Fiesta, 1980

by Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz recrea, con humor, la experiencia de los dominicanos en Estados Unidos. Junot Díaz, considerado uno de los jóvenes talentos de la narrativa estadounidense, hizo su entrada en el mundo literario en 1996 con una colección de diez relatos publicada en España como Los boys . En ellos, el que más tarde sería Premio Pulitzer de Novela, evoca un mundo de chicos sin padres, sostenidos hasta la extenuación por sus madres, que sobreviven a la pobreza y la incertidumbre con grandes dosis de crueldad y humor. Fiesta, 1980 , es uno de esos relatos.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, School, Read For School, American, Literary Fiction

24 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 31, 2012

About the author

Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award. A graduate of Rutgers College, Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is the cofounder of Voices of Our Nation Workshop.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really, really hated this story. Beyond the relentlessly bleak characterization of the despicable excuse of a father who won't let his son eat before car trips and who beats him for getting carsick, and beyond the unsatisfying resolution, there are flippant remarks about casually listening to the upstairs neighbors "beating the crap out of their kids" for an entire afternoon. To me, depicting child abuse in such a nonchalant way is not adding gritty realism to the piece--it's just disgusting. It desensitizes people to the true horror of child abuse and makes it seem like it's something that we can (should) shrug our shoulders at. And for those of us who experienced real child abuse firsthand growing up, it's a trigger to relive those traumatic moments.

Contrary to popular belief, stories like these are not a credit to the writing profession simply because they shamelessly play with our emotions through the cheapest of possible means. This is a cheap story by a talented author who should know better.

[Jennifer Wachowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure if the copy I got wasn’t complete, but I would’ve loved to see the final outcome of what happened. I would’ve loved it even more if Yunior’s mother would’ve beaten the shit out of her husbands whore.

[maryam]

professor yapped so much I actually did the assigned reading in class to drown him out.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tale told by twelve year old Yunior who suffers from motion sickness, whenever he rides in his father's van. As the family prepares to attend a party at his Tio, and Tia's house who has recently arrived from the Dominican Republic, Yunior's abusive Papi refuses to let him eat anything before, or during the party. Yunior spends most of the party alone recalling his Papi's affair with a Puerto Rican woman, that both he and his older brother is aware of.

[deedee megadoodoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's great the way Diaz writes there to be dialogue in the way that it's just sentences coming from Yunior like they are recollections. There's no actual quotation marks.

I read this as an example to understanding characterization from my Writing Fiction book for my 2018 Fiction Technique class

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A boy's account of his toxic father on the evening of a family party. I love the raw language, the strong voice of the character, and how so much is encapsulated in one evening.

[Gertrud Soone · Rating 4 out of 5]

"papi was a voracious reader, couldn't even go cheating without a paperback in his pocket."

[Niki Rowland · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Papi was a voracious reader, couldn't even go cheating without a paperback in his pocket."

[Alekhya Bhat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the emphasis on how change has been integrated into this family and is tied to resentment in its performative-ness (the van: "brand-new, lime-green and bought to impress"). I also liked the emphasis on machismo and pride, and the stereotypes associated with the familial roles, with the machismo tied with infidelity and abuse. I also enjoyed the awareness that the way that Mami and Papi interact with each other and others is less determined by themselves and more a result of their cultural notions about how men and women are meant to interact with each other based on these familial stereotypes. I want to know what the balance was like in terms of creating a child with self-awareness without the background knowledge of societal implications and the assumptions based on "tradition," and would love to have a broader discussion on Yunior's feminist (?) sentiments associated with recognizing that the ways in which the family interacts as predetermined or specific to their family.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pain and hardship in the life of a young boy whose family are immigrants from the Dominican Republic is palpable. Yunior, his siblings, and his mom have to be careful around his violent and temperamental father. On a night his family visits relatives across town for dinner and dancing, it should be fun for Yunior but there is no guarantee as he knows all too well.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

The passiveness of all the characters in this story was disturbing. It made abuse seem like a regular, everyday thing and like the abusive father was the victim instead of the people he was abusing. The lack of resolution to the story made it worse.

[Liana · Rating 3 out of 5]

i truly enjoyed the characterization and the writing style and the connection i felt to the Spanish culture presented in the reading

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Junot Diaz, your stories stick with me even years after I've read them. That is powerful, vivid, writing indeed.