Transcript
>> HINOJOSA: His first book of
short stories took us by storm,
and with his debut novel The
Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar
Wao, he won a Pulitzer Prize.
Today he's considered one of the
most distinctive voices in
contemporary fiction-- novelist
Junot Diaz.
I'm Maria Hinojosa.
This is One on One.
Junot, welcome to the show.
>> DIAZ: Thank you for having me,
Maria.
>> HINOJOSA: So, a Pulitzer for
The Brief Wonderous Life of
Oscar Wao.
Are you still on the Pulitzer
high?
>> DIAZ: No.
I don't know if I ever got the
Pulitzer high.
>> HINOJOSA: No.
>> DIAZ: Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's just more
about my personality.
Again, my friends pointed out
that I never had a party or even
a celebration for it.
I just kept working.
So that's usually the way I am.
But you know, it's been a great
ride.
I've had a lot of fun.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, so when you
called your mom, what did you
say?
I mean, I want you to say, like,
the exact words-- (speaking
spanish)
>> DIAZ: I didn't call my mom.
I was at her house.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh!
So what did you say to your mom?
>> DIAZ: Nothing.
I just said... I mean, not
nothing.
I said, "Mother... (speaking
spanish)"
And she's... my mother's very
practical, you know?
She's like, you know, "(speaking
spanish)"
I said, "(speaking spanish),"
and she laughed.
She was like, "Oh, well, divide
$10,000 by 11 years, and you
have..." but she was thinking...
yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: I was wondering how
you would have said Pulitzer to
your mom.
Because, you know, there's this
thing that Dominicans do with
language.
In fact, that's how Oscar Wao
came to be, right?
I mean, you looked at the name
Oscar Wilde, and you said...
>> DIAZ: Well, yeah, no.
I mean, part of it, it's just...
it's more... it's not even just
Dominicans.
It's what happens when you exist
in two languages-- and some
people exist in three or four--
is that words begin to have
resonances outside of their...
you know, their kind of standard
place in their original
language.
Wilde, when pronounced in
Spanish, sounds like wao, and
that's a fun kind of collusion.
>> HINOJOSA: One of the things
that I loved about the book is
that, you know, you are, along
with Julia Alvarez, the writers
who are kind of bringing the
Dominican reality into the
American lexicon.
So what is it... and it's really
hard to simplify or generalize
an entire country's experience,
and what you want kind of your
American brethren living in this
country to understand about
Dominicans.
What is it that you want them to
undestand about the Dominican
experience?
>> DIAZ: Well, I mean, fortunately,
there's also a group of other
writers, too.
There's, like, Angie Cruz,
Nellie Rosario, Loida Maritza
Perez.
I think that the whole
thing with literature, from what
my standpoint is, and it's going
to be personal and limited,
is... you know, I mean, at its
core, literature is about, you
know... for a reader it's about
encountering, you know, the
human experience.
It's about encountering through
other people, made up people,
fantastic people, distant
people, people from other times,
encountering yourself.
I think that as a Dominican
writer specifically, I think
that, you know, it would be hard
for me to generalize what
everyone's going to be up to,
what's the project of all
Dominican writers, or even
what's the project of the reader
who encounters the book.
Because even readers bring a
project to their reading.
But I certainly would argue
that, you know, the fact that
about a million Dominicans came
to the United States,
specifically around the New York
City area, in a brief period of
time, in 20 years, basically, an
entire diaspora happened in
fast forward.
I think that that... I think
about 15% of a nation was torn
away from that nation and
transplanted in the American
northeast in an incredibly short
period of time when you're
thinking about demographics.
And I think that both that
dislocation, that trauma, that
transition, that transformation,
combined with the fact that the
Dominican Republic and the
United States have always have a
very, very connected history...
>> HINOJOSA: Which is a history
that most people in this country
don't know about.
>> DIAZ: Sure.
But I would argue most people in
Santo Domingo don't know about
it either.
>> HINOJOSA: The fact that in
1965 the United States invaded,
you think right now still
Domincan's don't...
>> DIAZ: Well, I mean, I would argue
that that's itself... I mean,
you know, the person who gets
invaded always remembers longer.
But, I mean, how many Dominicans
remember that, you know, the
Dominican Republic was almost
annexed by the United States?
I mean, you walk around the
street and ask the average
Dominican, and say, "When was
the American... first American
occupation?"
You know, I think that history
in the New World has a way of
eluding even the people who were
victimized by it.
