Literary Context Presentation: Junot Diaz

       For my Literary Context Presentation, I chose to research the author Junot Diaz. Diaz has written several works, his two most famous ones being Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of  Oscar Wao. For class, we read the first short story in his collection of short stories in Drown, which is also titled Drown. 
     Through my research I found it was interesting that Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic, and moved to New Jersey when he was six years old. Diaz's dual heritage has influenced him a lot in his writings. This is certainly shown through his short story Drown. The main character in that story is from some kind of Spanish heritage, so I'm sure many of the things in this short story that allude to the Spanish culture could possibly be from Diaz's own childhood. 
     Another thing I found interesting about Diaz's personal life is that he is currently in a domestic partnership with another author of the paranormal romance genre, named Marjorie Liu. Although a domesticpartnership only means that the two live together and are not legally married, it does make me wonder if maybe the homosexuality experience in Drown could possibly be of Diaz's own experience. It could be possible that Diaz could have had a similar experience to that of the narrator's and maybe that's why he's chosen to just remain in a domestic partnership. Of course, we'll most likely never really know that. 

    In Drown our main character has a complicated relationship with his mother. "Saturdays she asks me to take her to the mall. As a son I feel I owe her that much, even though none of us has a car and we have to walk two miles through redneck territory to catch the M15." (Diaz, 1668). In this scene of the short story, we see our narrator feeling obligated to take his mother to the mall. Of course, she probably couldn't go out by herself because it wouldn't be safe, and it is a two mile walk. The narrator does say that he'd rather be out selling drugs to the local kids, because on a Saturday he could make a lot of money. But seeing his mother get dressed up for the occasion, it's easy to understand why our narrator feels like he has to take her. "She doesn't go out much, so when she does it's a big deal. She dresses up, even puts on makeup." (Diaz, 1668). I know that in the Spanish culture, it's a big deal to be respectful of your parents, and often times children don't typically leave home until they're married themselves. In this particular situation, our narrator's father isn't around, so he's left to be the 'man of the house' so to speak. He even gives his mother $50 to buy things, andreminisces how his father used to give her $100. In Diaz's actual life, he spent several years living with just his mother, grandparents, and his siblings. While in Drown,  our narrator doesn't seem to have any siblings, it's probably certain that Diaz felt a strong connection with his mother and felt like he needed to take care of her after they moved out of the Dominican Republic. 

Works Cited: 

“Junot Diaz”. The Northern Anthology of American Literature, Volume 2.

“Guns and Roses: Junot Diaz”. Publishers Weekly. 30 July, 2012.

“Beyond Multiculturalism: Ethnic Studies, Transnationalism, and Junot Díaz's Oscar Wao”. Mermann-Jozwiak, Elisabeth Maria. 2012.