Bodega Dreams

by

Ernesto Quiñones

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Bodega Dreams makes teaching easy.

Julio Mercado Character Analysis

Julio is the story’s narrator and protagonist. The world of Spanish Harlem, in which the book is set, unfolds through Julio’s eyes. When Julio is young, his white teachers at school discriminate against him because they believe that Latinx children won’t amount to anything. Julio earns the nickname “Chino” as a mark of respect for fighting well in the violent neighborhood in which he grows up. In eighth grade, Julio is accepted to a more competitive school, which sets his life on track for college, unlike most of his friends who drop out of school and get involved with petty street crime to get by. Julio marries his childhood crush, Blanca, and they clash often over Blanca’s religious devotion. Julio believes that the Bible is sexist and disempowering for Latinx people, and he finds it difficult to accept Blanca’s faith. Julio and Blanca also clash over Julio’s unwavering loyalty to his lifelong best friend, Sapo, who’s a drug dealer. Through Sapo, and against his own better judgment, Julio gets roped into Spanish Harlem’s criminal underworld—notably with two ex-activists named Bodega and Nazario who are trying to improve living conditions for Spanish Harlem’s disenfranchised Latinx residents. Julio admires how much Bodega wants to empower the Latinx community, but he wrestles with Bodega’s tendency to fund his exploits through crime. As the story progresses, Julio gradually accepts that Bodega is justified in turning to crime to fund his efforts because he has few other options, and his cause is noble. By the end of the story, Bodega’s ideals—of building a thriving, successful, empowered Latinx community—live on through Julio, who’s deeply moved by Bodega’s dreams for Spanish Harlem.

Julio Mercado Quotes in Bodega Dreams

The Bodega Dreams quotes below are all either spoken by Julio Mercado or refer to Julio Mercado. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Latinx Immigrants and Broken Dreams Theme Icon
).
Book 1, Round 1 Quotes

So, since we were almost convinced that our race had no culture, no smart people, we behaved even worse. It made us fight and throw books at one another, sell loose joints on the stairways, talk back to teachers, and leave classrooms whenever we wanted to.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Sapo
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

Nor were they violent, with switchblade tempers.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker)
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:

My father understood where we were living. He knew, and when I would come home with bruises or a black eye he never lost his cool. I liked my father, and my father liked Sapo. He knew the importance of having someone there to watch your back. It was important to have a pana, a broqui.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Sapo
Related Symbols: Drugs
Page Number: I0
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Round 3 Quotes

“The next day we went to City Hall and filed our demands. And you know what happened the next month, Chino? […] The next month, they hiked the subway fare from twenty-five cents to thirty-five cents. […] So we waited, and we waited, and we filed and we filed. Finally, when we knew our demands weren't going to be met, when we knew […] the sanitation department wouldn't even lend us brooms to clean our streets, we had no choice but to take over the streets of East Harlem.”

Related Characters: Willie Bodega (speaker), Julio Mercado
Related Symbols: Drugs
Page Number: 32-33
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 1 Quotes

“[…] Mr. Blessington told me I was going to end up in jail, so why waste my time doing homework?”

Related Characters: Sapo (speaker), Julio Mercado, Mr. Blessington , Mr. Tapia
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:

Julia-day-Burgos is so obscure it would be hard to find a single poem of hers. In any language.

Related Characters: Mr. Blessington (speaker), Julio Mercado, Sapo, Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Julia de Burgos
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 2 Quotes

If Sapo killed that reporter then he deserved to go to jail. I thought that, but I knew I didn’t mean it. I felt bad for Sapo. I also knew I would never rat out Sapo or Bodega. I wasn’t going to say a word.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Sapo, Alberto Salazar
Related Symbols: Drugs
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:

No wonder Bodega’s name had spread like a good smell from a Latin woman’s kitchen.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Edwin Nazario , Veronica “Vera” Vidal
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 4 Quotes

With her light skin, semiblond hair, pale seagull blue eyes, she could easily pass herself off as something other than a woman born and raised in East Harlem. She spoke as if she had spent her formative years in some boarding school, walking around with a big lettered sweater tied around her shoulders.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Veronica “Vera” Vidal , John Vidal (Vera’s husband)
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’ll buy her one bigger than that! One with a diamond as big as the Palladium.”

Related Characters: Willie Bodega (speaker), Julio Mercado, Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Veronica “Vera” Vidal , John Vidal (Vera’s husband)
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 5 Quotes

“When you complain that you’re gonna feel awkward graduating with a big belly, I know what you really mean. You mean people are gonna think, ‘She may be smart, but she was stupid enough to get herself knocked up.’ But when you go to church it all changes. They like you pregnant and you like them to like you pregnant.”

