Analysis Of Short Stories In Drown By Junot Díaz
Junot Diaz is a Dominican author whose rise to prominence is due to his artistry when it comes to telling stories of Caribbean-Americans. Born in 1968, Junot lived in the Dominican Republic for much of his childhood until he finally moved over to the U.S to accompany his father. Diaz then went to later attend Rutgers university where he received his masters and ended up working as an editorial assistant. Around this time Diaz started to conceive stories and characters which would later spawn the publishing of Drown in 1968. Although not being Yunior the connection is very obviously there.
With the collection of stories in Drown, Diaz addresses many problems that immigrants face in the United States. With Ramon, we are best able to track how the United States changes an immigrant because we experience his arrival all the way to Yunior’s adolescence. Through the two stories: Negocios and Fiesta, 1980 we are introduced to two very different Ramons. By comparing and contrasting the different sides of Ramon, Diaz makes a statement on the illusion of the American Dream. Diaz is making the case that immigrants change and adapt to terrible situations with the American Dream lighting the fire inside of them. Once they realize how marginalized they actually are, they realize the trap that is the American Dream, changing them, in Ramon’s case, reverting him to the same man he was back in the Dominican Republic. Ramon De las Casas was a police officer whose focus was sleeping with other women instead of being on duty.
To make up the money for the flight, Ramon was “hustling and borrowing from his friends, from anyone he could put a bite on”. After begging his father in law for money, Ramon buys his flight to Florida where Ramon took his first job as a dishwasher.
He would work two long shifts a day, a lot for a person who didn’t really seem like a hard worker. The situation was very dim for Ramon as he slept on a carpet, however he toiled on with the dream of making it to New York. At night, Ramon would fight the temptation of thinking of his family because he missed them so much. Just a couple pages in Negocios we see a very different Ramon, as he seemed pretty disconnected from his family, now that was the only thing he longed for.
Not long after Ramon quit his job he actually made his way into New York living in rundown apartment. Ramon would work two jobs again, one cleaning offices and another washing dishes. At this point Ramon started writing back to the family sending them 100 dollars, “sums that often left him broke and borrowing until the next payday”. Again this is another change in Ramon , as just a couple passages ago Ramon was begging his father in law for “a cigar box stuffed with cash” but now he was the one giving back , so much so that it would leave him broke. Ramon who seemed at face value pretty self-centered now was showing some altruistic characters. He worked nineteen-twenty hours a day for the whole week, so much that he would experience a ton of lunge and head pain. What kept Ramon alive was the promise he made to bring his family to him as “he promised her and the children tickets soon.” This dream of bringing his family would become his American Dream. Diaz shows us a different rendition of the American dream as in most text the American dream is portrayed as living in a white picket fence house with a golden retriever.
A year in Ramon still was in the same predicament no matter how much and how hard he worked which started to deteriorate his American Dream. Once Ramon married Nilda, he completely started to forget about his family back home. He lost what was his purpose and drive to work twenty hours a day distorting his American Dream.
Although still hardwiring, working two jobs, Ramon reverted back to what seemed like his typical ways as he “he paid no rent, ate her food, talked to Milagros when the TV was broken”(186). Diaz is showing us with Ramon, that immigrants don't really change when they arrive to the states. Yes, Ramon became hard working but once he adjusted to life in the states, he became the same man he was before. This new Ramon was lost with his American Dream.
Ramon strand of jobs now lead him to become a union worker. The workplace conditions were terrible as he faced racism, terrible hours and a terrible work conditions. It was a nearly a two-hour commute and the labor was strenuous but it paid triple of the radiator job, so this would allow him to pull off his grand scheme. The whites at his job would dump their worst schedule on Ramon, to which he would take with no complaint. He still was making the same sacrifices that he was doing when he first arrived in Florida.
At this point he never wrote back to his family nonetheless send money to support them. Nilda offers Ramon the opportunity to travel back to the Dominican Republic, which changes Ramon when he gets back. He took his first three sick days ever, showing signs of his loose commitment to his workplace. He also always had the wish of starting up a negocio, business, but he started to decline the offers from his friend JoJo. This is really big because up until this point Ramon was fighting to work his way up the food chain, but at this point he has become complacent with his place in society.
Getting injured at work created a major rift between the couple, and his leave from his newfound family was inevitable. What was his dream to bring his family, now was his only escape from Nilda and their family. Even before coming to the United States, Diaz emphasizes Ramon’s fascination for violence. The only reason that Ramon seemed to want to be a cop was his fascination for the violence aspect of the position. In Florida after learning that one of his roommates wasn’t paying rent, Ramon decides to take up his stuff and leave, but before he leaves it is made pretty obvious by Yunior that Ramon beat up his roommate before he leaves. Once at New York, he gets scammed and proceeds to throw the friend who got him scammed off a ladder. When Ramon was too tired to hang out with his friends who would stay home and watch Tom and Jerry, a show he loved because of their violence. At his Union job, Ramon was put on probation due to two fights he had with several other workers. After getting injured, once home life became more like a warzone things got so badly that locks had to be changed, so although not particularly violent, Ramon’s violent attitude shines through.
Fiesta 1980, is the next story in chronological order that includes Ramon. This story helps verify the claim of the American Dream was fuel for Ramon, but fuel that ran out. From the very first page of the chapter we see how scared a young Yunior is of his father and how if they weren't changed he would have “kicked our asses something serious” Not only does it seem like Yunior is afraid of his father but also his mother who he just ignores as he walks in which shows how he still is pretty violent. As Yunior put it “he had been with that Puerto Rican woman.. And wanted to wash off the evidence quick”. This is the same Ramon who was caught sleeping around while on duty.
However unlike in the Dominican Republic where they had Yunior’s grandfather, there is no authoritative figure to challenge Ramon. He imposes his will with no opposition on the family. This is evident to the fact that everyone eating except for Yunior and his car sickness. The family knows the consequences of going against Ramon’s will. It is revealed that Ramon cleaning his car was a big deal , “since papi barely cleaned anything himself”. Ramon in Florida “washed and ironed his own clothes” and called all these activities a “man job”. This shows you how much Ramon has changed from the fresh off a plane Ramon. A mention to Ramon’s violent tendencies as Yunior describes how imaginative his father was with his punishments. Yunior goes so far as to write an essay “My Father the Torturer”. Which implies how often Yunior is beat by Ramon. His relationship is also really strenuous with his father admitting he “and papi didn’t talk too much”. Again this is a testament to Ramon’s past, a man who seemed completely disconnected from his family in the Dominican Republic. The Ramon we see in Fiesta, 1980 is a man who realizes the harsh reality of an immigrant opposed to the Ramon in Negocios who comes off the plane full or aspirations.
The American Dream is a beautiful thing, as it inspires so many people to leave their homeland to pursue a better education, a better life, etc. My mother for example left the Dominican Republic at sixteen with the hopes of having a better life like Ramon. The detorition of his American Dream, detorited the facade he was putting on. Diaz’s subtle use of using violence to describe Ramon’s character confirms that Ramon never really changed inside however Diaz uses Ramon’s jobs and hard work to trick the reader to believe that Roman is indeed a changed man. No matter how hard Ramon worked he experienced no social mobility which showed him how limited opportunities for immigrants are. With the use of characters like Ramon, we would come to question is Diaz trying to tell us all immigrants are bad, but in fact Diaz is showing us a man who wants to change, who wants to become a family but is broken chasing the clouds.
