Clap When You Land

“There have been many days when Papi’s check comes late, / & we have to count / how many eggs we have left, / or how long the meat will stretch. / I don’t want Tía & me to always live this way. / I will make it. / I will make it. / I will make it easier for us both.” 

Camino describes the material hardships she faces in Puerto Plata. The quotation sets the stakes at hand: her reliance on Papi’s checks, and her ambition to provide a different life for Tía Solana and herself. Soon, circumstances will conspire against her, and her father’s death will push Camino into desperation. 

“& she unravels. I do not slide down to join her. / Instead, I put my arms underneath hers, help her up to her feet & into her bedroom. / When the phone begins ringing / I answer & murmur to family. / I take charge where no one else can.” 

On the day she learns of her father’s death, Yahaira is picked up at school by Mami, Papi’s first wife. We witness Yahaira’s analytical approach to chaos in comparison to her mother’s grief. Where Mami is inconsolable, Yahaira is stalwart, endeavoring through her pain to keep order in a world upended by sudden and shocking tragedy. 

“Word on the street is El Cero always gets a first taste / of the girls who work for him. Before he gussies / them up & takes them by the resort beach in cut-off tanks & / short shorts / so the men from all over the world who come here / for sun / & sex can give thumbs-up or -down to his wares. / His women. / Not women, yet. Girls. / So, no. El Cero is not the kind of hustler Papi was.” 

By likening El Cero to Papi, Camino illustrates a spectrum of moral ambiguity that both men partake in. El Cero is also given emphasis as a darker brand of criminal, presumably without Papi’s conscience. His connection to underage prostitution places Camino in terrible danger. 

“I am a girl who does not look like a woman. / I am a girl who looks like a girl. / I am a girl who is not full-fledged yet. /” 

While meditating on El Cero’s menacing attention, Camino reflects on what he sees when he looks at her. In describing herself, Camino engages in the male gaze but also in the in-betweenness of her adolescence. This liminal space between girl and woman shapes the choices, for better and worse, that Camino makes throughout the novel.

“But last year, things changed. & so did I. / So did chess. & if the game taught me one thing, / it’s once you lift a pawn off the board, / you have to move it forward. It cannot return / where it was.” 

Yahaira recounts the way life changed for her the previous summer, likening her transformation to a rook’s chess movement. Yahaira’s single-mindedness, drive, and determination to succeed are characterized in the metaphor of the chess piece. The comparison also personifies the chess piece in the last line by suggesting that the piece, like Yahaira, might desire to return to its original position.

“I don’t believe in magic / or premonitions. Not like Papi, / who crossed himself every time he left the house. / Not like Mami, who tries to interpret dreams. / But on the night before Papi left for DR, / something yanked on my heart, / & I wanted to ask him to stay. / But I never said the words.”

When she recounts the sudden urge to stop Papi on the night before Papi’s flight, Yahaira raises one of the novel’s dramatic questions: Is it possible to change your fate or are tragedies in life, like Papi’s death, predetermined? By stating outright that she does not believe in magic, Yahaira is also signaling the beginning of an arc toward making peace with her own spirituality. 

“Papi turned to my nine-year-old self & said: / ‘Never, ever, let them see you sweat, negra. / Fight until you can’t breathe, & if you have to / forfeit, / you forfeit smiling, make them think you let them / win.’” 

After becoming overwhelmed at a chess match that she loses, Yahaira rides the train home with Papi. A central tenet of Yahaira’s character emerges from her father’s advice, which teaches Yahaira resilience in the face of impossible odds. At several moments of adversity, Yahaira reminds herself: Never let them see you sweat.

“Can you be from a place / you have never been? / You can find the island stamped all over me, / but what would the island find if I was there? / Can you claim a home that does not know you, / much less claim you as its own?” 

Yahaira describes the dichotomy of being raised Dominican in New York. Because she has never been to the island, she experiences a dissonance between her love of her own culture and a feeling of disconnection from the people and customs of her homeland. This question foreshadows its resolution in the text, when Yahaira journeys to the Dominican Republic to bury her father.

“When I am called to the guidance counselor, / [...] I ask if she knows what will happen / if my family cannot pay tuition. / She says there are scholarships / I would have had to apply to / a semester ago; / [...] It would delay my graduation, / it would delay my ability to apply to college, / & it would delay just how much time / I live here.”

