Entry Question
Do you have a special connection to bodegas in your neighborhood? Are they run by Latinxs? Do you agree with the idea presented in the video and the story that bodegas serve other socio-cultural purposes? Does the video help visualize what Amina Gautier describes in her short story?
Bio
Amina Gautier is an Afro-Boricua award-winning writer and academic. She is the author of three short story collections, many individual stories, and works of literary criticism.
Now We Will Be Happy is a prize-winning collection of stories about Afro-Puerto Ricans, U.S.-born Puerto Ricans, and displaced native Puerto Ricans who are living between spaces while attempting to navigate the unique culture that defines Puerto Rican identity. Amina Gautier’s characters deal with the difficulties of bicultural identities in a world that wants them to choose only one. The very title of the collection is derived from a song. Songs are prominently featured in many of the stories in the collection. Just as the content of the book describes the experiences of native Puerto Ricans, Nuyoricans, and Afro-Puerto Ricans, the music alluded to in various stories also reflects this combination.
The title story takes its name from Rafael Hernandez’s song “Ahora seremos felices,” which translates into English as”Now We Will Be Happy.” “Hernandez was an important Afro-Puerto Rican composer, who is deeply revered in Puerto Rican culture. This song is a lovely bolero of his; to my ears, it is a hopeful song. There aren’t too many lyrics and verses, but there is hope in each word. To me, the song has a fanciful quality, whose essence I tried to capture in the content of my stories.”
“Now We Will Be Happy” by Rafael Hernández
I already got the little house that, for so long, I promised you,
and covered it with daisies, for you, for me.
It will be an idyllic love, it will be something ideal,
and among romance and flowers, we will build our home.
Now we will be happy, now we will be able to sing
that song, with its tropical rhythm, says like this:
La ra la la ra la la ra ra la ra la Ia ra la ra
let’s hope God gives us long life, darling,
and a lot of happiness.
Let’s hope God gives us a long life, negra,
and a lot of happiness!
To make our bliss and our happiness complete,
we need one more thing, what could it be? what could it be?
It will be something small, certainly very unique,
it is like a little doll that will cheer our home.
Now we will be happy, now we will be able to sing
that song, with its tropical rhythm, says like this:
La ra la la ra la la ra ra la ra la Ia ra la ra
let’s hope God gives us a long life, negra,
and a lot of happiness!
***
Thinking of the song and the story, what are Nelida’s notions and expectations of happiness?
The story
Through focusing on Nelida, a Puerto Rican woman born on the island and brought reluctantly by her husband to make a living in the US, “Bodega” and the interconnected story “Only Son,” narrates the tensions between:
.diasporic longings, societal integration, and community-building in Brownsville/New Lots, Brooklyn
.intergenerational socioeconomic expectations and sacrifices
.parenthood, intimacy and aging
Presentation(s)
Group Discussion
Three student moderators will walk around visiting three groups discussing and expanding on the significance of three quotes from the story.
.By the time the other stores on the block open, the sun will be out and the sky will look like a sky, not the way it looks to Nelida now, like an ocean flung above her head… Nelida begins her day only after she has seen the sky for herself. She takes no one’s word for it. Dutifully, she keeps close watch on the treacherous sky. She never turns her back on it. (28, 30)
.But today there is no time to make the trip when there is a letter to be found. Somewhere inside the store, her husband has hidden the latest letter from the son they have not seen in far too long… Each letter he sends could be the one that tells her what she wants to hear. (31,32)
.When this hour is over she will not have a minute to herself to think. There will be no quiet for her in which to hear her own thoughts. This is the hour, this is the time when she has herself to herself. Upstairs in their apartment, she belongs to her husband and grandson… Down here in the bodega, she belongs to her neighborhood… This would all be so much easier if only they had some help. (35, 36)