Dominoes and other Stories from the Puerto Rican was well received by reviewers although few single out the title story for special comment. The emphasis of critics is on the variety of the stories and how telling a portrait they provided of the life of the Puerto Rican community in New York City.

Raúl Niño in Booklist writes, "In these eight vivid stories that both shock and delight, the language is colloquial, the themes the difficult realities of an immigrant's experience." Niño no doubt had "Dominoes" in mind as one of the stories that shock. Niño argues that the experiences of Puerto Ricans in these stories are no different than those of any other immigrant group in the United States although Agüeros "also conjures up the special texture of the culture from which it stems."

The...