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Book 2, Round 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Bodega Dreams, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Latinx Immigrants and Broken Dreams
Crime, Wealth and Activism
Religion, Sexism, and Poverty
Loyalty, Solidarity, and Community
Summary
Analysis
A few hours later, Julio wakes up to Blanca asking him about the champagne. Julio fills Blanca in, fetches the diamond ring, and offers it to her. Blanca wrestles with her conscience, thinking God will know that it really belongs to the man who bought it. Suddenly, Julio get annoyed. Blanca is always complaining about Julio’s sexism and how he undermines her intelligence—yet she still believes in “the most sexist book ever written.” Blanca thinks that Julio is a disrespectful sinner when he rolls a joint, yet she’s disrespected every week in church—where women are treated as if they’re just there to glorify their husbands or pastors.
Quiñonez explicitly shows that Blanca’s moral views are directly shaped by the teachings of her church and the Bible. Through Julio’s voice, Quiñonez argues that the Bible is actually much more disempowering than Blanca thinks. Julio thinks that the Bible is “sexist” and that Blanca’s church sermons undermine her freedom as a woman, because both reduce women to mere accessories in stories centered on the glory of men.
Themes
Blanca looks like she’s about to throw something at Julio and yells that believing in God doesn’t make her weak. Blanca’s mother was in charge, fixed the house and paid the bills—and she still went to church. Julio snaps back that if Blanca’s mother had the chances Blanca had, she could have done a lot more with her life. He thinks Blanca’s education is influencing her in ways she doesn’t even think about. Blanca worries about people seeing her pregnant belly at graduation and thinking she’s intelligent but was dumb to get “knocked up.” At church, however, they praise her belly.
Through Julio’s argument, Quiñonez suggests that education is much more empowering that religious belief. In school, people think that Blanca’s value is rooted in her intelligence. Yet at church, Blanca’s value is reduced to her ability to bear children. Julio thinks this latter attitude is regressive, as it could actually hinder Blanca’s social and economic empowerment to be burdened with childbearing at such a young age.
Themes
Blanca calls Julio out, saying that he’s just upset about the ring—but Julio is unfazed. He says that Blanca hates it when Julio keeps her the dark, yet all the men in her Bible do whatever they want without telling their wives. And here Julio is, telling her about the ring, because he knows she’s smarter than him. Julio continues in earnest, saying that he wants to include Blanca in things but stops himself because he knows that the things he’s involved in contradict the Bible. Suddenly, Julio feels compelled to tell Blanca everything about Salazar and Bodega, but he knows she’d send Sapo to jail. Instead, Julio asks Blanca why his atheism should affect her status in church. Blanca retorts that she hates Julio’s preachy moods and changes the subject to Negra.
Quiñonez also suggests that the Bible offers regressive stereotypes of women as passive background characters who don’t do anything productive for themselves. Similarly, Blanca’s church community denigrates her for having an atheist husband, which implies that her value as a woman is determined by her husband’s beliefs, not her own. Julio also suggests that Blanca’s religious beliefs prevent them from bonding as a couple, since he can’t confide in her about things that conflict with her religious views.
Themes
Blanca tells Julio that Negra is in the hospital— Victor beat her up. Negra wants Julio to have Bodega take care of Victor. Calmly, Blanca says she knows now that Bodega owes Julio, and she wants to know what’s going on. She says this isn’t about church, or God, or sexism—it’s about Julio hiding things from her. Julio throws up his hands and explains that Bodega is the man whom Blanca’s aunt Vera wants to marry. If Blanca wants to, she can ask Bodega herself. Julio knows that Blanca will leave him if she knows the whole truth, so he’s banking on Bodega deflecting as well, so that this whole thing buries itself. The mood is tense, and Julio leaves for class, feeling frustrated with everyone.
Blanca has caught on that although Julio means what he says, he is also conveniently deflecting—he’s using his rant about religion to dodge Blanca’s question about what’s going on. This shows just how emotionally intelligent Blanca really is. Quiñonez thus shows that Blanca’s own behavior also departs from biblical depictions of women as passive characters who aren’t able to figure out how to live unless men tell them what to do.
Themes
Get the entire Bodega Dreams LitChart as a printable PDF.
