50 pages • 1 hour read
Ernesto QuiñonezBodega Dreams
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
BOOK I, Rounds 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book I: Because Men Who Built This Country Were Men from the Streets
Round 1 Summary: Spanish for “Toad”
The book begins with an introduction to Sapo, who even in junior high had a reputation for biting. Although his real name is Enrique, Sapo his nickname, meaning “toad”, due to his “huge mouth framed by fat lips, freaking bembas that could almost swallow you” (3). Sapo has an innate self-confidence that causes the narrator, Julio, to admire him. Sapo is his pana—his friend.
Nicknames and monikers are important in el barrio because they make you someone. Throughout his junior high years, Julio desperately wants to be someone, so he fights anyone and everyone, since he has nothing to lose. He also distinguishes himself by painting R.I.Ps (graffiti memorials to people who have died) around the neighborhood. Due to his fighting and his “high, flat cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, and straight black hair…and because kung fu movies were very popular at the time” (8), Julie earns himself a new name, Chino.
Chino and Sapo are classmates at Junior High School 99, also named Julia de Burgos after the Puerto Rican poet. The school is divided into white teachers with power who hate their jobs and Hispanic teachers, themselves the descendants of Puerto Rican immigrants, who encourage their students to work hard. Many of the students see no connection between their existences in Spanish Harlem and what they are learning in school, since their culture is not celebrated or respected by the establishment. Chino observes that, “The whole time I was at Julia de Burgos, I had no idea the school was named after Puerto Rico’s greatest poet, had no idea Julia de Burgos had emigrated to New York City and lived in poverty while she wrote beautiful verses” (6). Their junior high lives are marked by fighting, selling joints, arguing with their teachers and cutting class.
In junior high Chino meets Nancy Saldivia, called Blanca because of her religious devotion. She has a “face that could envelop you, almost convert you” (9). She earns the respect of everyone except Sapo, who doesn’t believe religion makes a person pure. Chino’s friendship with Sapo, which includes adventures such as kite wars on the roof of a tenement building, and his love for Blanca are the two most important parts of his life.
Round 2 Summary: Willie Bodega
After eighth grade, Chino attends the High School of Art and Design, leaving el barrio every day and becoming less attached to its “petty street politics” (12). Although they don’t see each other as often, Chino still considers Sapo his pana.
In school, Chino learns about the Futurists, a group of artists who believed in the idea of reinvention. For a teenager who was just beginning to experience a world larger than his own neighborhood, these ideas are enticing. After high school, he marries Blanca and the two of them work menial jobs to put themselves through Hunter College. With a baby on the way, they have big dreams for the future but are mired in the present, working too hard and barely scraping by.
Whenever Sapo comes around, Chino and Blanca argue. Blanca insists that Chino be honest with her about whatever he does with Sapo, but Chino decides it is better to keep Blanca uninformed. Blanca is heavily involved with her church, which Chino admires although he has not bought into religion himself. For marrying an unbeliever, Blanca has been barred from playing the tambourine in front of the congregation, something she loves to do.
One night, Sapo, who is in the habit of knocking on Chino’s door at all hours, asks Chino to deliver a package of drugs to someone on the Hunter College campus. After initially protesting, Chino agrees. Later, Sapo gives him a fifty-dollar bill as payment for his services and says the money comes from Willie Bodega. It’s the first time Chino has heard the name. Later, Chino will introduce him to Willie Bodega, who represents “all the ugliness in Spanish Harlem and also all the good it was capable of being” (13-14).
Round 3 Summary: Willie Bodega Don’t Sell Rocks. Willie Bodega Sells Dreams
One night, Sapo picks up Chino, saying that Willie Bodega wants to speak with him. They head to one of many of Bodega’s residences and At the door meet Nene, Bodega’s simple-minded cousin who talks only in song lyrics, a man big enough “to hug you and not know he was killing you” (23). Bodega himself is in his forties “with a goatee and the droopy eyes of an ex-heroin addict” (23).
Bodega questions Chino about his plans and then begins expounding on various topics, including the Kennedys and the Puerto Ricans who lost their lives fighting in America’s wars. As Bodega says, when Puerto Ricans have to identify themselves on an official form, “‘you just see one box: Hispanic’” (26).
