Skin Color

For darker-skinned Dominican people like Lola, Mami, and Max, known as "moren-os/-as" in Spanish dialect, the predominance of their African heritage in their appearance marks them for diminished social status in the eyes of others in New Jersey as in the Dominican Republic. In Paterson, the pubescent Lola begins to realize how much she takes after her mother, and the "dark as night" complexion (Díaz, 414) they share provide Lola another element of her identity to integrate into her beginning self.

In her neighborhood of other Latin American descendants, Lola's dark skin and goth look earn her derision, and the insults continue in Wildwood with Aldo's racially provocative jokes intended too show off and hurt Lola. Just as there have historically been complex racial politics informing social status among Southern African-American people, Afro-Caribbean people like Dominicans have an analogous tradition of inherited social...