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Summary
Part III: The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness, Section 1: Section 1 “Silent World” – “All the Way Hype”
After Mami's abuse and Aman’s betrayal, Xiomara retreats into silence and distance from everyone. Her only interaction is with Father Sean when she asks him at Mami’s direction to hear her confession. Instead of the confessional, however, Father Sean takes her to his office, where she admits to kissing a boy but says she’s only sorry she got in trouble for it. She also says she’s sorry for having to pretend that she cares about church. Father Sean tells Mami that Xiomara should not have to go through confirmation and warns her that anger is as sinful as anything Xiomara might have done. Instead of making things better, however, Mami is furious and embarrassed, threatening that Xiomara’s life is going to change. Still, Xiomara knows that she cannot fake a faith she does not feel, and she feels further away from Mami than ever before.
Xiomara slips deeper into depression, maintaining silence in school as well as home. Even Ms. Galiano notices and sends her to the guidance counselor, but Xiomara lies and says she just doesn’t feel well. She overhears Mami making plans to send her to D.R. for the summer and knows that’s just going to make everything worse for her since she’ll be away from Twin and Caridad, the only two people she believes love her. Meanwhile, Aman keeps sending apology messages that Xiomara neither believes nor responds to. As Xiomara withdraws more and more, a new essay assignment questions the last time she felt free, and she thinks of the time when she still believed Mami would always be there for her, of listening to music with Aman, and of sitting peacefully on a stoop both alone and with Aman. Her final draft, however, reveals Xiomara’s growing ambivalence about whether she’s ever actually been free or ever will be.
Her feelings of being confined and without freedom are compounded when she starts getting harassed more openly by boys during lunch. Instead of fighting, she just sits silently. Ms. Galiano finally confronts her out of concern and convinces her to come to poetry club since Xiomara realizes she no longer needs to attend confirmation classes. In the first club meeting, Xiomara meets Isabelle who welcomes her openly along with Chris and Stephan. Xiomara enjoys hearing the other three read their work, and, after she overcomes her own nerves, she reads her own work and feels encouraged by the affirmation of the other club members and Ms. Galiano. When Xiomara meets up with Caridad who covered for her absence in confirmation class, Caridad invites her and Twin to an open mic event.
Xiomara begins to take an interest in things again, enjoying English class and her new friendship with Isabelle who invites her to eat lunch with her. Twin, however, reveals that his boyfriend, Cody, is moving away over winter break with his family, and Twin is devastated to lose not only Cody but also his family who is accepting of him and their relationship. He agrees to go to the open mic event, however, and Mami approves since he and Caridad will be going with Xiomara. At the event, Xiomara is shocked that Caridad signed her up to recite one of her poems. Although she’s terrified at first, she performs brilliantly and knows she wants to do it again as soon as possible. She’s thrilled when the event host tells her about another poetry slam in February, the same one Ms. Galiano has mentioned in poetry club, and she is inspired to write more and more poetry. She begins to think of the poetry club meetings as her own kind of church.
Analysis
Xiomara is at a low point in the novel. She has been forced into isolation, which causes her to further withdraw socially and psychologically. Up to this point, Xiomara has felt good about discovering what she enjoys doing. She has enjoyed a first relationship with Aman and expressing herself poetically. By grounding Xiomara, Mami reinforces the belief that Xiomara is a bad apple.
During isolation, Xiomara is cut off from any opportunity to break away from Mami’s constant implied and overt indications that Xiomara is wrong, bad, sinful, and disappointing. Because she is so sad, confused, and angry about the conflict between what she values and what Mami tells her to believe, Xiomara sinks into depression and further alienates herself. She guards her abuse and protects her family secrets by not turning to Twin or Caridad, Ms. Galiano, or the guidance counselor.
With no one to offer any perspectives different from Mami or help her push against that destructive messaging, Xiomara is left questioning the things she thought were real and important like her ability to be a warrior and her relationship with Aman. It’s only through the persistence of Caridad and Ms. Galiano that Xiomara becomes reconnected not only with the world but with what she loves and makes her feel most herself: poetry. Twin also suffers from isolation when Cody breaks up with him before his family moves away. It’s only with Cody and his family that Twin has a place to feel himself since they accept him for who he really is. Without that support, Twin retreats into his own depression because being gay isolates him from his own family since he knows Mami and Papi will never accept his true identity.
Because Xiomara is no longer required to attend confirmation classes, she realizes that she can now attend poetry club. Xiomara is propelled out of her isolation by this rebellious act. By attending poetry club, Xiomara is reclaiming a part of herself that is still secret from Mami, her poetry. When Xiomara attends her first poetry club meeting and meets Isabelle, Chris, and Stephan, she finds a sort of kinship. Her rekindled confidence is evident when she once again interacts with her English class.
By attending poetry club, Xiomara widens her friendship circle. This is another first as Xiomara is making friends who, unlike Caridad and Twin, are not sanctioned through Mami. Xiomara and Isabelle solidify their friendship when Isabelle finds Xiomara hiding in the bathroom during lunch to avoid being harassed by boys. Because they’ve bonded over poetry, Isabelle is comfortable reaching out to her, and Xiomara feels safe enough to accept her offer of friendship. Xiomara’s community grows when she reads at her first open mic event with Twin and Caridad and feels seen and heard as she connects with the audience through her poetry. The support Xiomara feels from those with whom she shares her poetry results in Xiomara thinking of her poetry club as a substitute for church and a place where she can get fellowship that feels authentic and meaningful to her.
Mami’s efforts to control Xiomara show that pain can result from good intentions. After forcing Xiomara to confess her sin of kissing Aman on the train to Father Sean, Mami reveals her motivations for her actions. Although she is rigid and abusive, Mami truly believes she is doing what is best for her daughter. Her religious beliefs dictate how she sees the world and the role she believes Xiomara must play in it to achieve not only affirmation in this world but salvation in the world Mami believes comes next for those who are obedient. Her disappointment and trauma in being forced into a loveless marriage and denied her dream of becoming a nun were soothed when she finally had children. Mami believes the price for that miracle is raising Xiomara in the image of the ideal woman described in Proverbs 31 as someone whose purpose is solely to serve a husband and honor God as a kind of holy Madonna figure. For Mami, the only other option for a woman is to be a cuero which is the only category left for Xiomara who knows she can never be what Mami wants her to be. Therefore, even though Mami’s reasoning and abusive behavior is based on her sincere belief that she’s trying to ensure Xiomara’s salvation and satisfy the expectations of the God she loves and puts all her faith in, her actions cause trauma and pain for Xiomara who knows she can never be accepted by her mother for who she is.
