49 pages • 1 hour read
Angie CruzHow Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Astrology, Fate, and Dreams
Angie Cruz presents the motifs of astrology, fate, and dreams as coping mechanisms that Cara uses to deal with her uncertainty, even as she struggles with Maintaining Hope in the American Dream. Cara’s unwavering belief in the dubious claims of Alicia the Psychic is not a sign of her naiveté; instead, they indicate her hope for a better life. Like many Latinx people, Cara values the positive affirmations and optimistic predictions of the Puerto Rican astrologer and cultural personality, Walter Mercado, and she accepts that forces beyond human power govern the universe. This cosmic worldview works to reduce the power of the social and economic forces that threaten her on a daily basis, and she finds comfort in the idea that fate moves in cycles. Cara understands that just like the planets or the seasons, her situation is in constant motion, and she holds out hope that her luck will soon change for the better. Although she is skeptical enough not to send money to Alicia the Psychic, following the woman’s advice does not lead her to harm; on the contrary, it eases her worries. Although Lissette is skeptical about Cara’s determination to ignore employment opportunities because Mercury is in retrograde, it is also clear that Cara has made a rational decision to avoid employment that would remove her from her community support. Alicia the Psychic’s prediction that Cara will come into money comes true when la Vieja Caridad leaves her enough money to cover her rent, and this windfall restores Cara’s faith in the universe because she realizes that her hard work matters and that prosperity is for her even if she is not an American citizen. The ongoing letters from Alicia the Psychic play on the idea of hope in the American Dream. Despite the economic hardship and the inner turmoil that Cara faces, Alicia’s advice is steady and promises that her hard work will pay off soon. And just like the American Dream, it is unclear whether the messages from Alicia are genuine or a scam.
Viewing people by their astrological signs is another coping mechanism that benefits Cara and allows her to maintain relationships despite conflicts. Cara declares that “when you need each other to survive, you forgive” (47), and this statement highlights The Importance of Familial and Community Support for immigrants. Accepting people’s idiosyncrasies as a product of their astrological signs allows Cara to overlook other people’s flaws and forgive their offenses. Although she resists accepting Fernando’s sexual orientation, she extends trust to Alexis because he is a caring Pisces, and she believes that he will care for Fernando in her absence. Allowing both men space helps to repair her past offenses and gradually works to change her mind about her son’s sexual orientation. She also permits the prideful Lulú to take credit for her own gestures of kindness because she believes that Lulú’s pride comes from her status as a Leo. Cara also understands that she cannot be her stubborn Capricorn self with Ángela, whose fiery Aries temperament demands immediate apology. Thus, Cara’s belief in astrology, fate, and dreams is not an expression of ignorance or naiveté; instead, it is a sophisticated coping mechanism that allows her to maintain hope and repair her relationships.
Food
The Dominican foods featured throughout the story symbolize love, care, and forgiveness. Playing on the material connection between nourishment and survival, Cruz uses the sharing of food to highlight The Importance of Familial and Community Support. Sharing food sustains the Washington Heights community both socially and materially. Likewise, the new management’s crackdown on the residents’ practice of sitting in their hallways and sharing food communally proves to the tenants that the management fails to understand the connection between sharing food and showing love. Cara regularly shares food as an expression of her love and respect, and she also sometimes uses it as a peace offering. When she shares her food with La Vieja Caridad every day, she accepts no payment for this and extends the gesture out of respect for her elders. Sharing meals is also a ritual of family togetherness. Despite Cara’s disagreements with her sister, she acknowledges that even when she and Ángela fight, they always “eat dinner together, like a religion” (11), which reveals the sustaining power of food as an expression of love and care.
However, food is not always a sufficient gesture for sustaining familial and community relationships. For Cara, to enjoy food is to enjoy life, but when her professor offers her cookies, she hesitates to take one, and this moment indicates that she rarely shows care for herself. For the survival-oriented Cara, food is a gesture of love and affection, but she learns that even food cannot provide for all of a person’s needs. Although her mother always ensured that she, Ángela, and Rafa had food despite their poverty, this basic gesture of care rings hollow against the lack of emotional support and the extensive abuse that Cara’s mother demonstrated. Similarly, although Cara’s husband Ricardo provided the family with meat every single night, a rarity in Hato Mayor, this grand gesture failed to nurture love or provide for Cara’s emotional and sexual needs.
Likewise, because Cara equates food with love and care, she measures her success as a mother by her ability to provide for Fernando’s physical needs and neglects his emotional needs, and this pattern leads to their estrangement. Her gift of takeout to Fernando and the pastelitos that she makes for Ángela represent an apology that neither character accepts. This rejection of her care forces Cara to think about what more appropriate gestures she must make in order to communicate her love and support. Fernando’s gift of her favorite takeout food at the end of the novel is both a gesture of care and the beginning of an apology, and this moment hints at a return to practices that ensure will familial support between mother and son.
Storytelling
Cruz employs a storytelling motif to explore The Complexities of Immigrant Identities. Structurally, Cruz intersperses Cara’s lengthy sessions with official but reductive documents from Cara’s life, and this deliberate contrast reveals the ways in which intricate storytelling challenges the unfair stereotypes perpetuated by culturally biased documents that reduce humans to a set of papers or circumstances. Taken alone, any of the official documents reduces the complexity of Cara’s character. Without the necessary context of Cara’s own abusive upbringing and the deep resentment she carries because of her deferred desires, documents like the restraining order reduce her essence to her lowest moments. Her stories ramble and flow through time, while the official documents capture a single moment and therefore offer a very limited view of her true character. Cruz therefore implies that storytelling levels the playing field for immigrants like Cara, who are so often misjudged by their documentation while their collective actions, dreams, and aspirations are dismissed out of hand. With Cara’s storytelling, Cruz argues that no questionnaire can judge a person to be undeserving of the opportunity to work.
Storytelling also works as therapy and enables Cara to acknowledge her faults and grow as a person. While the sporadic documentation and training tips reduce Cara to binaries like strengths and weaknesses or judge her based on her command of conventional English grammar, her caseworker’s greatest service is to listen to her stories and to appreciate how complex and capable Cara really is. For Cara, the value of the Senior Workforce Program is not the job training but the receptive listener whose patient ear allows her to rediscover herself. By recounting her life’s story, Cara reaches deep within herself to heal past traumas, expel her deepest resentments, and learn from her mistakes. Cruz’s novel therefore provides strong evidence that the acts of storytelling and of listening to others’ stories offer a more egalitarian and humanizing model than bureaucratic documentation.
