The Use of Language (Diaz's)

I haven't gotten that far into Diaz's book, but i definitely am in love with it.
For one, I have a lot of appreciation for writers of color that write in the ways that they and their communities actually speak. There's Spanglish, Black English, and probably some Dominican slang all in his book and it all comes together in a very natural way. I get the feeling that it's actually the way he speaks, and not just writes. The long footnotes, the use grammatically incorrect sentences, and his use of cuss words show a much more real writer who isn't writing a book to win an award, he's just writing a book to tell a story for a community.
Secondly, i found a quote from him a while back before I read the book in reference to some linguistic criticisms he receives about the book: "Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we’re taking over.” I suppose he's received criticism in reference to his use of Spanish in the book without translations. That, I think he does in order to connect with the audience he truly wants to connect with. And that so happens to be people of color, Latin@s, Spanish-speakers, etc. I think it's highly problematic that all books have to mold themselves around the typical middle-class white western English-speaking individual, and all others must conform to those standards. He goes against that and i have nothing but the utmost respect for that. 

Also, the idea of the Dominican male/masculinity and how it is constructed (as we can see through the relationship between Oscar and his mom, and really Oscar and his society/societies) is quite interesting. It brings to mind a clip from some old Star Jones television show I saw recently. She was interviewing the lawyer of a woman who was accused of molesting a 13 year old boy. The woman was white and the young boy was Latino. Star asks him (i suppose he inferred or actually said this at some point, maybe it was his defense) how a 13 year old child can consent to sexual activities. The lawyers responds that he resents the term "child" and that, given that he's Latino and has Latino machismo, they aren't really dealing with a child. "Who has a higher sex drive than Latino men?" said the lawyer. It further highlights the ways in which gender constructs are problematic, damaging, and unhealthy in a number of ways. Men of color, especially, feel the need to live up to certain extremes of masculinity and women of color, in a number of instances (for equally problematic and unhealthy reasons), are the main ones encouraging such hypermasculinity (as in the case of Oscar's mother).