And, you know, one of the things
that happens when you're a
storyteller is that you face
every day the fact that stories,
unless they're powerfully told,
and the people who are keeping
these stories alive have a lot
invested in them, stories have a
way of fading.
They're ephemeral, just like we
are.
I mean, that's why we are so
connected to our stories.
>> HINOJOSA: One of the things,
though, that you bring out in
this book is a really difficult
time in the Dominican Republic,
that, you know, whether or not
young Dominicans are actually
walking around talking about
what it was like to live under a
dictator like Trujillo, you
write about that.
You make it kind of clear that
there was a dictator who was
very close in proximity to this
country, relatively, who was
pretty vicious.
>> DIAZ: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: The lasting impact
of Trujuillo on, let's say, a
generation, your generation,
your and a little bit younger,
is what?
>> DIAZ: That's, I think, what I
wrestle with with my literature.
I think that that is...
>> HINOJOSA: So the profoundness
of it was so deep that it's like
you're still trying to...
>> DIAZ: Well, it's not only that it's
so deep, but how do you
articulate something for which
there is almost no metrics for?
I mean, where is... in our human
experience, where have we
created a metric that can sort
of measure, you know, horrific
violence, that can measure
indifferent power, that can
measure the kind of totalitarian
abuse that people suffer under
dictatorships, that can measure
the loss of hope, that can
measure the sort of broken
spirit?
And the fact, for us to
understand what the Trujillo
regime and any other
dictatorship did to a people, to
a culture, to generations, we
would have to summon the dead.
We would have to summon all the
people who died under this
regime, who were disappeared,
who went mad...
>> HINOJOSA: Thousands,
thousands.
>> DIAZ: Thousands and more.
And only with the dead in
conversation with the living
could we begin to approximate
what it means.
I think that as an artist,
you're.... at least for me as an
artist, I'm trying to imagine
this conversation happening.
I can't summon the dead, I can't
summon all the living, I can't
summon everyone together to have
a little chat about how this has
deformed our culture, you know?
And... but you try.
I mean, that's the space of
literature, that you can imagine
it.
>> HINOJOSA: And how much of
kind of post Trujillo reality
in terms of race still exists in
the Dominican Republic, in the
sense of... another thing that
you talk about a lot in your
work is again this kind of...
unless you know the
Dominican-Haitian reality
closely, you're not necessarily
going to understand the fact
that they share an island,
Dominican Republic and Haiti,
and that there's this division,
that it's kind of hard to get
from one side of the island to
the other, and deep hatred
between these two counties on a
very kind of deep, deep level,
and one that Trujillo then goes
and massacres 30,000 Haitians.
What about that kind of legacy?
What does that do?
>> DIAZ: Well, I mean, it's... I mean,
how many countries in the New
World have 20th century
genocide?
I mean, certainly some come
close, and some clearly have
suffered them.
I mean, what happened in
Guatemala has been sort of
through United Nations
perspective, considered a
genocide, sort of
exterminationist... you know,
exterminationist death squads
from the military.
But, you know, the Dominican
Republic has clearly something
that would be called unambiguous
genocide.
>> HINOJOSA: Has it been
qualified ever by the UN?
Has there ever been any kind
of...
>> DIAZ: I don't think so.
I don't think one needs... in
this case I definitely don't
need the imprimatur of the UN to
know that this clearly a
genocide.
I mean, genocide by machete.
And look-- first this is kind of
a three-parter, maybe even a
50-parter.
I mean, racial relationships in
the African diaspora are always
very complicated.
And that... there's times when
they're relaxed, and there are
times when the relationships are
very violent.
The Dominican history with Haiti
hasn't always been fraught with
this sort of toxic
anti-Haitianism.
That's not the case.
The fact that Trujillo felt,
this dictator felt the need in
some ways to draw a line down
the island in blood with a
machete speaks to a deep
discomfort Trujillo had about a
reality in the Dominican
Republic and Haiti that I think
people often forget or sort of
glide over, which was that these
two countries were incredibly
close.
That there was a tremendous
amount of contact between the
two counties before the
genocide.
That as far away as Santiago,
considered the bastion of
Dominican identity, that the
influences of Haiti, the
language, even the money, were
being felt.
>> HINOJOSA: And what's so
problematic from the Domenican
perspective about that?
>> DIAZ: Well, I wouldn't argue that
it's problematic from the
Domenican perspective.
I would argue that it was
problematic from the Trujillo
perspective.
