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Mai Doan
Professor Anderson
English 123.001
22 July 2010
Party or Tragedy?
In the short story “Fiesta, 1980” written by Junot Diaz, a family from Santo Domingo attends a party to celebrate their relative’s admission to the United States. Yunior, the son of an abusive father, describes his life and Latin American family, specifically the complex relationship between his mother, father, and father’s affair. Following the tradition of short stories, the author leaves readers in suspense without revealing Yunior’s decision to expose his father. Through Yunior’s narration, it was also difficult to decide whether he kept his father’s secret for such a long time because of love or fear. Some unanswered questions that I still have about “Fiesta, 1980” are if Yunior loved or feared his father and if he exposed the affair his father was having to his mother.
Both Yunior and Rafa, his brother, knew of his father’s affair with the Puerto Rican woman but did not expose him to their mother. His reason for not doing so was hard to decide whether it was love for their family, mother, father, or fear of their father. The author made clear that the family did not like his father, but it was difficult to decide if Yunior loved his father. In a few instances, Yunior describes his father in an affectionate way. Because Yunior often threw up in the van, his father toped that Yunior would become familiar with the van by driving him around in it. When his father tried to cure him of his carsickness, Yunior “looked forward to
[their] trips...These were the only times [Yunior] and Papi did anything together. When [they] were alone he treated [Yunior] much better, like maybe [he] was his son or something” (312).

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Yunior also tried to protect him when questioned by his aunt about his father because he “knew an interrogation when [he] heard one, no matter how sugar-coated it was. [He] didn’t say anything” (314). This shows that his aunt was not the first time he has been interrogated. Each time he is questioned, he protects his father.
Besides the few times that he showed care for his father, there were several instances when Yunior displayed a very passionate hate for him. Yunior recounts about his father’s abuse when “Earlier that year [he]’d written an essay in school called “My Father the Torturer,” but the teacher made [him] write a new one. She thought [he] was kidding” (309). The way he describes his father as “the torturer” shows a severe insight on the abuse that Yunior experiences. At the party, Yunior “wanted to kill him” because his father would not let him eat and threatened to beat him if Yunior did (313). The extent of hate for his father is clear when Yunior describes his feeling as an action to “kill.” This could be just an expression to “want to kill” someone but the author could have expressed Yunior’s hate in other words. Diaz’s word choice clearly shows that
Yunior has more hate for his father than love; therefore, it is reasonable to assume that he did not expose his father out of love. Near the end of the story, Yunior explains that he did not speak of his father’s actions because “Maybe it was family loyalty, maybe [he] just wanted to protect
Mami or [he] was afraid that Papi would find out – it could have been anything really” (314).
Even Yunior is unsure why he protects his father, but it is certain that he did not protect his father because of love.
At the end of “Fiesta, 1980” the family is on their way home after leaving their relative’s party. Diaz ends the story with a cliffhanger that leaves readers guessing what Yunior did in the van. Yunior’s ending phrases were, “Finally I said, Mami, and they both looked back, already knowing what was happening” (316). The first time I read this, I thought that Yunior was about

to throw up again, but in class, several people thought that Yunior was about to expose his
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Yunior would expose his father. Yunior described that he angered his father more than his other family members after his ear was pulled for eating dinner, but their “fights didn’t bother [him] too much. [He] still wanted [his father] to love [him], something that never seemed strange or contradictory until years later, when he was out of our lives” (307). Yunior hinted that a few years later, his father would not be in their lives anymore. Considering Yunior and his siblings’ age, his father could not be over forty years old, so it is reasonable to assume that he did not die.
Another possibility could be that his father left their mother for the Puerto Rican woman, but that does not seem reasonable because he could have left the family sooner and would not have to bother with keeping his affair a secret. So the only possibility that is reasonable would be that
Yunior’s mother left her husband, which can be assumed was caused by the affair that was exposed by Yunior.
Another instance that suggested Yunior had told his mother about the affair in the van would be when he was thinking about his mother before she met his father. He suggests that his mother would be alone, without his father as she was before she met him and that “Maybe [he] already knew how it would all end up in a few years, Mami without Papi, and that was why [he] did it” (315). The word “it” can be interpreted in two ways. It could mean that Yunior was thinking about his mother or it could mean that he exposed his father. This depends on how the reader interprets how the story is told. Yunior speaks in a past tense throughout the story which can be interpreted as an older Yunior recounting the events on the night of the fiesta or it could just be the author’s writing style and Yunior is recounting the story as the events are unfolding.

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The author also builds up tension as the fiesta is winding down and when Yunior becomes sad because he thinks about his mother before his father. When he was observing his mother from across the room, “Suddenly [he] wanted to go over and hug her, for no other reason than [he] loved her, but there were about eleven fat jiggling bodies between [them]” (315).
Yunior’s sudden overwhelming emotion for his mother could be caused by his sadness when he reminisces about the photograph of his mother or it could be interpreted as his need to comfort and hug his mother because she is about to know the truth regarding her husband. He also described his parents on the way back home as being “both wide awake, bolted into their seats” as if they were expecting something to happen (316). Once Yunior cried out for his mother, they both turned around and knew what was happening.
After rereading this story, my first opinion on the ending has changed and I believe that
Yunior exposed his father in the van. A shallower conclusion would be that he threw up but once
I paid attention to the details that the author noted throughout the story, my second opinion makes sense that Yunior would expose his father. By carefully observing and dissecting this story, I learned that an author’s diction lets readers have different interpretive angles and more room for imagination. Junot Diaz’s style of writing makes “Fiesta, 1980” a classic short story by allowing readers to determine the ending and also giving insight to Latin American culture.

Work Cited
Diaz, Junot. “Fiesta, 1980.” The Hudson Book of Fiction: 30 Stories
Worth Reading . New York: McGraw Hill, 2002. 306-316. Print.
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