Angie Cruz talks Julia Alvarez and the search for Dominican-American identity
Known for her celebrated novels “Dominicana” and “How Not To Drown in a Glass of Water,” Angie Cruz brings a unique voice to contemporary literature, drawing on her experiences as a child of Dominican immigrants.
In this conversation, Cruz shares her admiration for pioneering author Julia Alvarez (“How the García Girls Lost Their Accents,” “In the Time of the Butterflies”) and the ways her Dominican heritage informs her writing. Together, their works challenge and celebrate the experiences of the Dominican diaspora. In this Q&A, Cruz discusses the complexities of immigration, identity and belonging.
You once said that when you first saw “How the García Girls Lost Their Accent” in a book store window that the title alone signaled to you as a young Dominican-American – why is that?
I came of age in the 80s and for most of my education, up until I went to college in the early 90s, I wasn’t aware there were Dominican/Latinx writers publishing in English. Even if I was fortunate to have been raised by some incredible “kitchen poets” who could spin a tale like no one else I know, it wasn’t until I read “How the García Girls Lost Their Accents” by Julia Alvarez that I could even conceive of the idea that a story like mine, about a young woman, daughter of Dominican immigrants, could also live in a book. At the time I was incredibly intimidated by bookstores, but seeing her book on display compelled me to go inside the store because of the book title. And when I read that Julia Alvarez was Dominican, I fell through a trapdoor into a life of reading which led me to becoming a writer. I am very grateful to the booksellers who thought to put Alvarez’s book in the window. These gestures of inclusion change lives. It changed mine.
[Cruz would end up leaving her fashion and visual arts career to pursue writing, later earning an MFA at NYU. Her novel “Dominicana” tells the story of a young woman leaving the Dominican Republic to marry a man twice her age in hopes of new opportunities in New York. “Dominicana” was the inaugural book pick for the GMA book club and shortlisted for The Women’s Prize, among other honors.]
What impact did Alvarez’s work have on you as a writer?
As a young writer it was powerful to read Alvarez’s book. At the time, Dominicans in NYC were often cast by mainstream news outlets as a “problem,” “criminals” and “dangerous.” And because our community was/is largely underrepresented in movies and TV it was affirming and empowering to read a story about Dominican women who were negotiating a new language, rebelling, pissing off their parents, who were also trying to find their place in the United States.
But even today I continue to learn from Alvarez’s work and person. I deeply admire her commitment to give back to our communities and her commitment to support debut writers. And I loved her most recent book, “The Cemetery of Untold Stories” that tells a story about a woman who returns to D.R. to bury her untold stories — she literally buries the manuscripts. It’s a really wonderful book. I highly recommend it. There is a wisdom that I believe only comes with age and experience. Alvarez’s most recent books makes me feel hopeful that my best books are yet to come.
[Cruz’s latest novel, “How Not To Drown in a Glass of Water” tells the story of a Dominican woman grappling with motherhood and identity in the midst of the Great Recession, in New York City. Julia Alvarez said “it made me laugh and shake my head, not because the novel was funny—though parts were—but because Angie Cruz really nailed the voice of the main character, Cara Romero, without in any way patronizing/matronizing her.”]
Alvarez writes about very specific immigrant experiences, but what is universal about her work?
Great literature is universal because through specificity it allows readers to connect to our collective humanness. More than thinking about Alvarez as someone who writes about the immigrant experience, I think of her in the business of writing great literature. Everything she writes about (girlhood, family, grief, loss, ambition, etc) can be deemed as universal.
How has growing up in New York shaped your understanding of your Dominican-American identity?
I was conceived in D.R., born and raised in Washington Heights, NY. Back then the part of the neighborhood I lived in was predominantly Dominican and Spanish speaking. As a child I also traveled to the D.R every summer. All this deeply shaped my experience as a Dominican-American in New York. I was also raised by a large extended family of folks who worked two to three jobs to survive, and I had to work too. So my Dominican New Yorkness was informed by my countless jobs, including jobs at a day-care, Dunkin’ Donuts at Penn Station and then I worked in retail on Madison Avenue.
My Dominican-American identity was also shaped by the access I had to culture and art. When I was in middle school my mother barely could afford groceries but she was gifted season tickets by her employers to the Met Opera. So I went to countless operas as a teen and now at family gatherings we listen to both opera and bachata. I think about how when I was in high school I did an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So every Monday, when the museum was closed to the public, I explored the collections. Sitting with Isamu Noguchi’s Water stone installation was my sanctuary.
This exposure to art, music and theater planted seeds to my becoming a writer, but also the absence of seeing Dominican art represented in these institutions shaped how I live as an artist and my thinking of how important it is for us to continually challenge what we mean when we say Dominican-American. It’s not a monolith.
What role does language play in your writing, especially when capturing the immigrant experience?
I have written four novels and in many ways they all have tried to negotiate the limits of language to best resemble the immigrant experience that is always negotiating multiple places, languages, universes, etc. In my novel “Dominicana,” I played with syntax so when readers read the English they could feel the Spanish like an undercurrent. In “How Not To Drown in a Glass of Water,” I wrote the book in ESL and leaned into the ways those of us who speak multiple languages make “mistakes,” but through these “errors” we learn something new about English. I found this to be especially true when I hear someone use a proposition that may be considered wrong by some people, but when one looks at it again, the “wrong” proposition is truer to what is being said than the one that is presumed to be correct. So language play is also about rethinking what is correct vs. a mistake. And also thinking about how recurring mistakes in language can also be forms of resistance and making space for something new.
“She knew I had to cry until I undrown from the inside.” ― “How Not To Drown in a Glass of Water”
How do you think stories about migration and identity challenge societal perceptions and shape cultural narratives?
When I went to college and read “Breath, Eyes, Memory” by Edwidge Danticat, her work challenged everything I was taught about Haitians and their relationship to the Dominican Republic. I learned how the Trujillo dictatorship, by design, fueled an anti-Haitian movement that has seeded relentless violence against Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. Books like Danticat’s made me curious about my herstory, but my shifts in consciousness also initially estranged me from family members who were racist. As a young person I dismissed these family members, assuming they were ignorant and a lost cause. But then one day I heard one of them defend a Haitian woman. I later learned they had read Danticat’s book that I had left behind in my mother’s apartment. They said after reading it, they realized that the character’s story in Danticat’s book was not so different than their story.
It was then that I understood the power of books and stories. Many times, what people have to say about immigration is because they are consuming problematic narratives about immigrants. This is why it’s incredibly dangerous and troubling to live in a country where books by and about immigrants, LGBTQIA+ etc are being banned and being pulled out of curriculum when the anti-immigrant rhetoric is pervasively negative and misinformed. I always tell readers of my novels, who often ask for recommendations, to read Alvarez alongside Danticat, and alongside newer writers like Elizabeth Acevedo, Cleyvis Natera and Naima Coster. Especially if you live in New York City. Read these writers.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer.
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