Examples Of Cultural Differences In Wildwood

Ashley Coffee

2/19/2015

Prof. Narizhnaya

English 201-1115

The Culture Difference between Different Places

In the story Wildwood by Junot Diaz we are shown a sense that the character Lola doesn’t like the way she is growing up in her culture's life style. Mr. Diaz then starts to bring his readers' attention to explore the many different ways of living in the New Jersey area and then being sent to Dominican Republic. Being a teenager growing up with a “True Dominican Mother” is very hard because of the cultural differences between the Dominican Republic and the United States.

In the beginning of the story Wildwood, we are introduced to our main character Lola being interrupted by her mother calling her into the bathroom to talk about her “forty-two

She and Oscar had a long talk and she asked him to come to Wildwood and meet her at a coffee shop on the boardwalk. She wanted him to bring some clothes, books, and money. So when Oscar meets her at the coffee shop he comes with her mother, aunt and uncle. Lola was furious that she turned around and ran away again but something made her turn back and when she did she seen her mother fall to the ground and started crying for her. So she then turned around and went back to her mother when she gets to her mom she realized that she was faking everything and by this time it was too late to turn back around and run away again. Her mother then said “Ya te tengo, she said, jumping triumphantly to her feet. Te tengo Diaz page 19.” Which means in English her mother was happy to her back. By this time her mother had sent her to Santo Domingo to live with her grandmother and reasoning begin was she felt like it would be harder for Lola to run away from

Diaz’s interview he talks about how many young Dominicans are living in New York or New Jersey. The fact that he speaks about how Dominicans are living in New York New Jersey there is a culture difference between them. If you are Dominican and grown up there and then move to New York / New Jersey you will find yourself lost and trying to learn the way Americans in New York / New Jersey live. This is where he gets his idea to write his book “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao-The Dominican Teenage Runaway” Basically his first novel is about a charming Dominican-American boy who is overweight and is a nerd. Early on this book makes the reader realize that the stories are about the depredations of dictatorship and has a powerful examination of the nature of authority. Mr. Diaz wrote this book to challenge the many types of protagonist that many young male Latino writers he were writing. When Mr. Diaz was talking to Slate, Diaz said he was a product of a fragmented world. This interview between the two is basically them talking about all Mr. Diaz’s books and how some people ask if he thinks of himself as a “Latino writer and if so what might this mean and if not why not.” Mr. Diaz says “We’re in a country where white is considered normative; it's a country where white writers are simply writers, and writers of Latino descent are Latino writers. This is an issue whose roots are deeper than just the publishing community or how an artist wants to self-designate.” (pg2)