Two Face

So, “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie” is the fourth story we’ve read in this novel involving Yunior and his family. It’s interesting to see how Yunior has grow up and to see the similarities and differences between him and his family members. As a grown man, we can see a little more confidence in Yunior as he explains to us how the get with a girl, no matter the race. But, through his seemingly cocky outward appearance, we can still recognize his inner timid character, one that we are familiar with from “Fiesta, 1980” and “Ysrael”. He is obviously more confident as he talks about the right moves one should make to score with a girl, but he is still pretty timid and self conscious. After he finishes up with his date, he remembers to “put the government cheese back in its place before your moms kills you” (149). He’s trying to prove that he’s a grown man, but he still doesn’t want to upset his mommy by leaving the cheese in the wrong place. This also goes along with his conflicting personalities. On the outside, Yunior tries to personify this hardcore character in order to look cool, I suppose, in front of his friends. “Give one of your boys a shout and when he says, Are you still waiting on that bitch? Say, Hell yeah” (144). This girls who’s coming over isn’t just a regular “bitch” to Yunior, in fact, he’s scared shitless thinking about the possible ways this date could go wrong.

Throughout this date, and probably his life as well, I feel like Yunior has two sides of his character battling each other. He’s got his father’s and Rafa’s side in which he’s been taught to, as Biggie Smalls would say, fuck bitches and get money. Throughout his childhood, Yunior has watched his older brother, Rafa, mess around with almost every girl in town, both back in the Dominican Republic and in America. All his life, he’s had to watch his player brother and finally, after watching the moves he makes and listening to what other guys tell him, it’s his chance to bring a lady home. It’s almost like he’s following this script titled, “How to score with a girl, no matter the race”. Though it seems like he uses this “script” pretty often, as he envisions one of his friends asking him while he’s with this new girl, “Hey, Yunior, is that your new fuckbuddy?” (146). So, I inferred that Yunior takes a fair amount of girls out on dates, but is never able to get to that final stage at the end of the date. All his friends think he scores every time in the end, and I don’t think he would be one to tell them otherwise. As Yunior states, “it won’t work this way. Be prepared. She will not want to kiss you...She will act like somebody you don’t know” (148). Assumably, a lot of girls go out with him because they think he’s different. Not just nationality wise, but also personality. Yunior strikes me as the sweet, quiet boy. So, when girls say yes to a date, they think he will be different from all the other douchey guys in town. But, since Yunior learns from those types of guys, the girls are disappointed, stating, “You’re the only kind of guy who asks me out, she will say. Your neighbors will start their hyena calls, now that the alcohol is in them. You and the blackboys” (148). Turns out, according to this girl, Yunior is just like the rest of them. Little does she know that he calculates every step and really doesn’t do much thinking of his own when it comes to his dating life. Inside, Yunior’s brain is him giving himself a sort of pep talk throughout the whole date, waiting for him to slip up and things to go south, because that’s apparently what he’s used to.

The only kind of thinking Yunior does do on his own, he keeps to himself. This is where his mother comes into play. See, we can infer that Yunior’s father left the family at some point, leaving Yunior, Rafa, and Mami to fend for themselves in the world. Therefore, Yunior knows a little how to treat a woman because he’s seen what not to do by watching his mother. He knows to treat a woman right, give her the world, and then stick to your guns. Papi leaving was very hard on Mami and I don’t think Yunior would ever want to intentionally inflict that much pain on another woman. It’s this soft part of his personality that he keeps hidden from most because it makes him seem weak.

It’s interesting because, Yunior is not only insecure about his softer personality, but also nationality. When going out to meet the girl’s mother, he chooses to “run a hand through [his] hair like the whiteboys do”, but then mentions that “the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa” (145). He tries to hide his race a little, assumably trying to appear more likable to the girl’s mother, but he knows that he can’t mask the Dominican blood that runs through his veins. Even during the date, he admits that he “wonder[s] how she feels about Dominicans” (147), but he doesn’t ask for fear of a negative reaction. He knows that he already lives in a tough neighborhood, and he doesn't’ want to make the girl, or her parents, feel like he will be a danger to this girl. Granted, he doesn’t hide all of his race factors. When at dinner, he chooses to showcase his Spanish a little in order to impress the girl. If the girl is black, he does this to impress her. If the girl is Latino, he does it so she can feel confident and correct him a little. See, as Mr. Mitchell pointed out in class, a lot of girls that go out with him, who aren’t Dominican, go out with him because he’s a taste of something new. He’s different and exotic in a sense. Yunior knows this and plays it to his advantage. But, he also knows the downsides of it all and tries to hide that part of him in order to seem more appealing.

All in all, it’s interesting to see how Yunior feels the need to follow a scripted routine in order to score with a girl and live up to his brother’s, Rafa’s, and father’s sense of masculinity. As we read his thought processes throughout this date, we can see that his actions seem almost robotic, and when he is forced to improvise during dinner, he freezes, stating that, “Dinner will be tense. Your are not good at talking to people you don’t know” (146). Yunior lacks the confidence to act for himself because he doesn’t think he will be accepted by others. He believes that he needs to act like Rafa and his father by degrading women and such in order to succeed in life. But, after seeing what happened to his mother, he has qualms about this kind of behavior, but he is unable to voice his opinion because he is self conscious. He has a mix of his father and mother inside of him and it will be interesting to see if we will have any more stories about this family, or Yunior in particular, to see which side of him will be more prominent in his life. (Although it’s possible to infer from the title of Diaz’s other novel, This is How Your Lose Her, that his father’s side may win over).