ironic actually, because she is addicted to drugs, and he is addicted to her.

Passage 3: About his mother, Junior says, “She didn’t treat me badly upon her return but we were no longer as close; she did not call me her Prieto or bring me chocolates from her work. That seemed to suit her fine. And I was young enough to grow out of her rejection. I still had baseball and my brother. I still had trees to climb and lizards to tear apart,” (84).

• In this quote he says that he was young enough to grow out of her rejection. To me, this implies that now, he wouldn’t be able to grow out of her rejection. So why is it that when he was younger he could grow out of rejection, but when he gets older he can’t? Maybe it has something to do with how his younger self didn’t know as much about the things his mother had done for him as his older self, or that he didn’t care about her as much then.
• He also says “That seemed to suit her fine”. This is interesting, because he is her son, yet she is fine with just ignoring him. Yet she always seemed like a good mother, but here she is okay with just ignoring him. It seems very uncharacteristic, and a lot more like his father to do that.
• Although it wasn’t on Merriam Webster, I looked up what Prieto meant, and a rough translation is “blackish”. I thought this was very interesting because in later stories, Junior often associates being darker with being worse. Yet in this story, he recalls how his mother used to call him dark as a term of affection. Maybe this reflects how his mother has a different view on these things than others, and maybe even himself. She just loved him for who he was.
• It was also surprising to me how violent young Junior was, that he thought of tearing apart lizards as just an everyday hobby. Maybe this is reflecting these violent feelings he has, even if he tries to hide them. His father left him when he was little, and he has lived in poverty his whole life. So I think maybe these violent tendencies are just signs of how he realizes these injustices that have happened to him, and that he is angry about them even at this young age.

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/ (Sorry I couldn’t find the password for bard.edu library).

Dig In posts

Reflections on Creative Draft

Concerns I had during the creative draft were that my style often just did not match Junot Diaz's. One example of this was how in class we tried to take a passage of his that we were drawn to, and rewrite our passage in the same way. I just couldn't make his way of writing match mine. At the same time, we do have some matching styles. It was kind of easy for me not to give any personal details about myself, and dive right into what the story really meant, because I always felt like introducing your topic was kind of a chore.
One part of his story that I couldn't get to match my own was the fantasy he had in Aguantando. I tried putting it into my story, and it just didn't feel very natural. One metaphor that I made in class for this feeling was it was like trying to fit into a really tight pair of clothes: You can force it, but it doesn't want to happen. I ended up just forcing a fantasy into my piece.
In addition to this, I had to kind of force myself to have repeating settings. What I mean by this is how in a lot of different stories, Junior was sitting on a couch, sometimes with his mom, reflecting or feeling bad. So even though it didn't always exactly pan out this way, I tried to make a repeating scene of me having dinner with my family, and not having anything to talk to them about, except some argument.

Proposal

I'm interested in writing about why Junot Diaz muddies basic details in the story, like characters names, backgrounds, and other parts of their identity. This leads me to the question, why does Junot Diaz not give basic details of his characters identity when these are intimate stories about them? One way to consider this is that he tries to avert our attention away from maybe the individual, and wants to put his focus on the group of people he is trying to reflect.

Rough Draft

Cale Houghton

Rough Draft 5/10

Yard Sale:

A few hours earlier, I had been screaming at my parents, yelling “You can’t take it away! I hate you! YOU CAN’T TAKE IT AWAY!” This was 5 year old logic of course. They could, and they did, take away my train table, and the box of toys I had kept next to my bed.

Now I sat in my driveway, hating my parents, hating New York. Tears streamed down my face, because I was only 5 and didn’t know about self control yet. Most of the toys in the box had been sold, and another little boy was standing in my backyard at his dads ankles, about to buy my Thomas the Tank Engine train table. His dad talked to my dad, I saw him hand him some money, and my dad nodded and smiled.

I ran up to my mom. “Don’t let him take it away!” I wailed.

“I’m sorry honey, but we all have to make sacrifices here, so we can get to New York,” she said.

“I don’t want to move. I hate moving!”

“C’mon, let's get inside,” she said, while picking me up. While she carried me inside, I caught a glimpse of the man loading my train table onto his pickup, his son grinning. It’s all their fault I thought to myself.

Finding Out:

I sat in my kitchen, having dinner with my mom and my brother. My brother was telling her about how his day in 2nd grade had gone. I was silent. I still am silent when I eat with my parents, there’s nothing to talk about I guess. Anyway, while we ate dinner, my dad came in the front door, closing it with a slam. He walked through the foyer and into the kitchen, greeting my mom and us. After taking off his jacket, he pulled up a chair and ate dinner with us. My silence continued.

About midway through dinner, he whispered something in my moms ear and she nodded.

He spoke up to me and my brother, telling us, “Your mother and I have some big news,” or something diplomatic like that. “My job is moving to New York, and we decided that we want to go with it.” For a few seconds, I was confused about what that meant.

I caught on though, when my mom said, “And were selling the house, unfortunately, so that we can afford an apartment in New York.” My brother acted surprised, and started asking questions about when we would go, did we know when we were going to move.

I can’t say that it hadn’t been hinted at. My dad had been taking week-long business trips to New York for a while, and my mom had dropped little hints, like telling us we might be spending more time in New York. I hadn’t caught on though. I guess even after hearing this though, I still didn’t believe it. I imagined that in a few days, my parents would tell me to unpack anything I had packed, to take the toys in the box out, and to tell my friends I didn’t have to leave after all. I imagined this because I knew that they would never make the decision to leave Arlington without me, because they respected my opinion.

