Diaspora in Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao".

        The characters of Oscar and Lola might live in America and lead what seems like very American lives, but they still have a strong connection to the Dominican Republic. This connection is not always obvious, but the siblings trips to their country of origin proves that they are not whole without their own heritage and history. Derek Walcott's words “Either I'm nobody, or I'm a nation.” define the diaspora and it's destruction on individuals. An individual needs a background, a society that molds it. Oscar is the outsider of the story, and he is a metaphor for the immigrant. An immigrant does not belong to his own country, nor his new country, as he does not exist in his own country, but he is not part of the history of the new country either. The two Old World Dominican characters, Beli and Beli's aunt La Inca are in a different situation, since La Inca has never left the Dominican Republic, and Beli forms the bridge between the Dominican Republic and the United States. La Inca is still mourning her husband and occasionally looks back on the tragic family history under Trujillo's rule. She has never witnessed diaspora first hand, and is a part of Beli's and the children's lives when they visit the Dominican Republic. Beli, being a stubborn, strong headed woman, avoids visiting her home country because of the bad memories. Forced to migrate to the States in the first place, she surprisingly made it a home for her and her children.

        Dominican diaspora, as it is presented in the lives of the de Leon family, is cursed with fukù, “the Curse and Doom of the New World” that haunts the family. The curse was set upon the family ever since Beli's father committed treason against Trujillo, by not handing his daughter over to him. Fukù, according to Diaz has transformed into a power, a source of misfortune that lived on even after Trujillo's reign was over. Beli's whole family except for her aunt, La Inca dies in odd accidents, and Beli was sold to be a servant. Even though Beli moves in with her aunt and lives a relatively happy youth, fukù follows her and she is almost killed for getting pregnant to a gangster that was married to Trujillo's sister.  After the incident she is forced to leave the Dominican Republic, but to have the curse follow her. Fukù, according to the novel, is tied to diaspora that is a part of Dominican culture. Brought by the Europeans to the island 500 years ago, it has changed from being a foreign threat from abroad to being within the Dominican diaspora. Bad luck that the Dominican people cannot shed even by leaving their country of origin. The narrator of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Yunior, states “No one, alas, more oppressive that the oppressed”. The story of Oscar and his family presents how the fukù has turned inward when immigration to the United States started.  On Oscar's last trip to Santo Domingo, however, he decides to 'sacrifice' himself to the fukù in order to be the last person in his family to suffer from the curse. Due to the fukù, Oscar's story ends as bloodily as his ancestors' did.

        Fukù, is not without a counterpart, zafa  that is the good that happens to the family. Fukù might cause the tragedies, but zafa protects the family from total catastrophe. Both fukù and zafa are characters in an immigrants experience, as they are a part of the themes of finding new worlds and the boundaries of one's own world. Diaz's novel frequently repeats sightings of a faceless man and a mongoose. A faceless man is present every time something bad happens, while the mongoose comes to guide them to safety. The faceless man can be considered as fukù and the mongoose as zafa. After Beli saw the faceless man for the second time, she was dragged to the cane fields by two Trujillo's agents, and nearly beaten to death. The narrator explains what happened afterwards “So as Beli was flitting in and out of life, there appeared at her side a creature that would have been an amiable mongoose if not for its golden lion eyes and the absolute black of its pelt.” The mongoose then said to Beli “You have to rise.” The same description was given of the events following Oscar's first beating in the same cane fields. The fukù and zafa represent the everyday hardships and miracles that a family goes through, and especially an immigrant family.

        The language used in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an eclectic mix of English, Spanish from the Dominican Republic and Spanish slang, used in Dominican habited areas in New Jersey and New York. Diaz also incorporates “geeky” language, as he references to J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Marvel comic books, such as the Watchmen. The language used relates mostly to the narrator of the story, Yunior, who is more of an interpreter of the story than an actual character and Oscar's friend. The language he uses is very much tied to pop culture, both in the Western World as well as in the Caribbean, which again presents a sense of diaspora or movement. Diaz brings forward the reality of the modern immigrant, through an assortment of images from all over the social spectrum, which breaks down the hierarchical structures that privilege particular languages and cultural references. Diaz's narrative, rich in events and interpretations, creates a new reality, that exists as a result of history. Oscar Wao gives the reader a shattered history lesson, with the often sarcastic footnotes and the chapters of Abelard and Beli, which reflect the atrocities better than past immigrant narratives. Diaz purposefully creates a collage of references and stories that give insight on the modern, multicultural world, which can be only presented through a mixed up, incoherent narrative. 

        Language is easily used to define social class, and immigrants are often seen as lower class, as their language is considered as a lower form of communication. This is not only seen in the new country of immigration, for example “Spanglish” slang created in the Dominican areas, but also the country of origin. Especially the Dominicans have been victims of colonization, and having to create a new identity, they create a form of language with it. Diaz uses the language of the immigrants to write a story about the immigrants, as it maintains their story and  culture without trying to Americanize it. This does not make the novel an easy read but it forces the reader to make sense out of the reality these immigrants face. Diaz writes about all genres of literature and art after another, eliminating all prejudice about art being either low or high class. “Cicero, Stan Lee, The Sound of Music, and Spanish slang are all written into the same sections, without privileging one over another”, states Max Abrams. Besides from using references to “high or low class” art mixed with each other, Diaz writes a large amount of references in the same passage, allowing the reader at least one reference they understand, but also giving them one that they have not heard of before. In the quote Diaz is describing the feud between journalists and dictators by saying, “Since before the infamous Caesar-Ovid war they've had beef. Like the Fantastic Four and Galactus, like the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, like the Teen Titans and Deathstroke, Foreman and Ali, Morrison and Grouch, Sammy and Sergio.” Even the most cultured reader will get bewildered by this passage, but in some way that is Diaz's goal. He wants the reader to be confused, to not understand something, a feeling all too familiar for immigrants in a new country with a new language.

        

        The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is not only a tale simple tale of a geeky boy. The novel deals with issues of diaspora, history, love and family. Oscar's sister, mother and grandfather are as much in the spotlight as Oscar himself. The clever usage of footnotes and multiple languages include even more characters to the story. Trujillo, the disastrous dictator, fukù and zafa, a curse and its counterpart and even “Spanglish” slang are given important parts in the story. The de Leon family is only a fictional setting for the hole heritage of the Dominican Republic. fukù represented the first Dominican diaspora of African slaves arriving to the island and Beli represented the second form of diaspora, where Dominicans tried to escape the bloody rule of Trujillo. Oscar and Lola are the first generation Dominican-Americans who are trying to find where they belong in the United States and in the Dominican Republic, since neither of the countries are exactly their home. Diaz presented this extremely well with his use of language and humor. The language swallowed the reader into the world of the immigrants, and helped in understanding what their life is like. Without humor, the novel would have been too heavy a read for many, as the themes focused on violence, solitude and alienation. The novel was an in depth look at Dominican diaspora over history and in the present.  

Bibliography

Abrams. M. Immigrants and Galactus: Junot Diaz's World in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  [16.5.2011]

Diaz. J. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. 2007.

Fofana. S. The Dominican Curse and Death.  [17.5.2011]

Johnson. R. The Caribbean Diaspora.  [16.5.2011]

Sharpe. M. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Review.

Walcott. D. The Schooner Boy.

        

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