One of the best ways to maintain
power, one of the best ways to
create a state... you know, the
write Olaf Stapledon says the
nation is usually just a hate
club, a super hate club.
>> HINOJOSA: Because you've got
a border around yourselves.
>> DIAZ: Yeah, and the best way to
create borders is by hating your
neighbor.
You know, and I think that there
was more to that than this.
I mean, a border as porous and
as fluid as the one we found
between the Dominican Republic
and Haitia before the genocide
of 1937, I think Trujillo's idea
was twofold.
A, he would bolster up the very
fragile, atomized Dominican
nation, and B, he would, through
a racial genocide, not only
terrorize the Haitian community
but effectively terrorize the
Dominican community.
I mean, that's a trauma.
>> HINOJOSA: But even today, if
you are... because... so people
can kind of understand right
now, in the Dominican Republic,
the Haitians are the cheapest
labor there.
They're the undocumented
immigrants.
And even today, if a Haitian
gives birth to a child in the
Dominican Republic, does that
child have Dominican
citizenship?
>> DIAZ: Oh, never.
I mean, it hasn't been that way
for...
>> HINOJOSA: Which is one of the
issues here in terms of the
immigration debate that was
central, which was will they
deny citizenship to the children
of undocumented immigrants?
>> DIAZ: Well, I mean, think about it.
The First World nations are
behaving abominably towards its
immigrants, towards their
immigrants.
And so of course this is going
to have a ripple effect.
I mean, really?
Do you think the United States
and Canada and Europe,
quote-unquote the beacons of...
supposedly of civilization are
going to in any way intervene
where this kind of abusive
policy in a place like the
Dominican Republic and other
naitons... you know, I think
Santo Domingo, of course, gets a
lot of attenion focused on it
for very good reasons, but it
doesn't hold the only seat in
the abuse council.
>> HINOJOSA: But you want to
point a finger at that, don't
you?
>> DIAZ: But everyone should.
But again, it's like I said,
what's really, really
interesting is that I think in
many cases the Dominican
Republic is used as a way for
folks to talk about... not to
talk about how it's happening
across the board.
I mean, gee whiz, indigenous
people in Mexico, fully
enfranchised citizens?
>> HINOJOSA: Not so much.
>> DIAZ: Not so much?
Yeah, that's an understatement.
I think that throughout the
Americas, you find this paradigm
again and again and again.
The Dominican Republic makes it
very explicit, but in no way is
it... in no way is it the only
practitioner of such cruelty.
>> HINOJOSA: Is it hard for you?
How do you handle it kind of
personally when you go to the
Dominican Republic, when you see
that right now what still exists
there is, you know, apartheid,
actually?
>> DIAZ: What one brings to the Latin
American experience, what one
brings through living and trying
to interact in societies that
are fundamentally organized
around a Medieval Spanish
racialism... so that I go to
Mexico, I see the same pattern
played out as I see in the
Dominican Republic.
I go to Colombia, I see the same
pattern played out.
But the societies don't
understand themselves as
apartheid societies.
The societies don't understand
themselves as being racially
organized.
The societies don't understand
themselves as being these sort
of violent, ugly, you know,
expressions of in what many ways
is the New World legacy of
dividing people by race, skin
color, you know, and certain
kinds of, like, you know,
indiginous European dichotomies.
And what you end up doing is
that you end up living this
experience in a way that I think
in a place like the United
States it can be hidden, that it
can be ignored, that it can be
papered over.
I find myself, when I'm in the
Dominican Republic, being
invited to not see, being
invited to not notice.
The same happens when I go to
Mexico, when I go to Colombia,
when I've been to Cuba, and when
I'm in the United States.
Again, I think that Latin
America just makes more
explicit relationships that are
found at a global level.
I've never been to India, but
something tells me that my
preparation in both Santo
Domingo and in the United States
to experience this stuff.
>> HINOJOSA: So for people who
have never heard of fuku... I
mean, when I first read about
it, I was like, "Oh, my God,
this is some deep stuff.
This is..." because, you know,
I'm married to a Dominican.
But it's amazing that so many
people completely, completely
get it.
But simplify it.
What is a fuku?
>> DIAZ: It's... well, I mean, it's...
I always say this.
This is my pat answer, but I
think it's one that's accurate.
We belong to a hemisphere of
people who are obsessed with
curses.
The American condition is in
part a condition where we are
sort of shadowed by this idea
that we might either be the most
blessed country in the world, or
that perhaps really what's
happening is that we're cursed.
