Music and Dancing

Multiple kinds of music appear in the novel. Some of this music is associated with US Latinx identities, but more specifically with Dominican identity, including the bachata and the merengue, indirectly referenced when Xiomara writes about never hearing the sound of the accordion or güira because her father gives up dancing when the "miracle" twins are born. While Xiomara hears this music, much of that happens on the streets because this music is effectively banned from the Batista home: Xiomara's parents associate this music with carnality and sexual promiscuity.

Xiomara's own experience with this music appears twice in the novel, once when she dances at a Washington Heights party with Aman and later when she dances with her father after her successful outing at the poetry slam. In both instances, this music is associated with love, romantic and sexual love in the first...