84 pages • 2 hours read
Angie CruzDominicana
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Parts 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1 Summary
Juan Ruiz first proposes to Ana when she is 11 years old. He and three brothers drive to her town from the capital and woo girls. Ana’s mother is worried about Ana’s peculiar beauty; her green eyes attract a lot of attention, and a bad marriage could ruin her daughter. The dictator Trujillo has recently been assassinated, throwing Ana’s community into both crisis and hope for the future. People are on edge, but Juan continues his wooing. Juan and his brothers are known for working in America, where they make money that they bring back to their family in the Dominican Republic.
Ana’s older sister Teresa is 13 years old and in love with a man referred to as “La Guardia.” Mamá doesn’t approve, so Teresa sneaks out of the house to meet with him. When Ana encourages her to go about her courtship in the proper way, Teresa tells her she’ll understand only when she, too, is in love.
Juan moves to New York City to make money for his family back home. He rents a cheap room from a man named Frank, who rents rooms to several men at the same time. Frank encourages Juan to go downtown to look for work at the hotels. Juan is hungry but goes to bed on an empty stomach, worried about spending all his money too quickly.
Teresa falls pregnant with El Guardia’s child and is hidden away in the house. At 12 years old, Ana gets her period, and Mamá is now eager to get her married to Juan, who is reliable and respectful, unlike El Guardia. Ana overhears the adults talking about selling her father’s land.
Juan waits in line outside the back doors of hotels with many other men looking for work. Finally, he convinces someone to let him work for free for a day to prove how capable he is.
Back in the Dominican Republic, Mamá helps her write letters to Juan in America. Ana writes to him that she longs to see the snow. Though Ana is unsure if she does want to marry Juan, Mamá is determined to make sure she doesn’t end up like Teresa. Mamá uses the metaphor of ducks who can reject unwanted sperm to emphasize that Ana can choose the best of men.
Juan starts working in various jobs at the hotel. Though he doesn’t speak a lot of English, he is a hard worker and a charming man. He longs for the women back home who are less complicated than New York women. His brother reminds him that he’s in America to work, not to flirt with women. He sends Ana $5 and asks her to wait for him.
On a visit back to the Dominican Republic, Juan properly asks for Ana to marry him. He is 32 years old, and she is 15. Juan’s brother stands by him, which signals to Ana that Juan’s proposal is at least partly coerced. Ana suspects that Juan and his brothers want this marriage to get closer to buying Ana’s father’s land. Everyone is excited for Ana because marrying Juan means she will move to the United States, but Ana is worried that her departure will only make her the subject of local gossip.
Mamá brings her into the town to buy her a wedding dress. Ana wants to go to school but now that she is engaged, no one expects her to. She wants to say goodbye to everyone, but Mamá suspects that she wants to see a boy from school named Gabriel. After trying on dresses, Mamá advises her to pretend. The Ruiz brothers are well-respected because they work together to create businesses, not like her own husband, who Mamá believes is weak. To Mamá, the key to success is to listen, take notes, and then act. Mamá assures her that once Ana is established in America, she can arrange for the rest of her family to be with her, and she won’t be so lonely.
Ana sneaks off to school to say goodbye to Gabriel. She grows upset when she sees him and tells him about her impending marriage. Gabriel brings her to the empty house of a gringo family he works for with a pool where Gabriel and Ana kiss.
Ana dresses up for wedding photographs on the heels of her departure. Teresa tries to bring her to the beach with El Guardia, where Gabriel is waiting to meet with her, but Ana stays with Mamá and thinks with longing of her home with her family, even though she hasn’t left yet.
Juan arrives for their small wedding. Ana mentally rehearses Mamá's list of wifely duties. Ana plans to learn English, study, and send for her family members one or two at a time.
Juan brings Ana to his restaurant in the city, where food is served, and a man has Ana sign papers that forge her identity and birthday. They don’t have an official ceremony, and the wedding and travel arrangements are completed with a few signatures.
As Juan and Ana drive through the city, he points out important buildings to her. Ana realizes how little she knows about the world, even her own capital city.
Juan brings Ana to a hotel for their honeymoon. When he starts to undress and caress her, she cries. He assures her he’ll take good care of her. They have sex for the first time and prepare to depart for New York the following day.
Part 2 Summary
When she was a child, Mamá asked Ana if she was a manatee or a shark. Manatees are cute and mind their own business, whereas sharks are powerful because they scare people away with just one look.
Juan’s younger brother César picks them up at the airport in New York. They advise her not to stare, but she is captivated by the people and the cold. Outside, she tries to catch a snowflake on her tongue. César drives the long way to the apartment so Ana can see the skyscrapers. The car radio relays news about strife in Santo Domingo and an attempted attack on the U.N. by Cuban militants. Juan wants to drop Ana off then bring César somewhere for business.
