Back Home Again

      Throughout the novel, Díaz repeatedly points out how bad the Dominican Republic can be and how corrupted the country is.  However, the characters continuously refer back to it and return to "find" themselves.  Belí can't wait to get out, but then she sends her kids there to live with La Inca when she thinks they need a life readjustment.  She is completely content with Lola and Oscar being there until something bad happens and then it is like she magically remembers all the dangers associated with the country.  It is interesting to me because Belí has first-hand experience of just how bad things had gotten in the DR.  Oscar constantly talks about how the family is cursed (194) but he too wants to go to the Dominican, the source of all his supposed trouble.  

     Belí is the most puzzling to me because although she did have some good times with La Inca, for the most part her life in the Dominican was anything but pleasant.  She was not wanted from birth because she was darker than anyone else's, her own family refused to take her after her mother died and she never go the chance to know her sisters.  Díaz even says that her birth could be zafa or fukú, not a very good sign for Belí (242).  She was treated horribly in her childhood, so horrible she never spoke of all the things that happened to anyone (258).  However, she still knew the country was home. I think that was one of the major discrepancies between Belí and her children.  She had had this awful life in the Dominican, a life that she would never want her kids to experience, but because of the difference in upbringings she could never really relate to Lola and Oscar.  Lola and her mother have very similar personalities, but they still couldn't get along because of how each were raised and where they were raised.  

     The Dominican may have not been a pleasant place, but Belí still considered it home and this is why she would send Lola and Oscar there.  To her, they needed to get their lives back on track by going home and getting to know their cultural roots.  She wanted them to be true Dominicans and not just immigrants who knew nothing about their heritage.  When she thought they had improved themselves enough, she took them back home.  Belí was trying to have a better relationship with her children by exposing them to things that she grew up with in her life.  Lola and Oscar even grew to love the country, for different reasons, and not want to leave.