How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)

There are several allusions—references to events or people from the past—in the text. These allusions are reflections of the narrator’s reluctance to embrace his roots as an immigrant. One includes a story about his mother recognizing a neighborhood tear gas explosion because of the smell; she has memories of the smell from one of the military interventions of the United States into the affairs of the Dominican Republic. This allusion reinforces the tensions between Dominican culture and US culture. The allusion makes it clear that the more the narrator changes to meet the expectations of the girls he dates, the more likely he is to find himself caught between two realities—one where he is a new American and another of a cultural background that reflects the foreign. Diaz portrays this difference as a disadvantage or unfavorable quality in the text. The narrator doesn’t go into much detail about this particular allusion, making it a stand-in for the lack of information the reader receives about the full extent of the narrator’s Dominican lineage.

Juxtaposition is contrast between two unlike elements in a story. The tension within the story comes through juxtaposition between the protagonist’s culture and the multicultural world around him. Though the narrator speaks to the reader directly using second-person perspective, there are also examples that show how he presents himself to others and his inner socioeconomic life are different. Finally, there is a juxtaposition between girls of different races and economic backgrounds. Small differences in their characterization are distinct obstacles the narrator encounters as he navigates social status and privilege.