Juan shows her around the apartment before he leaves with César and tells her she can’t open the boxes lined against the wall. He gives her a chicken to cook. Ana is confused about how the heat and electricity are automatic. The apartment is messy and smelly. Ana sets about cleaning. She finds discarded women’s make-up under the bathroom sink. Ana hears music coming from a nearby storefront and wonders if Juan will bring her there one day.
Juan shows Ana around the neighborhood, where there is a hospital. The neighborhood is home to an array of races, religions, and cultures. He shows her the post office and brings her to a bodega where a man gives her a Hershey’s bar for free. Juan warns Ana not to go into the bodega without him.
Juan’s warning that he has eyes everywhere reminds Ana of Mamá and the way her brother Yohnny would do things behind Mamá's back. Yohnny would ask Ana existential questions about the stars and her place on Earth.
Juan tells Ana about his brothers’ plan to start a taxi business. Ana will be put in charge of operating the business. This confuses Ana, but she is relieved that Juan is thinking of their future and is too tired for sex.
César shows Ana how to sew. He encourages Ana to figure out a side hustle, and she teases him for thinking only of money.
Though she’s not supposed to, she opens the door when the bell rings, thinking it’s Juan. A neighbor passes over her mail. When she tells Juan about it later, he slaps her across the face.
Feeling guilty, Juan buys Ana a television. She is thrilled and starts watching a program about a husband and a wife.
Ana imagines the scene back in her home in the Dominican Republic: Gabriel asks after Ana to every family member he sees; Yohnny asks Teresa if she misses Ana, and if she wants to go to America, too; Teresa blows him off and believes Ana has forgotten them all.
Ana looks after the pigeons who peck near her window, despite Juan’s admonitions that the pigeons in New York carry disease. Ana imagines that the pigeons bring news from home. She imagines her family sending her messages about how much they miss her.
Ana hears gunshots from the nearby Audubon Ballroom. She wakes César, who is the only man home. He tells her shootings happen all the time. Eventually the cops come, and Ana finds out on the news that the victim of the shooting was Malcolm X.
Juan sends Ana out on an errand, the first time she leaves the apartment on her own. She looks for the grocery store to buy eggs but gets lost. Finally, she enters the forbidden bodega and lies to Juan about why it took her so long to get the eggs from the store.
Ana remembers listening to radio interviews of Jackie Kennedy. Mamá held Jackie up as the ideal wife. Ana starts mimicking Jackie Kennedy’s voice around Juan, whispery and delicate. She wonders what her life would be like if she became a widow like Jackie or Malcolm X’s widow Betty.
Juan’s friend Antonio comes over to pick up a suit Juan has sold him. The suit is too big, so Ana hems it for him, hoping to secretly pocket the money. Antonio brings a gift bag with him and leaves it in the apartment. Though Ana suspects it was a gift for his wife, she claims it for himself. It’s a box of chocolates that she slowly relishes. Mamá calls and asks if she’s learned English or gotten a job yet.
Juan arrives homes drunk and has sex with Ana. She dreads sex with Juan, and wishes it was less painful and more affectionate.
Juan brings César to the hotel where Caridad, a woman who often gives him work, operates. Juan and Caridad are clearly flirting, perhaps even having an affair. Juan brings César to a gringo bar where Juan is let in, but César is not. When César tries to argue his way in, Juan comes back out and punches him into the sidewalk.
Ana opens the door to find the building’s super. Her bucket of soapy water has been leaking through her floor into her neighbor’s ceiling. When Juan comes home and she tells him about the problem, he raises his fist. Ana fights back, but Juan beats her and chokes her until she loses consciousness.
After the fight, Juan buys Ana a gift of gold earrings. However, Ana is already planning to take the bus the next day to the airport and go back to the Dominican Republic. She decides to thoroughly clean the apartment one last time before leaving New York City.
If Ana returns home, she knows her neighbors will be embarrassed that she wasted her American opportunity.
At the bus stop, Ana is surprised by César, who hasn’t been home in a while. He convinces her to stay, testifies that Juan can do bad things, but he is not a bad guy. César believes that going back home is a step backwards. Ana throws up in a trash can.
Ana wakes up in the hospital with César. She passed out at the bus station. The doctor tells her she is pregnant. Now she must stay in New York City no matter what. On the way back to the apartment, César gives Ana a carnation from the altar that’s been set up for Malcolm X. Ana wishes she could hug César. She smiles as she opens the door to her apartment.
