Weiting Zhou
Writing for the Social Sciences
Professor Dalton
21 September 2021
In Jaquira Diaz’s memoir Ordinary Girls, she discusses her life experiences, how she grew up, what she went through, and how it impacted her. Jaquira was born to a white mother and a black father in Puerto Rico, as a child she didn’t have the “typical” childhood that most children had. She grew up in a neighborhood with a dangerous reputation, her experiences in this neighborhood included being threatened by men carrying machetes and police raids were common occurrences. All this had an impact on her because she started acting out and her life became difficult. While she grew up in that milieu, I grew up in a very different one which made her stories interesting to me. After doing some research about her and reading her short story Season of Risks, I fell in love with her writing style and her story. I was intrigued to understand more about her life because it was so different from mine and anyone else I know. I was drawn into her life by her seemingly lack of fear and desire for freedom.
While reading some of Jaquira Diaz’s stories, every sentence captivated me, it felt like I was the “I” in the memoir, it didn’t give me any chance to escape her world. Her writing seemed fiction but was actually nonfiction. It felt like I was the one who moved from Puerto Rico to Miami instead of her. Her writing style made me feel like I was the protagonist and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for myself. Even though I hadn’t actually experienced the same as Jaquira, it felt real to me, I was able to picture what was happening.
Jaquira, as a gay and brown woman growing up in America, she didn’t get the support and love she wanted which caused her life to be upended by violence. Her mother had bought her barbie dolls, which she despised because they reminded her of who she wasn’t. “But I didn’t exactly like them. They were like reminders of everything I wasn’t —blond-haired, blue-eyed. They always made me feel ugly, the brown kid who would never look like her white mother.” (Diaz, 2019, p.32). Even though her mother was white, she didn’t resemble her which only made her feel worse about herself because at that time, being white was seen as the ideal look.
The freedom and love she craved so much were out of reach, yet she persevered through the help of her friends who are the “ordinary girls” in the memoir. I was able to relate to her in some ways because I never had the support and love I wanted. No matter what I did, I didn’t feel the support or love and that’s when I turned to my close friends. They showed me what it felt like to be supported and loved, which caused me to be a more considerate and amiable person. Before, I was acting out a bit, but was afraid when my parents confronted me about my poor decisions. But I didn’t stop because I wanted some attention. Reading about her life made me realize that no one’s life is exactly perfect, but the imperfections is what makes it worthwhile.
Jaquira Diaz wrote Ordinary Girls “for the girls they were, for the girl I was, for girls everywhere who are just like we used to be. […] For the girls who are angry and lost. For the girls who never saw themselves in books.” (Diaz, 2020). Jaquira writes about her childhood friends, they were the definition of ordinary girls, the ones that struggled, were enraged, confused, and supported her through her highs and lows. Even though Jaquira was writing her own story, she includes the everyday girls that she grew up with, who she once was.
Through Ordinary Girls, the dangerous and exciting life of Jaquira Diaz had sparked my interest in reading her memoir. While reading a bit of Jaquira’s stories, she seemed so carefree even though her life was upended. I wanted to learn more about her life and how she’s still standing tall with courage despite having a messy childhood. I admire her courage in writing about these deeply personal experiences and sharing them with the very opinionated world.
Citations:
Diaz, J. (2019) Ordinary Girls A Memoir, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Watkins, J. E. (2020, July 23). Latino Book Review https://www.latinobookreview.com/8203jaquira-diacuteaz—ordinary-girls-a-memoir–latino-book-review.html
Jaquira Diaz on Place, Ana Maria CARDONA, and Her memoir, Ordinary Girls. Apogee Journal. (2019, November 18). https://apogeejournal.org/2019/11/18/jaquira-diaz-memoir-ordinary-girls/.