They smoke weed together, and Bodega mentions his partner, Nazario, a lawyer who “share[s] the same vision” (24). Nazario would be interested in knowing Chino, Bodega says, since Chino is a college student with a future ahead of him.
Bodega also discusses his business as the owner of three renovated tenements, a position that allows him to cut deals for people and help them out with “grants”—producing an army of loyal Bodega supporters in the community. “If something happens to me, people will take to the streets” (30), he tells Chino. When Chino questions the fact that he sells drugs to his own people, Bodega responds that “any of my Latin brothers who are stupid enough to buy that shit, don’t belong in my Great Society” (31).
In his youth, Bodega was involved with the Puerto Rican nationalist movement and a group called the Young Lords, whose attempts to organize and improve the neighborhood eventually led to them storming the mayor’s residence, Gracie Mansion, and City Hall, blockading part of East Harlem and stockpiling weapons. Bodega split from the group when they became too “high and mighty” (33). He began selling heroin and eventually met Nazario. Now, with the support of the neighborhood, Bodega says he “[doesn’t] sell rocks. Willie Bodega sells dreams” (33).
Round 4 Summary: The Fire This Time
Bodega continues to tell Chino about his business, specifically a property management agency called the Harry Goldstein Real Estate Agency, a name that gives him legitimacy in Manhattan. The agency is essentially a front for his other dealings, but it allows Bodega to create goodwill and loyalty in el barrio, by giving tenants a break on rent and dealing with property complaints quickly. Bodega plans to expand his holdings by buying more abandoned buildings and owning a significant piece of the “most expensive real estate in all the nine planets” (37).
Although Chino finds Bodega interesting, he doesn’t see why Bodega or Nazario would be interested in him. Bodega says Chino, as part of a new professional class in Spanish Harlem, would be something of a role model. High from the joint he is smoking, Chino is unable to take the conversation very seriously. Realizing he’s been out too late and that Blanca will be mad, Chino turns down Bodega’s offer. Still, he admires Bodega, finding “something honest in his dishonesty” (38), and he realizes the truth in Bodega’s words.
Spanish Harlem is about to boil over with tensions from expensive rent and reduced social services.
Sapo is angry with Chino for turning down Bodega’s offer. As the one who suggested Chino in the first place, the refusal reflects badly on Sapo. Angry, he tells Chino to go home to his “church girl” (42) and ask her about her Aunt Vera.
Book I, Rounds 1-4 Analysis
As a young man, Chino is caught between two desires: the dangerous life of his unflappable friend Sap, and his stable life with Blanca, his childhood sweetheart. Both of these paths represent different takes on the American Dream. Sapo represents the underground path to success, the opportunities that present themselves to make quick cash, to exert influence and collect on a complicated system of debts and favors owed. Blanca, motivated by a religious desire, represents a more traditional version of the American Dream, where by slow, steady hard work, a person can get ahead.
Ironically, Bodega sees his criminal enterprise as essentially American, since it allows him to benefit others. His conversation is peppered with references to the Kennedys and to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Chino is initially dismissive of Bodega’s ideas, since he seems to be nothing more than a loudmouth and blowhard, just one more Puerto Rican taking advantage of other Puerto Ricans. The more he listens, however, the more he realizes that Bodega honestly seems to believe in the people of Spanish Harlem—he’s not just another slumlord calling the shots from the suburbs.
Ideas presented in these chapters will resonate through the entire book. First, there is the concept of naming. Chino recognizes that as “Julio” he is no one; he has not proven himself and has no status in society. He admires Sapo because Sapo does not need to try to fit in. Through innate self-confidence, Sapo has carved out a place for himself. Blanca (Nancy) represents purity, a name that reflects her essential, simple goodness. Willie Bodega has renamed himself, too. When he was with the Young Lords, he was William Irizarry. Bodega literally means “grocery store”—it shows his roots and connects Willie Bodega to his community. Yet, to find legitimacy in the world of Manhattan real estate, Bodega and Nazario operate under the name the Harry Goldstein Real Estate Agency, an obviously Jewish name that brings to mind an established, legitimate enterprise.
Chino is wary of association with Bodega and Nazario, and he warns Sapo not to get too involved with them. Sapo’s interest lies not in the greater good of the people of Spanish Harlem, but in his own personal advancement. As he tells Chino, “at least I admit I only think about myself. But you, you play it off as if you really care about other people when in fact it’s always been you, you and fucken you” (42).