How to Talk to Your Parents

If they start giving you advice or instructions, just agree to it, even if you really don't agree with it or you know that you won't follow their instructions.

If they won't stop giving you instructions just stare at their nose and nod, while trying to remember what I need to know for the next latin test.

You should make eye contact with them, even though you don't really care about what they are saying, and don't yawn or sigh unless you want to piss them off. Also, don't go on your phone while they are talking, no matter how little you care. They’ll just take it.

If you have to ask for something, make sure you have done most of the regular chores, and anything your parents have been nagging you about. You know they will ask about that when you want something, so just be prepared and do it before hand. Also, try to make what you are asking for related to school, even if you didn't think it was related to school. It will help your chances a lot. If you are asking for something over the weekend, make sure you are not in your pajamas, and haven't been on your phone all day.

If you actually want to make a conversation, then talk about your grades and the lack of trouble you have been in. That’s all they really care about.

If they start yelling at you, don’t say anything you would regret saying later. But call them out on bullshit they give you, so they don’t think they can walk all over you. If they are yelling at you about the instructions they gave but you didn't follow, take the same steps you did when they were giving the advice and repeat. Don't worry about it - what ever they are trying to advise or instruct you to do they will eventually forget about.

New York, Nine Years Later

“Cale, pass the salt please,” my dad says.

I look up, mumble a complaint, and pass it to him. That lazy-ass could have gotten it himself, but he just wanted me to pick my head up off the table. The reason my head was on the table was because they had dragged me to some Italian restaurant when I had been trying to finish some assignment. And I knew that they would complain about how late I stay up later. After passing the salt, I put my head back on the table.

“You know, you should be a lot more grateful about getting to go to nice restaurants,” my dad says.

I look around.

“I didn’t ask to come here,” I said.

“It’s called spending time with your family,” he responded. “I’m sure you would never ask to do it, but some of us like being around each other.

“Whatever,” I said, letting it go. This happened almost every time I went anywhere with them. Sometimes I let it go, sometimes I didn’t. My head dropped again. They made conversation with my brother, talking with him about colleges, and where he wanted to apply. It did sound like they liked talking to each other.

Later though, when we got out of the restaurant, my mom said to me, “The way you acted in there was really embarrassing,  you know.”

“Oh did I embarrass you?” I responded. “Get over it.” And as we walked home, I stayed as far behind them as possible, telling myself I didn’t give a shit about them.

Raw Draft

Story 1:

I was 5, and I sat in my driveway. Around me in our front yard, were piles of random crap, things like lawn chairs and coffee tables. I was crying though, because what kind of 5 year old wants to see their toys being sold. Despite my bawling though, my parents kept getting rid of my things. For a 5 year old, it kind of sucked.

The worst part though, was when this other little kid came by with his father, and bought my Thomas the Tank Engine Train Table. His dad came over to my dad, asked if it was for sale, my dad nodded, he paid for it, and then loaded it into his truck. For me, that Train Table was the shit. I yelled at my parents to get it back, get it back! But the man, drove his truck away, and my parents paid no attention to me, because I was just a 5 year old.

After this experience, I knew everything I needed to about moving: It sucked. But my parents had made up their mind, and I couldn't do anything.

Story 2:

This is another story of when I was moving to New York. It happens when I found out we were leaving.  I was eating dinner in the kitchen with my mom and my brother, when my dad walked over. He had been finishing work previously.

He gave us some spiel about having big news, and told us that his work was moving out of Arlington to New York. I didn’t really understand what this meant at first, but my brother acted like it was a big deal so I went along.

I caught on though, when my dad said, “And were selling the house, unfortunately, so that we can afford an apartment in New York. This explained to me, why he had been taking so many business trips to New York, and why he had not been around much lately, but I was shocked. I guess I thought my parents would consult with me before making the decision to move, but they didn’t. I was kind of hurt that they didn’t value what I wanted.

My prompts:

Prompt 5: One way I could change my story is like this...

I came home one day and realized my Thomas the Tank Engine train table was gone. At first, I thought my parents had just moved it, so I searched around the house. After I couldn't find it in the

Prompt 2: One of the major things I associate with when I moved was that it happened very suddenly and that I didn't get much of a say in it. I think that this might be something that I want to focus on later in my story. It seems like it wasn't as much about the moving as it was about my relationship with my parents.

Prompt 1: In this story I was kind of like one of those birds that fluffs up its feathers and plumage to get the attention of other birds. I think this simile works because these stories were a lot about me wanting to get on my parents radar, and to have a relationship with them where they wanted my opinion. In this story though, they didn't really value my input so I guess it didn't work.

Letter to Junot Diaz

Dear Junot Diaz,
In the story Aguantando, Junior pictures New York as the type of place that will transform his dad into a suited man, that loves and cares for him. He later finds out though, that his dad is still a cheater in New York, still is abusive, and generally is not a changed person.
When I first moved to New York from Virginia when I was 5 (which is obviously not nearly as much of a culture shock as moving from the Dominican Republic), I also had warped expectations of what it would be like. I didn't think that there was any natural things in New York, I thought that it was just buildings upon buildings. I was used to a lot of nature, so I thought that I would hate it. In the end though I realized that there was still nature in New York, and also that it wasn't as bad as I thought. So my experience was kind of the opposite of Juniors. He expected that New York would change his family and make his dad more of a dad, but it didn't. I expected New York to take any some of my favorite things, but it actually added new ones.

Freewrites for 5/5