Relaciones internacionales.indb - HOMINES

MARÍA CRISTINA RODRÍGUEZ
mother and herself are never seen as human beings but as inferior creatures
because of their race and class. Primi, on the other hand, whose true
name was María Trinidad and had been renamed by her first patronos, is
destined to a life of hard work and no possible change in traits whether
in the island or New York. Sarita describes her thus:
She had spent her whole life working for the de la Torres, and it showed.
If you stood them side by side—Mrs. García with her pale skin kept moist
with expensive creams and her hair fixed up in the beauty parlor every
week; Mamá with her unraveling gray bun and maid’s uniform and mouth
still waiting for the winning lottery ticket to get replacement teeth—why
Mamá looked ten years older than Mrs. García, though they were both
the same age, forty-three. (66)
Whether in the Dominican Republic or in New York, all the maids in
Alvarez’s novels are characterized as followers of Santería. In the eyes of
the García girls, this is both fascinating and proof that all servants are like
children. The old maid Chucha is feared by them because she is so black
and has an altar for her saints. The link of black skin and evil darkness is a
contrast to the García’s whiteness and brightness in their skin, clothes and
rooms. Chucha—also a generic name like Primi—is the only one given a
voice in Alvarez’s first novel. Yet as David Mitchell states, she “articulates
the now largely clichéd role of the loyal domestic slave” (35). The younger
and newer maid, Gladys, also prays and lights candles to different saints,
and, like a child, is fascinated by the souvenirs that the patronos bring back
for their daughters. Gladys sings all the time and makes plans to someday
soon get to New York. The childlike conversation with the García girls,
is interpreted by Mitchell as thinking of the States “as a place away from
the exploitative world of the Dominican caste system. Her desire to free
herself from the utensils which signify the tools of her class oppression
implies a refusal to surrender to the order of maids and masters to which
the Garcías subscribe” (34). The third maid, Nivea, is described as “the
latest of our laundry maids, [who] was ‘black-black’: my mother always
said it twice to darken the color to full, matching strength” (WGGLA 160).
She is different from Chucha and Gladys because she seems bitter and
ungrateful for being a servant in a rich family’s house. For both of these
young women, New York is that distanced land where if they ever reach
its shores, they would rid themselves of this serfdom. Except for Chucha,
who like so many maids in the Dominican Republic are a fixture in the
Patrono’s house, the women dream of one day going to New York and
seeing with their own eyes the places the patrono’s children talk about.
Primi is the only one that makes it to New York but only as a maid to
help Mrs. García “with the hard life of being a housewife in the United
States” (Yo 54). The false narrator’s voice of Sarita in this chapter of ¡Yo!
also groups Primi to Santería: “Whenever any of the de la Torres went
• HOMINES • Vol. XX, Núm. x - xxxxx de 2005 327