Celia and Blanca: Strong Women in Bodega Dreams and Dreaming in Cuban

Women play a large role in the books Bodega Dreams and Dreaming in Cuban. Blanca has just started a family and all of the sudden her family is swept up in the street life that she is trying to escape. Celia has a family that is spread all over the world. She misses them and wants them to come back to her. Celia and Blanca both have family they love and a passion that is driving a wedge between them and their families. Through these two woman we can see the beginning and ending of the matriarchs of a family. They struggle to keep their family together, keep their passions, and to live the life they imagined. 

Celia’s family has all left her except for Felicia, even though at times Felicia has left her just as much as the others despite that she lives near Celia. Lourdes left her mother to go to New York; she does not like Celia and the revolution she stands for. She felt closer to her father and when he died Ceilia could not replace what she had with him. Javier moved to Czechoslovakia to live out his dreams for the revolution and married and had a kid that Celia has never seen. Finally, her husband Jorge dies. The family that she desires is scattered and she has not even seen all of her grandchildren, which tears at her, “she wrote a special letter to Irinita encouraging her to keep up her Spanish and promising to teach her how to swim” (Garcia, 118). Blanca has her family close to her, Chino lives with her and she stayed close to the neighborhood that she grew up in. However, this physical closeness is not indicative of the closeness of her relationships, especially with Chino. With Chino, Sapo and the street life he represents are a main source of arguments; Blanca sees the neighborhood as a bad place, “here it only matters what they can break, take, or steal from you” (Quinonez, 17). This makes it hard for Blanca to talk to him when he persists to get involved in this life, even though Chino thinks he is doing it for the good of his family.

The passions that Celia and Blanca have for the revolution and the church, respectively, are a source of issues in both families and are part of the reasons their families are not as close as they would like them to be. Celia has a passion for the revolution and the emptiness that is left by her separated family causes her to jump into the cause and decide that whatever her remaining years are “she will devote to El Lieder, and give herself to his revolution” (Garcia, 44). Her passion for the cause has driven Lourdes and Pilar, to whom Celia is most connected to, away from her. Blanca’s passion in the church is a source of contention in her household. Chino doesn’t believe in the faith that is so instrumental in Blanca’s life. When she married Chino she gave up her privileged place in front of the church with her tambourine. “She hated going to church by herself” and often tried to get Chino to go with her which didn’t help their relationship much (Quinonez, 17). Yet, despite the effect their passion for the revolution or the church they would not give them up to bring their families together.

Both women wanted to better themselves and have their families close to them; this is part of the lives they imagined for themselves. Celia begins to get what she desired at the end of the novel; Lourdes, Pilar, and Javier come back for some time. However, they all end up leaving and Pilar even helps Ivanito to escape Cuba, taking him away from his grandmother. So, in the end Celia almost gets what she desires, her family all together, but in the end even those that she thought would stay with her end up leaving her and she returns to the sea. Blanca makes the choice to leave Chino until he gets his act together and decides what he wants from life. At the end of the novel she is still with her mother and we don’t learn if her feelings have changed. However, it seems as if Chino is going to make some changes in his life and that they might allow for Blanca to have the family she wants.

Celia and Blanca are two very strong women that want things that sometimes conflict. They want their families, but they also want to pursue the things they believe in. These often conflict with each other and create problems in their families. However, neither woman stops working towards what they want and show them both to be very driven. Although Celia never truly gets what she wants, in the end she comes to terms with her life and returns to the ocean that she loves. Blanca’s future is unclear but there is hope at the end of the novel that she might get the family she wanted and the better life she dreamed about.

Dreaming in Cuban

Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia has been an interesting read. The book is written with a very fluid timeline, just like often occurs in dreams, which made it difficult at times to really connect with the story and understand what was going on. This has been the hardest book for me to get through and connect with so far.

One thing I really had trouble separating in this book was the mystical realism that is very present in this book and whether or not mental illness was present in some or all of the main characters of the book. There are times when other characters in the book seem to have the same difficulty in discerning this as well; Celia’s husband Jorge has her committed to a mental hospital after the birth of Lourdes. She comes home, however she has a deep tie to the sea and a passion for the revolution. Celia also shares a dream connection with Pilar, stating “She will remember everything,” making it seem as if Celia will live on through Pilar.  She seems to portray mostly the mysticism Garcia uses heavily.

