When Oscar whimpered, Girls, Moms de León nearly exploded. Tú ta llorando por una muchacha? She hauled Oscar to his feet by his ear.
Mami, stop it, his sister cried, stop it!
She threw him to the floor. Dale un galletazo, she panted, then see if the little puta respects you. (Page 14)
In this quote we see Oscar crying to his mom about his girl issues. He was deciding which girlfriend he should keep, Olga or Maritza. Keep in mind he was only seven. Beli is not like your typical mom. “Tu ta llorando por una muchacha?” Beli is asking him why he’s crying over a girl. Instead of comforting him she kind of makes fun of him and puts him down. “Dale un galletzo, she panted, then see if the little puta respects you.” She tells him to hit her and then see if that little b*tch respects you. You would not expect a mother to tell her son to hit a girl, nor would you expect your mother to call someone a little b*tch. We also she that she is a little violent towards Oscar. She hauled him to his feet and she also threw him to there floor. All Oscar wanted was for his mother to comfort him and help him out with his situation but instead she got angry and violent towards him. She wants Oscar to become a man and act the same way normal boys do. She also doesn’t want Oscar to be spending time writing fantasy fiction. Eventually, however, we find out a lot about Beli. We find out that she has been fighting breast cancer and is also working between two jobs.
I agree with your quote and the interpretation, though I feel you are taking it too literal in a sense. Potentially, I feel like we can analyze this to a second and higher level, as Beli only acts like this because of her nature and experiences in the Hispanic culture, Dominican culture to be more specific. She believes that a man has to be controlling over women for him to be a true Dominican man with a sense of masculinity. This is only so because she had dealt with the unfortunate relationships with Jack Pujols and the gangster in her early life. She got smacked around, taken advantage of, and never questioned why this was. She kind of accepted it and I feel like you sort of imply that this is the reason why Oscar was treated by his mother the way he was,