How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of domestic abuse and anti-gay bias.

Cara Romero, a 56-year-old Dominican immigrant, is the novel’s narrator and protagonist. Although Cara characterizes herself as someone who speaks little, she eventually shares her life story through a series of increasingly intimate sessions with her Senior Workforce Program caseworker, Lissette. Burdened by the weight of her responsibilities as an immigrant, a mother, and a community caretaker even as she experiences joblessness during the Great Recession, Cara uses her connection with Lissette as a fellow Dominican woman to turn their sessions into informal therapy. In these sessions, an opportunity to “desahogar,” or vent, she reveals her lifelong fears and frustrations in tangents that relate obliquely to her caseworker’s questions and training.

Angie Cruz characterizes Cara through her unique storytelling traits. Cara’s stories are peppered with Spanish vocabulary and idioms, inaccurately translated words, nonstandard grammatical choices, and a tendency to wander from subject to subject. Cara’s linguistic uniqueness showcases her identity as a Dominican woman and subverts stereotypes related to the effects of this aspect of her identity on her perceived worth and employability. Her colloquial, overly intimate, and distinctly Dominican communication

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