The other person in this book that challenged me to try to separate the mysticism from possible mental illness was Felicita. She was drawn to the local mystical religion as well as making some very odd choices in her life. She marries her three husbands quite quickly after meeting them, and it is eluded that she has either severely hurt or killed them all. She also forgets large chunks of time and tries to kill herself and her son. These instances make me think she has more of a mental illness than her actions being a product of mysticism.

Trying to separate the mystical elements from the “real” mental illness problems reminds me of when I have dreams sometimes there are more real elements in them and I often try and decipher if what I dreamt was real or not when I wake up. 

Bodega and the Young Lords

Willie Bodega was an important character in Bodega Dreams by Ernesto Quinonez. He is trying to better his community by helping anyone out by finding them a job, a home, or even financing their education. Not too much information is given about his past, however it is mentioned that he was part of a group called the Young Lords.

The Young Lords are a group of Puerto Ricans that originally started out as a turf gang in Chicago in the 60s. They wanted to empower Puerto Ricans and help them to better themselves and their communities. They soon became a humanitarian group, focused on helping Puerto Ricans to become more accepted in the wider American culture. This sort of start parallels Bodegas life; he started out on the streets and ended up having lots of money and power that he was putting back into the neighborhood.

There are more parallels between Bodega and the Young Lords groups. The Young Lords still exist, however undercover cops that manipulated their demise from the inside took down the majority of their group and the one that was based in New York. They were used by people who pretended to care about the cause. Bodega was used by a friend who he felt supported the cause of making the neighborhood better. In the end Bodega’s dream for a new Spanish Harlem and a better Puerto Rican neighborhood was brought down from the inside as Nazario used him to get to Vera and to take the fall for the illegal dealings that had been going on.

Bodega Dreams was a fun book to read, the book was written like a thriller with twists and turns coming often. I really enjoyed the great melding of fiction with reality, the places were real and most of the background story seems to be drawn from events that really happened.

Mirror Exercise

I stare in the mirror at myself. Eyes that are somewhere between green and blue look back at me. Brown hair is pulled back and bangs fall to the side. The ears stick out a bit on the sides of an oval face. My skin is white and much lighter than it is during the summers. My reflection shows one color: white, a color that holds power yet is rarely recognized by those that have it. It comes from several places: France, Switzerland, and Germany. I am a European-American.

I continue to stare into the mirror. I see a messy room, clothes in an organized chaos. Books filling every inch of the bookcase. A squirrel perched on the trunk of a tree outside the window to a backdrop of cloudy skies.

My mirror reflects the familial influences I have. It reveals traditions, music, and games. I see my Grandma Weaver running around the kitchen making dinner, three steaming pans on the stove in a delicate harmony on their way to perfection. I see my cousins gathered around the table playing cards flashing green, red, blue, and yellow. I see my dad coaching a soccer team; all running around like a bunch of bumblebees. I see myself as the goalie that has the biggest pile of green grass at my feet.

I see the mile long line at the chief, with a different flavor of the week every week. I see my friends hanging out, running around and playing games in a large backyard.

As I look deeper, the boundaries melt away and time blends. I see the ebb and flow of the tide in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. I see the legacy of my ancestors. The flowing, sophisticated French language. The classical music that came out of Germany. The smooth, milky chocolate that the Swiss are excellent at making to this day.

I look deeper and to see the literary contributions of my culture. As I look closer I find it harder to define the contributions of my culture, is my culture any American writer or those with the same European background that I have. The fantastical writings of J.K. Rowling. Shel Silvertstein and his funky and relatable poetry. The wit and timelessness presented by Jane Austen.

I look into the mirror and see more than just my reflection. I see that I am more than just my brown hair, blue-green eyes, and white skin. The mirror shows me as a part of a rich tapestry that has been woven together incorporating the cultures I came from and the culture that I am a part of. Wherever I go I can find a connection with who I am: European, American, Caucasian. As the person in the mirror changes as the years pass, the will always be an essence of my self reflected back.