Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe follows two teenage boys, Aristotle “Ari” and his best friend Dante, as they grow up over the course of two years in late-1980s El Paso, Texas. When the boys first meet at the local pool, they’re 15 and in many ways, have no idea who they are—Ari even suggests that until a person turns 18, their parents and teachers are the ones who get to “write their story.” As the boys grow up, however, they gradually begin to figure out who they are as men, as second-generation Mexican Americans, and ultimately, as young gay people in a homophobic world. As a whole, the novel suggests that this process of discovering one’s identity is anxiety-inducing in the best of circumstances, but is even more fraught when young people come up against conflicting and at times, harmful ideas about what it means to be a proper man.
Both Ari and Dante (but Dante in particular) struggle immensely with what it means to be Mexican—especially when neither of them speak Spanish well or have been to Mexico. To a degree, both boys want to be more Mexican than they think they are. Being Mexican is something they’re proud of, but it’s also not something to which that they feel especially connected—when Dante laments not knowing Spanish well and Ari points out that he could learn it, Dante insists that learning Spanish in school in the U.S. isn’t at all the same as learning Spanish as a native speaker, either in Mexico or in a predominately Spanish-speaking community in the states. Being Mexican, Dante suggests through this, means possessing certain skills that a person needs to learn beginning in infancy—it’s not something he or Ari can learn as teens or adults.
On the other hand, Ari and Dante, as well as their families, make it clear that not all aspects of the Mexican identity are worthy of aspiration. Ari regularly gives Mom grief by suggesting he get a job mowing lawns, which when Mom expresses exasperation and displeasure, Ari deems “too stereotypically Mexican.” Mom—and for that matter, Dante’s whole family (his dad is a college professor and his mom is a therapist)—wants her son to receive an education and do something more intellectual than manual labor. Importantly, Mom, a schoolteacher, snaps at Ari that having received a college education doesn’t make her or Mr. Quintana less Mexican—but as far as Ari and Dante are concerned, she’s not actually entirely correct. While Mom grew up in a Spanish-speaking community and has deep connections to Mexican culture, customs, and language while living and working in an American and English-speaking world, putting Ari in an American school where instruction is in English keeps him from comfortably bridging the cultural divide in the same way.
Ari and Dante begin to butt up against a similar kind of tension with their Mexican identities as they both begin to figure out their sexuality. The boys understand that as the only or de facto oldest son in their families (Ari’s older brother is in prison), they have a responsibility to their culture and to their parents to grow up, get married, and provide their parents grandchildren in the future. This is something that distresses Dante in particular—in anguish, he confesses to Ari that if he marries another man, he won’t be able to fulfill this expectation and will surely disappoint his parents. While Ari is able to far more successfully toe the line and look properly masculine and Mexican by working out, getting a red 1957 pickup truck, and looking big and angry, Dante is unable to fit into this role with the same success as his friend. Even before coming out, Dante is much more sensitive than what Ari suggests is proper for a Mexican man. Coming out as gay and kissing boys in public means that Dante effectively gives up any ability he may have to hide and, ultimately, keep himself safe.
The horrific beating that Dante suffers at the hands of four peers who catch him and another boy kissing in an alley speaks to the very real danger of not living up to these expectations. Not being able to make his parents happy with grandchildren pales in comparison to the fact that Dante and other gay teens like him find themselves in situations where other people (who embody the very identities they cannot) are motivated to hurt them or even kill them for their sexuality. With this, the novel implies that these idealized identities might not be worth aspiring to at all—they are, in a variety of ways, the very things that keep Ari and Dante from being fully comfortable with who they actually are.
While these dangers certainly don’t disappear at the end of the novel, Ari’s choice to accept that he’s also gay and has been in love with Dante since the moment they met suggests that coming to terms with one’s identity can nevertheless be a healing and transformative experience. Ari comes to understand that while he may still be in the process of figuring out how to connect with his Mexican identity, his love for Dante and their parents’ support for their relationship is enough to help him escape the intense shame he feels and, finally, begin to feel more at home in the world.
