Geographies of Home the Immigrant Experience: Geographies

Geographies of Home

The immigrant experience: Geographies of Home

The novel Geographies of Home by the Dominican-American writer Loida Maritza both chronicles and debunks what could be called the quintessential 'immigrant' experience. The family in the novel flees the dictatorship in their homeland of the Dominican Republic, and hope to find a respite from their suffering in the promised land of America. However, the family's attitudes about America are highly conflicted. On one hand, America seems to hold great promise to ameliorate the suffering they knew in the Dominican Republic. Even during the darkest hours of the family, the mother, Aurelia, knows that the family left an untenable situation, and does not romanticize the past although "she had been poor even in the Dominican Republic, but something had flourished from within which had enabled her to greet each day rather than cringe from it in dread." The difficulties the family endures in America, including the rape of Marina, one of the couple's fourteen children, prove how realizing the promise of the American Dream of easy success is an illusion. The novel uses the themes of religion, matriarchal vs. patriarchal sources of authority, and bifurcated identity to show how the idea that life always improves for the second generation of residents within the new land of America is a lie, or at best, an exaggeration [Thesis]. America has the potential to foster evil as well as offers the hope of liberation and because of this the children of Papito and Aurelia are profoundly conflicted.

Religion plays an important role in the adjustment of the family to America. However, unlike most Hispanic families, this is not about the Catholic immigrant experience. They are Seventh-Day Adventists. Religion, for the father of the family Papito is seen as a kind of anchor which will keep the family together. Papito is devout and embraces the Protestant religion because it is governed by strict rules. The rules provide Papito comfort, as they structure and control what often feels like an uncontrollable and confusing world, in the perceptions of his immigrant's eyes. However, there is also a downside to the comforts of religion in that it limits his ability to assimilate and to flexibly respond to a continually-changing world. The patriarchal norms of Christianity are validated as dictates by God, which means a great deal to this father of fourteen children, but his uncompromising attitude causes his children to fear him and his violent demands for unquestioned authority.

In contrast, his wife Aurelia finds comfort in her native faith, a religion that transcends conventional faith-based monotheistic strictures. She believes she has a gift of 'second sight.' Aurelia understands why her family immigrated to the United States -- for a better life, but that better life seems elusive, given the frustrations and tragedies she experiences, including the rape of one of her children and her husband's controlling attitude. Her daughter Iliana also possesses the second sight, but denies it in an effort to 'fit into' Anglo culture by embracing the religion of her father. Aurelia does not challenge her husband's religion openly, but takes supportive actions using her native faith over the course of the novel to advance what she sees as the family's cause.

Iliana is clearly uncomfortable with the female roles presented by Dominican culture, and to avoid sinking into such stereotypes and to pursue an education, she embraces the religion she associates with her father. Like her father, she also seems to seek a simplistic source of identity and security. Papito is not shown to be a particularly warm or 'good' father -- he is physically violent and unable to deal with any sensitivity regarding Marina's rape. However, the comfort provided by his faith likewise gives Iliana an illusion of an anchor as she tries to break away from the family and secure an education for herself at school. However, this effort only serves to remind her of the impossibility of escaping her ethnicity. Racial slurs are written upon the walls at her college. "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Who should I fear?" Iliana says to herself, attempting to keep the insight given by her mother's gift of second sight at bay.

Latino culture thus has the potential to be highly masculine in nature, and dominated by males, as manifested in Papito's control over his family, but also can embody matriarchal, non-rational, non-linear views of the world, as manifested in Aurelia's perception. Latino culture has the potential to be patriarchal and Anglo culture, in its own way, is equally intolerant. This ambiguity makes the adolescent Iliana extremely uncomfortable. Iliana wants to be able to 'opt out' of her culture and the available role of a Latina, embracing the norms of Anglo society. But she cannot -- the second sight almost physically calls to her, even though she resists its influence as evil.

The second sight comes to represent femininity in the novel, and another way of understanding and apprehending the world. However, this idea of an 'alternative' vision or universe is also dangerous. Marnia, because of her rape, has a mental breakdown, and nearly sets fire to the house, as she talks about hell and damnation. Marnia clearly sees her victimization in religious overtones, partially as a result of her upbringing in a world where young women are supposed to remain chaste and where males are supposed to protect women: "Having doubted evil, they welcomed it into their house" Marina says, reproaching her family and blaming them for her rape. Religion is a two-sided coin, with the ability to reinforce male dominance, and to make women like Marina feel guilty for a crime that is not their fault, even while it has the ability to liberate women despite the patriarchal strictures they labor under, as is seen in the experience of Aurelia.

The identities available to young women in Geographies of Home seem to provide them with no clear choice. On one hand, Iliana's attempts at assimilation are a failure. Her dark skin means that she is treated like a pariah in the mostly white college she attends. On the other hand, the most submissive of her sisters, Rebecca, lives in a filthy apartment with chickens that seems to be a kind of simulation of the peasant life that the family allegedly left behind upon immigrating. Efforts to recreate the Dominican Republic in America are not satisfactory either. Clearly, women's chastity is not protected, as seen in the example of Marina. The violence of Papito and the divide in religious perspectives embodied by Papito and Aurelia do not suggest that a traditional Dominican marriage is desirable for the young American women. Even one of the sons, Tico says of the couple: "he could not even recall ever having seen his parents kiss, hold hands or hug. And he had no memory of being embraced or of hearing tender words."