Oscar Woa By: Junot Diaz – Sabina Uddin

If I am being honest here, I had to reread the passage a couple of times before I could make any sense of it. Since Junot Diaz started off by describing historical events and used unfamiliar terms such as “fuku”, I had to search up some information and look at the footnotes a couple of times before I could figure out the context of the story. What confuses me still is the concept of fuku and how it works. I know it is “generally a curse or doom of some kind” (Diaz 1) , but what specifically causes fuku to be brought upon someone? When Diaz mentions “Who killed JFK? … It was Trujillo; it was the fuku.” (Diaz 4), it seems as if fuku works in a way similar to karma. However, when he mentions ” … it is believed that the arrival of Europeans on Hispaniola unleashed the fuku on the world …” (Diaz 1) , I am curious as to why fuku was specifically unleashed there. Did the people of Hispaniola do something wrong?  Considering the history of European imperialism and colonialism across the world, is it purely a doom that follows after interactions with this group? Or is fuku a form of general doom and hardship that people are bound to face? This brings me onto my next point. Is fuku a cultural concept or just a symbolism for hardship? Diaz mentions how Haitians and Dominicans have their own stories of “fufus” and then mentions more specific fuku stories that apply to individuals like his uncle. In this sense it can be seen as a general symbol of hardship but then again what some people consider doom can be influenced by their culture. Lastly, I am curious about fuku and the people who are tied to it. To name an example, the people of Hispaniola believed Trujillo and Fuku were closely tied, simply because of all the suffering he caused. I wonder if Trujillo had his own fuku that was equivalent to the doom he caused to others.