Dique Dominican: Author Talk with Ayendy Bonifacio
When getting out of the hood is a dream, but the chances are stacked against you—Dique: “supposedly.” He’s not supposed to be here—in Brooklyn, in the U.S., in the hood. This Dominican immigrant in Brooklyn, does not ask too much of his memory. He clings to the bits and pieces of his fragmented self—the one in the rural campo of his Dominican birthplace, the East New York teenager, the Ohio young adult—his dique becoming and belonging to a place that doesn’t seem to exist yet.
Told through a series of flashbacks and vignettes, Dique Dominican is Ayendy Bonifacio’s memoir. His coming-of-age is the story of so many immigrants—the undocumented, the poor, the oppressed, and the unafraid—how he went from no electricity to bright lights in the Big Apple, beat his circumstances while never losing his Dominican dreams. Ultimately, this is his story of rebirth and reconciliation, how he found truth in his difference, enlightenment in his words.