And artists and writers have
wrestled with this for a very
long time.
The fuku is just a Domenican
version of the American
preoccupation with curses,
whether it's Faulkner worried
that the American South was
eternally cursed because of the
orignal, quote-unquote, sin of
slavery, Melville wrestling with
other types of issues.
Yeah, people like that.
For me, I just thought, "Wow."
Curses are such a part of
what... how Americans view
themselves, their identity,
their history, that I just
looked for the Dominican version
of a very, very big American
preoccupation.
>> HINOJOSA: So do you want...
you want young people to get a
sense of... and one of the
things that's great about the
book is you have these wonderful
footnotes.
There are some pages, Junot,
where I enjoyed the footnotes
more than the page itself, which
was pretty fascinating.
But you want to be, like, this
kind of teacher of history to a
new generation, and you want
them to think critically.
I mean, essentially not to
forget, right?
>> DIAZ: Well, I mean, but also the...
I mean, again, it's... you've
got to know I'm a fiction
writer, so a lot of the history
isn't actually accurate.
You know, it's not meant to be a
history book.
In fact, it's arguing...
>> HINOJOSA: It's the Jon
Stewart form of history.
>> DIAZ: Well, but even Jon Stewart
gets it right a lot of times.
You know, I mean, I get it right
too, but I think for me, what's
important, certainly that
there's these ideas that I don't
want people to forget.
But there's also this notion
that history's very, very
plastic, and that the same way
that Trujillo used history...
you know, Trujillo was basically
like, "Hey, the Haitian
community invaded us.
Hey, the Spanish community did
this and that.
Hey, America thinks of us as
basically stepchildren,
ex-slaves."
History can always be
manipulated.
And I think that the plasticity
of history is not only something
that needs to be recognized, but
that I think is part of the
reason that so many people don't
really want to mess with
history, you know?
History seems like such a... you
know, a knot of snakes.
And certainly I want folks to be
aware of, you know, what has
happened both in the United
States and in the Dominican
Republic that bears... at least
in this last book, that bears
strongly on the Dominican
community.
But I'm also, like, trying to
argue that history is a tool
like anything else, and that
people can use it for good, for
bad, to put us to sleep, to wake
us up, and that sometimes we
never know how it's being used
until it's often too late.
A very good storyteller, like
the storyteller in this book,
can use history for what seems
like incredibly positive
purposes, but in fact it might
be quite a diabolical intent
behind it, you know?
>> HINOJOSA: So it took you 11
years to write Oscar Wao?
>> DIAZ: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: And you had a lot
of kind of publicly trying
moments in the time.
People knew the fact that you
were going through... you talk
about a writer's block.
What was that like as an artist?
How deep did it go, where you're
just like, "My God..."
>> DIAZ: Well, I mean, it's tough to
say, because it's... again I
would argue that it's not that
public.
I was just a writer.
I wasn't like... you know, if I
was an athlete who couldn't
hit any balls, you know... I
mean, A-Rod gets a lot of
nonsense and gets a lot of flack
when he can't function.
As a writer, people don't notice
much, especially if you're a
person who's just coming off of
a short story collection.
But I think that the experience
of wrestling with this novel for
so long, I think made me who I
am in some ways currently.
>> HINOJOSA: Which is... where
are you at?
>> DIAZ: I would just say that I
certainly... I don't have any
great sense of arrogance towards
my skill as an artist.
I think when I was... before I
entered this book, I thought...
like, I really was thinking, you
know, "I'm the man, I can knock
this thing out."
And I learned humility.
>> HINOJOSA: You mean after
Drown you did feel like... you
did get kind of pumped up after
Drown.
>> DIAZ: Yeah, well, I think it's...
not only after Drown.
I think my youth combined with,
you know, some early attention,
and I think that I had a sense
that I could do everything.
And I think that after this
novel I realized that talent...
there are limitations.
And that... I guess I approach
every piece of work now with an
enormous amount of humility, you
know, and an enormous sense that
not everything... not everything
goes easily, and that sometimes
you've got to struggle like a
beast to get the simplest thing
done.
>> HINOJOSA: So what's writing
like now?
Are you writing now?
>> DIAZ: Not really.
>> HINOJOSA: You're kind of
taking a break?
>> DIAZ: No, I'm just poking around,
taking notes down, but I'm not
fully... you know, it's sort of
like, if you think about it,
sleep.
