Voice Discussion - "Wildwood" and "Model's Assistant"

Wildwood Question:

1. While reading "Wildwood" it made me think of many different relationships within Latinx families. There is often rocky relationships especially between mothers and daughters. This story struck a personal chord for me, I work as a teacher in an inner city school with the majority of students being Latinx. When I speak with the young ladies in my class about home life this happens fairly often where they don't have great relationships with their mom or they feel their mom is constantly picking on/at them. I feel that the relationship between Lola and her mom is bound by love in some way but also by a fear the mother has for her daughter to be in this new country. Her mother is a first generation immigrant, she moved to the States without anyone else, she had to be tough in order to survive. But when she is raising her daughter her fear seems to be so strong that she does not know any other way to communicate it other then yelling or insulting her. I believe their bond does have love within it but fear is what has the deepest grasp.

Model's Assistant Question:

1. My first impression was that the narrator is extremely self concious, everything that happens throughout the story shows she is constantly aware of everyone around her and what they may or may not be thinking about her. Even though she is in her early thirties she comes across as very immature at times. There wasn't much of an impression I got from Garla, she seems to be very surface level. I think she comes across that way because of the narrator though, from the get go she puts Garla on a pedestal and constantly talks about how wonderful and amazing she is.

WILDWOOD

1. This relationship reminded me of a friend who is the daughter of immigrants. She loves her mother fiercly, but also had similar battles in high school. Diaz perfectly struck the tension between familiar love and filial bonds as well as the bonds of duty and expectation, of abuse and broken attachments. My friend's experience gives me hope for Lola and her mother-- the friend does really well with her mom when they don't live together. The abuse stops, the relationship has room to breathe. While I don't think Lola and her mother will ever have a golden mother-daughter relationship (to answer 3), I do think there is hope for a mutual understanding, for room for love when the expectations and pressues are suspended. Living with Abuela has given Lola time to grow up a little as well, and it's given her more perspective on her mother. I love that the mother is the original rebel, having to move to the States after engaging in a disasterous relationship. As a mom who studies child psychology, I see so many truths in this story just at how people hurt others, how hurt people react, and how perception and expectations can create alternate relaties in our minds. MODEL'S ASSISTANT 6. I really see a lot of internal conflict. Even when she discusses external, it's all her perception-- she decided people are looking on her with disdain or disgust, but she never takes the time to talk to anyone or actually know their thoughts. Meanwhile, she is in conflict with what she wants-- does she want self-respect or to follow Garla around? Does she want a real job in the real world or to remain perpetually in model-land? The author puts off making decisions and lives in a limbo land, which makes her constantly unhappy and unfulfilled in her indecision.

Model's assistant

1. My first impression of the narrator was that she's kind of like a noir film detective but without the random bouts of amazing detective skills but the same self the loathing and drinking trope. Garla seemed kinda blank to me as well but in a different way. Like a hologram. Or a projection of the narrator's imagination. she's panned out to be alike an alien from another planet the narrator can't comprehend. Like a beautiful femme existential horror. definitely a foil.

2. I've seen that schtick enough that the self loathing drunk character doesn't really get a reaction from me either way. She was as she says, like a sandwich. Not notable.

3. the narrators voice is imaginative and sensory. experiencial. I do like the abusrdity and imegry, moving not even like a robot, now-that-we’ve-agreed-the-night-will-end-with-mutual-oral-sex-let’s-take-our-time-getting-buzzed-first room, turd inside someone who’d accidentally swallowed an engagement ring, etc. She's seemingly obsessed with beauty and her lack of it.

4. I believe Garla is poor at verbal communication and better at nonverbal and social situations. The narrator is the opposite. Her phrases aren't nonsense but we're likely dealing with an unreliable narrator with imperfect information trying to parse meaning with less nonverbal skills than darla lives by.

5. The narrator seems to like the simplicity, raw beauty, lifestyle, and seemingly effortless quality of Garla. Garla seemingly is like gentle, subtle. Softlife if you will. Garla appreciates the beauty in the narrator's imperfection like an artist likes an unusually ugly face, narrator's honesty, and outsider perspective. In bubbles like that very few people are honest, fewer still having no ulterior motive. Garla likes that the narrator gets into trouble and livens things up in model-land. It feels a bit like competing forms of beauty having a conversation. The raw beauty and the vulgar beauty. or beauty and the beast if you will.

6. Both. She has a small spat with Garla and the world of Garla model-land seems hostile to the narrator especially the attention department. treating her as a spectacle and with disgust. Even her copyrighting job is not something the narrator really likes. Meanwhile her ruminations, vulnerability, feelings for Garla, and drinking place the narrator in internal conflict as well.

Wildwood

1. In some cultures, particularly ones that uphold traditional, religious, reactionary, and/ or conservative values. Familial responsibility, pruedence, strength, rule of law, ownership, and dominance hierarchies of control are emphasized in social relationships. The hold stronger than love is a lifetime of indoctrination, manipulation, and control through any means necessary enacted by the dominant hegemon, in this case a matriarch afraid of losing control.

2. The American quality is the contradictions and hypocrisies built into the conflicts and desires of the characters that match their respective theming. rebellion vs control. Spanish vs English. reckless adolescent innocence vs. cold calculating adulthood. America is essentially a dominant culture made up of multi-cultures constantly in conflict. Enmeshed in hypocrisy, discontent, and rebellion. While subordinating to the dominant hierarchy through systems of control it praises freedom and individual agency through property ownership. These characters match that perfectly, even more so being a story about Hispanic people who have some American freedom but were forced into the system through imperial domination as an internal colony.