Camino’s education and the money she will need to acquire it are important parts of her motivation throughout the text. Compounding the grief she feels for her father’s death is the lack of his monetary support, on which she depended to follow her ambition to become a doctor. A central theme in Camino’s sections of the book is the dissonance between harsh realities and dreams that must be given up for survival. 

“‘Yahaira. Your father was no man’s saint. / Not even if I dropped dead this moment, would I let you / touch foot on the sands of that tierra. Get that thought / right out of your head. Grave or no grave.’ / I press my mouth tight to keep my quivering lip to myself. / & I look at my mother & smile. / Never, ever let anyone see you sweat.” 

When she learns that Papi’s will clearly states his wishes to be buried in Dominican Republic, Yahaira’s motivation to attend her father’s funeral runs counter to Mami’s convictions to keep her daughter from ever stepping foot on the island. Yahaira’s relationship with her mother is the source of tension, setting both women on a journey to ultimately grow closer.

“Papi had another wife. / I found the marriage certificate. / The date on the form / was a few months after / my parents’ own marriage / here in the States. / [...] I know my mother could not have known / [...] when he returned last summer, / I didn’t know how to look him in the face & pretend. / So it was easier not to look at him at all. / When the only words I owned were full of venom, it seemed better / to stop speaking to this man / [...]”

Yahaira considers the previous summer, when, rifling through her father’s files, she learned of her father’s marriage to another woman. Appalled at the discovery, Yahaira can no longer bring herself to relate to her father. However, Yahaira’s insistence that her mother could not have known is wrong, bringing to light a dimension of her mother that Yahaira does not yet know.

“I wish I could tell Tía / that El Cero won’t leave me alone. / I haven’t done anything wrong / or encouraged him in any way. / He just shows up, grinning, / waiting. / I wish I could tell Tía / I don’t know what to do. That / I’m scared he’ll corner me. / I wish I could tell Tía, but what would Tía do if she knew?” 

As El Cero’s advances become more frequent and pronounced, Tía Solana approaches Camino with rumors that have been circulating of sightings of El Cero and Camino at the beach together. Although Camino wants to tell Tía Solana that El Cero has been stalking her, she will not. Camino’s character flaw emerges in this scene: an inability to ask for help from those she holds dear.

“Tía says, / ‘She, the wife, has connections at the consulate. / She’s made it difficult for your father to request you. / He needed her citizenship papers to help obtain your visa.’ / [...] Tía says / a lot more words, but I barely hear any of them. I have a sister. I have a sister. I have a sister. / There is another person besides Tía of my blood in the world.” 

After the airline pays Mami an advance for Papi’s death, Tía Solana explains to Camino the existence of her father’s other family as well as the money that is hers to claim. Although Camino has an opportunity to solve her dire monetary struggles, she is most concerned with the news that she has a sister. 

“& I have one new friend request / from a girl I don’t know in Sosúa, Dominican Republic. / She has my same last name: Rios. Camino Rios. / She is slightly lighter complexioned / than my velvet brown, / her eyes are big & piercing, / & her smile looks familiar / [...] she is in a red bathing suit, my father’s arm / thrown around her shoulders / as they laugh in the sunlight. / An awful sinking feeling almost stops my breath.” 

When Yahaira logs onto her social media account, she receives a friend request from her sister, Camino. For Yahaira the revelation manifests in a panic attack, and Mami rushes into the room, coaching her to breathe through her anxiety attack. The differences in the way Camino learns of Yahaira and the way Yahaira learns of Camino are poetic opposites that speak to the secrets Mami kept in comparison to Tía Solana’s bold truthfulness. 

“‘I reached out to Yahaira. Papi’s girl. She responded.’ / Tía puts down her book but is otherwise silent. / ‘She wants to talk. She wants to video-chat.’ / & it comes as a surprise to me, / but all of a sudden I’m crying, the sob / pulled up from the well in my chest, / full & wet, & Tía must have been expecting it.” 

As Camino and Yahaira come closer to their first face-to-face meeting, Camino breaks down while attempting to tell Tía Solana. This scene closely resembles Yahaira’s sudden outburst when encountering Camino’s friend request, speaking to the consistent theme of duality and illustrating the overwhelming emotions and life-changing circumstances both girls find themselves in. 

“Her mother will not let her come, & she is planning / to do so behind her back. / That takes strength. [...] As much as I want to hate this girl, / I also have to admire what she will do to get here. / & I hope that she will admire / all I will do to get there, too.” 