After class, Julio looks around the neighborhood for Sapo’s car without any luck. Julio wants to visit Negra to find out what she knows, but hospital visiting hours are over. If Negra tells Blanca anything, Sapo will be in trouble. Julio decides to stop by the church, hoping to smooth things over with Blanca. As Julio enters the packed church, people smile as if they’re saving him. Julio finds Blanca; she smiles and grabs Julio’s hand. She continues listening intently to the sermon alongside her friend Claudia.
In between juggling school and his tense relationship, Julio still prioritizes doing whatever he can to protect Sapo from jail, once again stressing the fierce solidarity between them. This kind of fiercely protective loyalty embodies what Bodega wants to encourage more broadly in the Latinx community, because it enables people to protect one another against a corrupt system and band together to improve one another’s lives.
Themes
Roberto Vega (a 17-year-old who’s getting anointed) gives a long and passionate sermon in Spanish about a slave girl who keeps being saved by kings and various saints but acts like a whore every time there isn’t a man around to save her. The crowd yells, “Alleluia!” every time Vega says, “A whore!” Vega points to Claudia and yells that she was a prostitute before, but Christ saved her. Claudia swoons before Vega points out another girl. Julio notices that Blanca isn’t hysterical: her eyes are glowing, and she looks enlightened. Julio wishes he could believe like that, but he can’t—he just thinks about how sweaty his hand is becoming in Blanca’s grasp.
Roberto Vega’s sermon comically reinforces everything Julio dislikes about church. Roberto describes all women (both in the Bible and in the congregation) as promiscuous sinners who are unable to find their way in the world without a man to guide them. This implies that women serve no other purpose other than to make men look good by saving them, just as Julio suggested earlier. Despite the clear sexism of Vega’s sermon, the women in the congregation completely buy into it.
Themes
Roberto Vega proclaims that Christ will not turn his back on the congregation, and everyone bursts into dance and song. Julio thinks about all the religious murals in Spanish Harlem. Julio imagines Christ nailed on a cross that connects Spanish Harlem, Miami, and Puerto Rico. He thinks about the congregation waiting for Christ to come down to the projects and take them all to the big “penthouse in the sky.” Until then, he muses, they’ll have to wait in their rat-infested apartments. After the service is over, Blanca and Julio make up. Roberto Vega parades around the church “like the Lord’s stud,” and Claudia swoons again.
Quiñonez argues here that religious belief is also regressive because it motivates people to wait for rewards in an afterlife (such as a “penthouse in the sky”) rather than to push for social change and better conditions in their current lives. Quiñonez thus argues that religious devotion in the Latinx community effectively keeps people poor. In describing Vega as “the Lord’s stud,” Quiñonez implies that Vega’s sermon is just another version of machismo posturing, which also holds back the Latinx community by oppressing women.
Themes
Blanca invites Roberto Vega’s family to dinner on Friday, along with Pastor Vasquez, who earned his reputation preaching about the church saving him from a life of petty crime. Blanca’s scheming for a match between the teenage Roberto and Claudia, even though Claudia’s almost 30. Without thinking, Julio quips that Claudia is over the hill for a Latina, and he’s surprised when Blanca agrees. She feels terrible that Claudia is teased at church, and she thinks Roberto—despite his heartthrob status—is mature and good enough to save Claudia. Julio laughs in ridicule, but Blanca is too happy to notice.
Claudia’s low status in the church community reinforces the idea that such people mostly value women for their childbearing ability. As a woman who’s almost 30, Claudia has fewer childbearing years left than younger women, which diminishes her status. Despite his openly anti-sexist stance, Julio’s thoughtless quip about Claudia’s age shows that this sort of sexism also exists within the non-religious community.
Themes
As Julio and Blanca approach their building, they realize it’s on fire: they see sirens, fire engines, and people running out of fire escapes. Blanca grasps her belly and starts shaking, relieved that they were all at the church and not at home. Luckily, nobody is hurt. Suddenly, a man emerges from the shadows: it’s Nazario. Julio pretends that he doesn’t know him, but as their eyes lock, Julio knows what happened: Aaron Fischman set the fire as revenge for Salazar’s death. Julio knows that there’s a war on now.
The fire in Julio and Blanca’s building is a visceral reminder of the violence that plagues the community. Blanca’s distressed reaction represents the emotional toll that living in such a violent, unstable environment can take on Spanish Harlem’s residents. Aaron Fischman’s involvement shows that the neighborhood is vulnerable to criminal activity from all over New York, and it reminds the reader that the police don’t do much to help people in this neighborhood.
Themes
