Summary Of Junot Diaz's Drown

The American Dream is something that Americans hold in high esteem; the idea that anybody can come to America and succeed through sheer will and determination is one that humans tend to cling to and admire. However in Drown, Junot Diaz touches on just what the American Dream entails for those immigrating with hopes of a better life, the kind of sacrifice necessary to achieve this “Dream” and just how easy it is to fall into a hole and never make it out. Diaz provides a first hand perspective on many aspects of what its like to be an immigrant in the United States. He organizes an array of short stories to shed some light and put the reader in the shoes of an immigrant. The opening chapter Ysrael takes place in Santo Domingo, with our narrator Yunior and his brother Rafa. To me it seems Diaz put this chapter first because he was born in Santo Domingo and wanted to show the lens of how that culture behaved and how it …show more content…
Him leaving his family back in Santo Domingo with the false hope of working and sending for them to move to America for a better life is a representation of the mindset immigrants having moving to America. “He was twenty-four. He didn’t dream about his familia and wouldn’t for many years. He dreamed instead of gold coins, like the ones that had been salvaged from the many wrecks about our island, stacked high as a sugar cane” (169). Diaz is displaying the fathers current thinking at the time imagining fulfilling the financial aspect of the American dream. The author uses spanish here when talking about his family using “familia” cause its close to his heart and in his first language. I feel he uses spanish is whenever it is the most inherent word to come to mind. Him sharing this reflective inner dilemma shows conflict in feeling obligatory to his family, but really wants to maximize his own personal