Yeah, you know that stage right
before you really get to sleep,
and you're kind of hearing the
TV, you hear the next room.
If writing is sleep, I'm
currently at that stage where
I'm almost there.
Right now I'm just taking notes
and reading, you know, writing
small little things.
But nothing yet.
I haven't been able to put my
whole body in it.
>> HINOJOSA: And what's the
thing that inspires you?
You know, for different people
it's different things.
Is it... you know, is it reading
great stuff, or is it, you know,
being completely alone and
silent in a room where there's
not much, you know, to hear or
see?
Is it being connected, is it
being disconnected?
What kind of... what works for
you?
>> DIAZ: I think what really inspires
me is how... and this might seem
ridiculous.
Is how utterly elusive and
contradictory life is.
Look, I just came back from
Santo Domingo.
I was in Santo Domingo last
week.
And I was thinking about a lot
of the stuff we've been talking
about.
And I was thinking that, you
know, it's so fascinating how
deeply racist New World cultures
are, whether it's America,
whether it's Puerto Rico,
whether it's Mexico.
And yet great difficulties have
a way of creating all sorts of
weird interesting mutation
opportunities.
So you look at a place like
Santo Domingo, where a racial
anti-black genocide transformed
the landscape, transformed the
way that people talk about race,
transformed how people feel
about race, and yet you look at
the census reports, and you see
that Dominicans of all Latinos
identify at the greatest
percentage with being of African
descent.
And the fact that these two
things exist in one group, the
fact that it's not such an easy
thing to be like, "Hmm," you
know, "these are folks who are
like X, Y, and Z."
And I think that I'm constantly
inspired.
Every time I hear a formula
about reality, as an artist I
know that it is not true.
And I seek to find where that
formula is not true.
And I think that that's...
>> HINOJOSA: That's a dark place
to be.
It's a really dark place to be,
right?
Because you're constantly
looking for the contradiction--
where is it going to come next?
>> DIAZ: I feel a formula is the
darkest place to be.
I mean, somebody has a
simplistic comfort...
>> HINOJOSA: You don't like to
wallow in it just for a little
bit?
Be like, "Mmm, feels kind of
good to..."
>> DIAZ: God, I'm in the simple toxic
formula all day.
I think that society teaches you
to wallow nonstop.
I think for me, what makes the
art perfect is that the art is
the only thing that invites me
to get out of the slop pit of
our simplicities.
I mean, if it wasn't for my art,
believe me, all I would do is
wallow in the formulas, because
that's really what I'm invited
to do.
That's what this culture
encourages me to do.
It is only my art, it is only my
writing, that asks me really
hard questions about things that
I'd rather not think about.
I mean, I would rather be rather
comfortable in a lot of my
received ideas.
>> HINOJOSA: Where does that
kind of utter sense of
uncomfortableness... does it
come from the fact that you were
a part of this diaspora?
Does it come because that was
Junot whether he was going to be
in Santo Domingo or in Newark or
in, you know, wherever?
>> DIAZ: Hard to say.
I think you're always looking
for a way... you're always
looking for a genealogy, you're
always looking for a chain of
causality, you know?
Plenty of my friends in Santo
Domingo never emigrated.
Plenty of my friends emigrated.
And yet it's hard to say how one
personality is different from
the other, or excuse me, how one
personality gets formed.
You know, I've got friends who
stayed and emigrated, and they
have the same kind of outlook,
you know?
So it's really tough to say
where this came from.
I know that if it wasn't for the
arts, I would feel very strange.
That I think that part of who I
am found its home in the arts,
in this place where we can
really explore those difficult
contradictions, where we can
really explore that country
where very few of us want to be
at, in that country which is...
that place where we are most
human, where we are most
vulnerable, where our myths fall
away.
And I've always been attracted
to that.
I've always been interested in
that.
I mean, since I was a little kid
it was something that pulled me.
And I feel that again, if there
were no arts, a soul like mine
would probably reach out and try
to invent them.
But luckily there are, and I was
glad, because I was able to find
a second home away from the home
that I was given.
>> HINOJOSA: Junot, thank you so
much for sharing the stories of
Oscar Wau and for all of your
work.
It's really been a pleasure.
>> DIAZ: Oh, thank you for having me,
Maria.
Good luck with everything.
>> HINOJOSA: Thanks.
>> HINOJOSA: Continue the
conversation at
wgbh.org/oneonone.
Captioned by
Media Access Group at WGBH
access.wgbh.org
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