Junot Diaz Saves the World

Junot Diaz is the author of the recently published novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The novel is an ostensible coming of age story about Oscar, nicknamed Wao as a subversion of the famous writer Oscar Wilde, a nerdy teenager who loves American pop culture and dreams of being the next J.R.R. Tolkien. Only, Oscar and his family are not natural born American citizens, but rather immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Their heritage is also of the darker-skinned Dominican. This throws a considerable wrench into things for Oscar, his runaway sister, and their mother, seemingly both in the DR and in the U.S.

Diaz knows firsthand what kind of wrenches can be thrown into the paths of immigrant kids from the Dominican Republic - that's where he is from. He was born there, but raised in New Jersey and did become a writer, maybe not on a par with Tolkien yet, but surely on his way, as he has written for The New Yorker and The Paris Review. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao will hit the big screen in '09 or '10. There is a weight and validity behind his words; they should be taken seriously. Oh, and did I mention he is a professor of creative writing at MIT?

Just what should be taken so seriously about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, you might ask? Its prose is unquestionably crude but lyrical, but an even weightier issue than the novel's literary achievement lurks just behind the cover of the Marvel comic books Oscar always reads. Ostensibly the novel is about tradition, melding old ways with new life in America, family history, and perseverance despite the odds. But Diaz also opens up the entire issue which has been starring the U.S. in the face for the last 100 years and despite the recent push for multiculturalism, viz. how to fit in in America or anyplace where Whites have dominated within the last 400 - 500 years, how to put all that history into some kind of rational order and understanding, how to synthesize it into a whole America where a kid (all kids) can be what he wants to be.

And, that's huge, but Diaz is also talking about the current state of teenagers here. Not just immigrant teenagers, but all American teenagers. Diaz brings to light just how hard life is for teenagers in America today through Oscar Wao (even though Oscar now belongs to almost another generation of kids who came up in the late 80's and early 90's). In a phone interview with Rich Fisher on Radio Tulsa January 3, 2007, Diaz even went so far to say that life is tough in America for all of us. This hit me like a ton of bricks, because chasing the American Dream is what it's all about, right?

Diaz makes the point that the competitive, superficial lifestyle of the U.S. paired with the fact that the traditional support mechanisms have broken down for families make fertile ground for teen rebellion, and I think he is right. Yes, it is also what made our country the world's Superpower and gives us so many creature comforts, but at what cost, real and potential? Our teens, regardless of how affluent, often work twenty or more hours per week. Even the poorest teen has an iPod and a cell phone made outside the United States, but can't identify the flag of Communist China.

I think Junot Diaz has hit upon something that could save the world, or at least the United States. He has opened up the dialogue about what America means, what both family history and national histories mean, and what our failure to provide kids with an understanding is doing to our young citizens. He has shown the very great need for a better support mechanism in our homes and in our schools. Most of all, he has de-object-ified the immigrant and shown us that in our diversity we are one, all with expectations of family and living the good life and fulfilling our own American Dream.

And, he has pointed out a great irony in our easy American life today - that, to quote Diaz, life in America IS hard. Now, that is something to open up a great debate about - have any of the Presidential candidates addressed this issue yet? That I would like to hear.