Drown | Setting

Drown Setting

Two settings dominate these stories: the rural Dominican Republic and suburban New Jersey..Both are tough, grim settings, awash in poverty and misery. The stories that contain the most Spanish words and phrases are set in the Dominican Republic.

The stories set in the United States contain less Spanish and more English slang terms, creating a sharp narrative contrast between the two environments.

Although both settings share a defining poverty, and almost all of the families in the stories are desperately poor, the families who live in the Dominican Republic are the poorest, often lacking basic necessities and suffering related health problems. The mother in "Aguantando" is periodically forced to send her children to live with relatives because she cannot afford to feed them. She tries to ease the pain of their situation by telling her children that things could be worse: "We were poor. The only...
(read more)