History, Hair, and Reimagining Racial Categories in Junot Díaz'sThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Abstract

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz articulates a complex, fluid racial world that defies conventional ideas about racial classification. The novel examines three generations of the Cabral/de León family as they negotiate complicated racial terrains in the Dominican Republic and the United States. This essay explores the historical and cultural factors that have shaped differing conceptions of race in the Dominican Republic and the United States, particularly notions of blackness, whiteness, and Dominican-ness; it then looks to Oscar Wao's engagement with hair as an illustration of the complex, contingent nature of racial categorization.

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