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Identity, Ethnicity, and Masculinity Quotes in Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
So that’s the way it was. When I was eight, I didn’t know anything about war. I didn’t even know what a conscience was. All I knew is that sometimes my father was sad. I hated that he was sad. It made me sad too. I didn’t like sad.
So I was the son of a man who had Vietnam living inside him. Yeah, I had all kinds of tragic reasons for feeling sorry for myself. Being fifteen didn’t help. Sometimes I thought that being fifteen was the worst tragedy of all.
Boys. I watched them. Studied them.
In the end, I didn’t find most of the guys that surrounded me very interesting. In fact, I was pretty disgusted.
Maybe I was a little superior. But I don’t think I was superior. I just didn’t understand how to talk to them, how to be myself around them. Being around other guys didn’t make me feel smarter. Being around guys made me feel stupid and inadequate. It was like they were all a part of this club and I wasn’t a member.
“My dad says it’s all right if people make fun of you. You know what he said to me? He said, ‘Dante, you’re an intellectual. That’s who you are. Don’t be ashamed of that.’”
I noticed his smile was a little sad. Maybe everyone was a little sad. Maybe so.
“Ari, I’m trying not to be ashamed.”
I knew what it was like to be ashamed. Only, Dante knew why. And I didn’t.
“We’re not really Mexicans. Do we live in Mexico?”
“But that’s where our grandparents came from.”
“Okay, okay. But do we actually know anything about Mexico?”
“We speak Spanish.”
“Not that good.”
“Speak for yourself, Dante. You’re such a pocho.”
“What’s a pocho?”
“A half-assed Mexican.”
“I mean, my dad’s parents were born in Mexico. They live in a small little house in East LA and they speak no English and own a little restaurant. It’s like my mom and dad created a whole new world for themselves. I live in their new world. But they understand the old world, the world they came from—and I don’t. I don’t belong anywhere. That’s the problem.”
And my feet keep getting bigger and bigger. What’s with the big feet? When I was ten, I was kinda small and I wasn’t worried about hair. The only thing I was worried about was trying to speak perfect English. I made up my mind that year—when I was ten—that I wasn’t going to sound like another Mexican. I was going to be an American. And when I talked I was going to sound like one.
“When I went to the university, I never had one Mexican-American professor. Not one.” There was a look on her face, almost anger.
I knew so little about her. About what she’d been through—about what it felt like to be her. I’d never cared, not really. I was starting to care, starting to wonder. Starting to wonder about everything.
Maybe my dad just didn’t need words to get by in the world. I wasn’t like that. Well, I was like that on the outside, pretending not to need words. But I wasn’t like that on the inside.
I’d figured something out about myself: on the inside, I wasn’t like my dad at all. On the inside I was more like Dante. That really scared me.
The thing is I love my dad. My mom too. And I keep wondering what they’re going to say when I tell them that someday I want to marry a boy. I wonder how that’s going to go over? I’m the only son. What’s going to happen with the grandchildren thing? I hate that I’m going to disappoint them, Ari. I know I’ve disappointed you too.
“You’re in high school, Ari. You’re not looking for a profession. You’re just looking for a way to earn some money. You’re in transition.”
“In transition? What kind of a Mexican mother are you?”
“I’m an educated woman. That doesn’t un-Mexicanize me, Ari.”
She sounded a little angry. I loved her anger and wished I had more of it. Her anger was different than mine or my father’s. Her anger didn’t paralyze her.
He looked tired but at that moment, as we sat at the kitchen table, there was something young about him. And I thought that maybe he was changing into someone else.
Everyone was always becoming someone else.
Sometimes, when you were older, you became someone younger. And me, I felt old. How can a guy who’s about to turn seventeen feel old?
“He was so happy that you were going to have another baby. And not just because he was going to be a big brother. And he said, ‘He has to be a boy and he has to like girls.’ That’s what he said. So that you could have grandchildren. So that you could be happy.”
“I don’t care about grandchildren. I care about Dante.”
And loved my father too, for the careful way he spoke. I came to understand that my father was a careful man. To be careful with people and with words was a rare and beautiful thing.