Parts 1-2 Analysis
In the first two parts of Dominicana, Angie Cruz sets the foundation for the novel’s tension between desire and ambition.
The first example of this is the marriage between Juan and Ana. Both struggle with their commitment to a person they hardly know. For Juan, this manifests in his constant drinking and his controlling nature. He offers Ana a somewhat comfortable life in New York, but their age difference is large, and he hardly knows her. He is given to flirtation with other women, though he tries to convince himself that he loves Ana by giving her a place to live and providing her with the opportunity to start a new life for her entire family in America. Ana is driven to the marriage by duty. She doesn’t want to leave her family, or her crush Gabriel. She has no interest in living in America, even though she knows the opportunity will improve her family’s life. Ana is a young girl when Juan starts proposing marriage to her. She is pushed into the marriage by her family and by her understanding that she truly has little choice in the matter. Sex with Juan is painful, and his physical abuse degrades their relationship further. Ultimately, both are in a marriage that neither truly wants, but the demands of survival and ambitions for the future keep them together.
The novel also explores the idea of immigration as a loss of self. Life in the Dominican Republic is the only one Ana has known before her move to New York, so she romanticizes her homelife. As a child, she doesn’t have to be responsible for the financial struggles her family faces in the D.R., though Cruz makes it clear that the family is struggling. Ana prefers to sleep with her siblings in one room; the conveniences and infrastructure of the United States don’t feel like a dream to her. She is constantly homesick in New York. In part, this is because Juan doesn’t let her do anything. Ana has no friends, no community, and no job. Without stimulation, Ana is kept in the apartment away from the interesting world of New York City. This gives her plenty of time to pine for her siblings, friends, and parents. Immigration can be a difficult experience; Ana faces a language, cultural, and economic barrier. Eventually, it is possible that Ana will learn English, get a job, and create a new life for herself. Juan is also stressed by his status as an immigrant. He hustles for money and opportunity and plans big dreams for his family. However, Juan has a network of people he can rely on, which now includes Ana. Even so, Juan drinks a lot and tries to control his family through intimidation and violence, in part because the fabric of their lives in New York is so fragile. Though immigration is difficult, the vision of their American dream forces the characters in Dominicana to endure.
The immigrant experience in this novel is made particular by its focus on the political realities of the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. In 1961, the D.R.’s long-time dictator and brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo was assassinated, leading to a chaotic upheaval of the military government. Dominicans used a democratic system to vote President Juan Bosch into power. In 1965, Bosch is ousted, and a civil war erupts in the Dominican Republic, prompting invasion by the United States. With this historical context, juxtaposes the security of Santo Domingo and New York City. While Ana feels homesick for Santo Domingo, she doesn’t yet know how much safer she is in New York City. Juan’s obsession with making his American life work is a testament to what he knows of the instability and violence that mars the Dominican experience back home. Through Ana’s homesickness and the historical context of the 1960s, Cruz foreshadows further conflict between Ana and her family ties in the Dominican Republic.
Another conflict in these chapters is the issue of gender roles. Ana provides a clean, domestic life for Juan. She reorganizes the apartment and makes what could feel like a dingy abode into a comfortable home. Her role as cleaner, cook, and sexual partner is forced upon her because she is dependent on Juan for money and shelter. However, Mamá raised her to try to be an equal partner in a marriage. Mamá teaches her to demand money, belongings, and a future from Juan, yet Ana’s shy nature and fear of her new environment holds her back from asserting herself with Juan. Because Part 2 ends with the revelation of Ana’s pregnancy, Cruz foreshadows two possible paths for Ana and Juan. Either Ana will be more autonomous as a mother, or she will be even more tied to the apartment as primary caregiver to the baby.
Four notable symbols and motifs appear in these chapters. The first is the New York City snow, a symbol of the wide difference between America and the Dominican Republic, where it never snows. The brutal cold of Northeastern winters contrasts with the crackling heat of Santo Domingo. The cold and the snow are symbols of change, of migration, of difference, but also of potential for something new. In Santo Domingo, the seasons don’t really change, but in New York City, each season births a new opportunity. The second motif is the apartment in which Ana is sequestered. Both a new home and a kind of prison, the apartment is both a source of pride for and a thing that confines her. She experiences New York only through the window of her apartment, from where she witnesses major historical events such as the assassination of Malcolm X. A third symbol is the new diversity of Ana’s life. In Santo Domingo, Ana was surrounded by a community who resembled herself. But in New York, Ana lives among people of different religions, races, languages, cultures, and identities. Ana is eager to be a part of this diverse world. The last symbol is Ana’s pregnancy, which, like her apartment, represents a new future as well as a constraint.