I don't think much of Aldo. He is kind of a reflection of the weak and cowardly men Lola is used to. She gravitates to him initially because he is a chance for an avenue of escape. She is more like her mother initially than she'd like to admit. Because she unconsciously dominates the situation. running the show, with no plan.

3. Lola's grandmother's relationship is nowhere near as confrontational, it's still somewhat informational in communication style, alienated, and a low level relationship. Lola doesn't seem very capable of intimate vulnerability. I believe Lola's relationship with her mother would improve as Lola's understanding of her mother has improved, but any improvement is an improvement from outright hostility and physical altercation displayed in the story. BUt there are limits especially with such strong personalities.

4. The first thing I noticed was the way it subtly weaves, american pop culture, english, spanish, and vulgarity overtop a stream of consciousness haphazard kind of writing. It does the job of foreshadowing and keeping the plot moving but never hesitates to let you know this is the mind of a child and a particularly vulgar and discontented one. At parts the very angsty edgelord teenage way Lola speaks could have gotten pretty cringe but the author keeps it moving so it doesn't have time to be. Lola's life is very limited to certain parameters. the combination of conflicting ideas and dancing between the vulgarity while being starkly informational you get a much more human picture. In particular the picture of a teenager.

5. The author uses spanish, english, and allusions to highlight glaring contradictions in the human experience. Lola is in the middle of inevitable conflict, hypocrisy, messy learning, antithesis, philosophic dualities, and wider cultural thematic conflicts. Most of the spanish used isn't even necessary from a writing standpoint, and often forces the reader to bring in their understanding of spanish culture in a jarring manner. It brings things back to her varied background and her worldview informed by very narrow false binaries. Just as the pop cultural references aren't really needed to be known to be understood what it means to Lola. it fleshes out the central conflict of liberation and control as even her thoughts are tightly controlled cultural constructs.

Here are my answers for the Wildwood and Model's Assistant questions respectively:

2.      Lola is the first-born daughter who rebels, moving from the daughter who obeyed to the daughter who stayed out late, cut her hair, and stopped doing what she was expected. Aldo is completely different than her mother and is rather dull by comparison. His relationship with his father, while less volatile, is just as unhappy. However, he represents the culture Lola is supposed to somewhat adapt to since they live in the US and she likely found his whiteness appealing in this regard. He is just a representative though and ultimately she made a mistake moving in with him, which she comes to realize.

3.      Lola is far more at ease with her grandmother and believes that she cares for her. Although she does not explicitly say it, it seems that she feels more comfortable in Santo Domingo. The girls at her school are less than kind, but she was hardened by her life in Paterson and doesn’t appear to care. She even gets to embrace that need to run… even if it’s just in circles on the track.

I think her relationship with her mother will improve because of what her grandmother will tell her. Her mother has given her glimpses of her hardships and nothing more. The details are likely to give Lola some insight into why her mother behaves the way she does. She may not forgive her, but she’ll understand it.

4.      The way Lola’s mother is presented and then the manner in which she speaks to her children is uncomfortable in its accuracy. She is a woman who has experienced trauma, takes it out on her family, and expects obedience. I don’t call my siblings dumbasses but the sentiment is the same in the way the siblings interact, especially in the coffee shop when Oscar clearly feels guilty for having tricked his sister. The dialogue between the characters is not an obvious tool to forward the plot as seen in so many fast-fiction novels these days (ahem, Colleen Hoover) but moments between characters meant to show us real moments. The differences between Aldo and Max in how they speak to Lola were a gentle, welcomed change.

5.      Lola is the second generation in an immigrant family. She has a foot in the culture of her family and the other in the country she lives in. The mixing of English and Spanish show this, and I especially appreciated that many of the insulting things are in Spanish as this is what is said, presumably, by her mother. The frequent allusions emphasize this by showing us how Lola truly is in both worlds and how they can coexist or clash.

1.      The narrator came off immediately as a leach, but one I could sympathize with as she was just wanting to be in a world (model-land) she could never be in. So she used Garla. Garla is as detached from this story as she is from the narrator. She, to me, is a prop in the story. We only had glimpses of her through the narrator’s perspective and, given her leach-like friendship, is an unreliable one. For one thing, the narrator introduces Garla as her best friend who is from somewhere “swedishy.” If she were truly her best friend, she would know where Garla was from.

2.      I sympathized with the narrator at first because to be on the outside of something you want in on is never a good feeling. As I read on, I pitied her and then grew annoyed with her. I especially did not like when she quit her job and appointed herself as Garla’s assistant. After glancing through it a second time, I came back around to pity. I was impatient and annoyed with the narrator before I labeled her relationship to Garla as one of addiction. Now I pity her addiction to the perfection Garla’s life apparently oozes.

4.      Garla’s nonsensical phrases could reflect her shallow grasp on the English language or it could be that she has a flat personality with really nothing to say. She may be confident, but I’m not convinced she is a deep person.

6.      Some of the narrator’s conflict could be external—money, her inability to hold down alcohol, her appearance—or it could all be internal. Her insecurities, poor self-image, and unfortunate attraction to perfection are all her pitfall. Instead of recognizing at the end that perfection is a road with no end, that Garla does not feel deeply one way or the other for her, the narrator holds on tighter and hopes her life with Garla will continue. I'd say most of her conflict is internal.