As Yahaira shares her plan to accompany Papi’s body to the Dominican Republic, Camino admires her sister’s drive and willfulness. There is a sense of rivalry already brewing between the sisters but also a camaraderie forged by the secret they are keeping together. Although she gives no other allusion to the reader through dialogue or interior monologue, the final line is a sinister foreshadowing of Camino’s plan to get to New York.

“Four days before my sister is supposed to arrive, / I finally get my nerve up. [...] ‘I won’t tell you any details about the funeral / unless you transfer me money. You’ll show up / for nothing. My Tía won’t help you sneak over here.’ / I don’t want to be brisk. It almost hurts me to look / into her wide, soft eyes & ask for so so much. / But her softness has nothing to do with the desperation / I feel growing inside me.” 

Camino puts her own plan into motion when she video calls Yahaira and demands $10,00 of the advance paid to her by the airline for Papi’s death. Although determined, Camino describes the discomfort she feels at inflicting such a demand on her sister. The scene alludes not only to Camino’s growing desperation to escape her frightening circumstances but also to her growing affection for her sister.

“& finally a beautiful girl, with tight curls: / A morenita with a pink duffel in her hand / looking pensive & determined.” 

At the airport, Camino is stricken with panic when the arrivals board goes blank just the way it did when she came to meet her father. When an attendant assures her that the plane has landed without issue, Camino waits and watches passengers trickle through the gate. Her description of Yahaira marks their first in-person meeting and the beginning of the novel’s final act.

“When I am sure Yahaira is snoring softly, / I reach into her duffel bag. Searching. / [...] [T]here, at the bottom, a marriage certificate. One with my mother’s name on it. Dated / after both Yahaira & I were born. / Her family was always first. / The real one that I merely interrupted. / I want to crumple to the floor. I want to crumple the page. / Instead, I rip it up. / [...] Maybe I can fold these jagged scraps into a yola that will sail me across the Atlantic. [...] There goes the last thing I had of him.” 

On the night of Papi’s burial and her birthday, Camino goes through Yahaira’s bag in search of her sister’s passport. The passport, a nearly sacred object to Camino by this point, is dwarfed in importance when she discovers her parent’s marriage certificate. Although Yahaira had brought Camino her father’s papers as a gift, the late date on the marriage certificate confirms Camino’s feelings of inferiority and drives her to her final confrontation with El Cero at the beachfront.

“‘I know, I know. I know this fear. You’re okay. / I’m here. I got you.’ / & the feeling is so clear it chokes me up / so much I can’t actually say the words.” 

At the beachfront, Yahaira comes to Camino’s rescue, throwing El Cero from her sister and driving him away with help from Mami and Tía Solana. When Yahaira says “I know this fear,” she is alluding to her own sexual assault by a man she felt powerless to stop. By helping Camino fend off her attacker she is healing a wound in herself that once made her feel powerless. 

“Tía like a bishop, / slashing her long machete. Mami, the knight with / rims. My body / in front of my sister’s body: queens. / Papi, who I know is here too. He did build that castle / he always promised.” 

Yahaira, Mami, and Tía Solana come to Camino’s aid during her confrontation with El Cero. As Yahaira regards the women around her, her likening of each one to individual pieces on a chess board is a metaphor for their assembled strength. The quotation also symbolizes Yahaira’s growth. When she admits that she knows Papi is also present, she is admitting to a new understanding of her parents’ spirituality that she earlier spurned.

“What I wanted. What I wanted. / For so long. How bittersweet / a realized dream can be flavored.” 

When Camino learns that Mami has used her connections to fast track an emergency visa so that she can leave the Dominican Republic, she feels a sudden sting of melancholy when faced with the thought of finally leaving her home. The quotation is powerful for its simplicity; the use of anaphora and fragments capture the expression of Camino’s sudden elation as well as the tragedy of leaving.

“Mami says she thinks it would be good / if when we get back home / we return to the counseling sessions. / & I know it has scared her / how big the emotions / of loss have weighed on our shoulders. / Enough for me to disobey her / in a way I never have. / Enough for her to forget / the kind of woman she once was. / Enough for Camino / to thrust herself into unleashed danger.” 

Before their flight to America, Mami suggests they return to group counseling. This is the resolution of Yahaira and Mami’s earlier choice not to return to the neighborhood association meetings. Yahaira also notes the way grief has pushed them into exceptional risk.