Bodega Dreams

Fire is used in the novel in both a literal and symbolic way. Shortly after Chino and Blanca move into their new apartment (courtesy of the Harry Goldstein Real Estate Agency), the building burns down. Chino initially assumes that this is the work of Aaron Fischman but later learns that it is actually Nazario who set fire to the building in order to stir up more trouble between Fischman and Bodega and pave the way for his later actions.

More symbolically, there is a fire burning within the neighborhood, kindled by governmental promises, a lack of educational opportunities and poverty, along with rampant drug activity. The desire for change, no matter the cost, burns inside Bodega, who truly does love the community. Quiñonez titles one chapter “The Fire This Time,” a reference to the works of African American writer James Baldwin’s essay collection The Fire Next Time. The difference in wording suggests that the community in Spanish Harlem is closer to its boiling point.

A knockout is what ends the fight in a boxing match as well as a variety of other contact sports. Quiñonez has structured the novel as if it is a fight, with Chino going down twice. At the end of Book I, the realization that Bodega, Nazario and Sapo were involved in the murder of a journalist causes Chino to rethink his involvement with them. His “knockout” is a way of taking the blinders off. Although Bodega holds noble ideals, his hands are also dirty. Chino’s second knockout comes at the end of Book II, where he realizes that all along he has been manipulated by Nazario, as if he is nothing more than a pawn in a larger scheme. Book III, however, doesn’t end with a knockout—it ends with a sense that the “fight” is just beginning. When Chino looks out the window, he sees el barrio through Bodega’s eyes. Reinvention is possible, but the struggle is not over.

Many of the names in this book have a symbolic or important meaning, but Blanca and Negra have the most clear-cut symbolic associations. Nancy Saldivia earns the name Blanca in junior high, having already established herself as being both beautiful and pure. Her religious devotion throughout the book is unwavering, even when she realizes that her church has its flaws. By marrying Chino (a nonbeliever), she has had to forfeit her right to sing and play the tambourine church, something she loved to do. Throughout the novel she is helpful to others without expecting anything in return, which distinguishes her from all the other characters. Near the end of the book, her (possibly temporary) decision to leave Chino shows another form of sacrifice, as her goal is to protect her unborn child.

Deborah, Blanca’s older sister, earns the nickname Negra for being the opposite of pure. While Blanca has very few associations with anyone on the street, Negra always knows the gory details of crimes, which are presumably learned through a network of connections. Blanca tries to promote honesty in her relationship with Chino, but Negra’s relationship with Victor is built on lies. The reader’s first introduction to Negra is when she stabs Victor for his infidelity. He later beats her up in retaliation, and she wants Chino to arrange for his beating. Any favor Negra does comes at too high a price.  

Spanish Harlem, part of the island of Manhattan in New York City, is one of the more congested areas of the United States. In order to accommodate the vast population in a limited space, builders went higher, creating tenement buildings that Chino describes as “mammoth filing cabinets of human lies, like bees in a honeycomb, crowded and angry at paying rent for boxes that resemble prison cells” (70). Chino’s main involvement with Bodega begins when he sees an opportunity to move into a bigger apartment, to claim a little more space for his family. On a very basic level, the apartments represent a foothold in the country for an immigrant community—far from the American Dream of a detached house with a picket fence, but at least a small start.

Bodega has been steadily acquiring and renovating old tenement buildings, and this is representative of the change and reinvention on which he has built his reputation. When Chino considers some of the shadier aspects of Bodega’s involvement in the neighborhood, he always comes back to positive benefits of decent housing. 

A bodega is a small corner store, a place that provides the basic necessities for people in a neighborhood and also serves as a communal gathering point. When William Irizarry renames himself Willie Bodega, he is showing the people that he is one of them, an essential part of their community. Unlike other “slumlords” who do their business from the safety and affluence of the suburbs, Willie Bodega operates out of a series of tenement apartments. Bodega is also able to provide people with basic necessities such as new housing, a break on the month’s rent, and any number of other small favors that endear him to the community.