Publication date: September 3rd 2019
Pages: 323
Ana Cancion is a fifteen year old girl who lives in the Dominican Republic with her family in the 1965's. She lives in the countryside and her family is struggling to make ends meet. Then she is forced to marry an older man named Juan Ruiz, who takes her to America to live with him in New York City.
There she has to learn to live in a new country as a housewife, in a cold sixth floor apartment in Washington Heights. Juan orders her mostly to stay at home as it is dangerous for her as she doesn't speak English, and there are a lot of bad things happening in the city. But the most bad thing is happening in her own home, when Juan starts to abuse her, and she finds out he has another wife of girlfriend, Caridad. And her family back in the Dominican Rebublic keep sending her letters, mostly asking for more and more money, because she is living the American Dream now right?
Political unrest starts in the Dominican Republic, and because of this Juan is traveling to there to protect is family there. Just before Ana discovers that is expecting a baby. He assigns his younger brother Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly Ana gets much more freedom then when Juan is around, and Cesar is kind to her and shows her a different side of America then Juan. She can take English lessons at at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar. Something starts between the two of them, and Ana makes a plan to flee her life with Juan, but Cesar convinces her to stay. But when Juan returns Ana has to choose between her heart and the duty to her family.
Dominicana is a moving book about a girl in a forced marriage, which of course doesn't go well. Juan is abusive to her and keeps her life very small and inside the house, and at a young age, she can not spread her wings and feels trapped. The story is well written and the characters of Ana, Juan and Cesar are well developed, but the story lacks pace and is repetitive at many points. If some parts that didn't add much to the story where left away, the story would have had more pace and this certainly would have made the overall feeling of the story better.This is the immigrant experience against the backdrop of 1965 New York City and we see it through her eyes. She feels very responsible for her family, the reason because she was to marry Juan for hopes of “money and papers” and a better life. This is the moving red line of the story, and you hope as a reader that things make a turn for the better in the end for Ana in this life she finds herself in and that she doesn't have much influence on. Overall it is a nice well written book, lacking a little in pace, but the moving story makes up for it.
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