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:

“Blanca, why does me becoming Pentecostal have any bearing on you getting your privileges back? On you playing the tambourine in front of the congregation? Why do they look at me and my faults and not you and your merits?”

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Sapo, Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:

“And he loved her. And she, and she—don’t tell me you don’t know what she did. Don't tell me you don’t know that she later left to fornicate with other kings. Don’t tell me you don’t know that she left her king and went with others, and don't tell me you don’t know this princess was called Israel. And she went with other gods and slept with many idols. You still don't know what she did? […] I’ll tell you what she became. You all know what she became, don't tell me you all don't know what she became. She became a harlot! […] A whore! […] A prostitute!”

Related Characters: Roberto Vega (speaker), Julio Mercado, Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Claudia , Pastor Velasquez
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:

They had seen the coming of the Lord. He was coming soon, maybe even that very night. Roberto Vega had told them so. The kingdom of God would arrive, and they would all go to heaven, to the penthouse in the sky. Until then, they would go back home to the rats and roaches.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Roberto Vega
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:

He was the Lord’s stud, wanted by sisters in Christ who all hoped to be his chosen.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Claudia , Roberto Vega
Page Number: 140
Explanation and Analysis:

“For a Latina that’s not married, twenty-seven is ancient. Nobody is going to want to marry her.”

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Claudia
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 6 Quotes

I always knock the people in Blanca's church, but a lot of them were right there that night helping us move our things, everyone splashing around ankle-deep in water. If we hadn’t had Blanca’s spiritual brothers and sisters we would have been moving things out all night.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:

All I understood was that Bodega was in trouble. Not with the fire department, which would know right away it was arson and dismiss it as another case of pyromania in a neighborhood crawling with fire-bugs. Nor with the media, who needed sensation and since no deaths had occurred would give it only passing mention, like a footnote in a thousand-page book.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia
Page Number: 149
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 8 Quotes

“Look around, Julio. Every time someone makes a million dollars, he kills some part of the world. That part has been us for so long, and it will continue to be us unless we fight back. The day will come when, lust like the white guy, we will also steal by signing the right papers […] What do you think, it comes from nothing? America is a great nation, I have no doubts about that, but in its early days it had to take some shady steps to get there. Manifest Destiny, that was just another word for genocide.”

Related Characters: Edwin Nazario (speaker), Julio Mercado, Willie Bodega
Page Number: 159-60
Explanation and Analysis:

That night Sapo dropped me off at one of the new-old buildings Bodega had renovated on 116th and Lexington. Those buildings had been condemned for years. The City of New York takes so much time to either renovate or bulldoze a condemned building it’s like those guys on Death Row who die of old age rather than execution. Bodega had bought the entire row from the city and had slowly renovated three of them. He had improved the block. Improved the neighborhood. Given people a place to live.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Sapo, Edwin Nazario
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 9 Quotes

The captain talked as if he were bored; it was all a formality, something he had done too many times and could do in his sleep.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Sapo, Alberto Salazar , DeJesus , Ortiz , Captain Leary
Page Number: 178
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 10 Quotes

“Let’s not say anything right now, okay? I’m going to be staying at Mami’s for a while. At least until the baby is born. I think that's best. Best for both of us.”

Related Characters: Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia (speaker), Julio Mercado, Sapo, Blanca’s mother
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:

I would never have guessed he was Latin. He was more American than Mickey Mouse and just as old.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Sapo, Veronica “Vera” Vidal , John Vidal (Vera’s husband)
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 3, Eulogy Quotes

Everyone was there like in some pageant for a dying monarch. And to pass the hours on fire, Bodega tales began winding around the avenue. Almost everyone had one, and those that didn’t added to the tales by retelling them.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:

“Willie Bodega doesn't exist […] l’m sorry. […] Pera! […] You can stay with me.”

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Geran , Hipolito
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Bodega Dreams LitChart as a printable PDF.
Bodega Dreams PDF

Julio Mercado Quotes in Bodega Dreams

The Bodega Dreams quotes below are all either spoken by Julio Mercado or refer to Julio Mercado. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Latinx Immigrants and Broken Dreams Theme Icon
).
Book 1, Round 1 Quotes

So, since we were almost convinced that our race had no culture, no smart people, we behaved even worse. It made us fight and throw books at one another, sell loose joints on the stairways, talk back to teachers, and leave classrooms whenever we wanted to.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Sapo
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

Nor were they violent, with switchblade tempers.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker)
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:

My father understood where we were living. He knew, and when I would come home with bruises or a black eye he never lost his cool. I liked my father, and my father liked Sapo. He knew the importance of having someone there to watch your back. It was important to have a pana, a broqui.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Sapo
Related Symbols: Drugs
Page Number: I0
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Round 3 Quotes

“The next day we went to City Hall and filed our demands. And you know what happened the next month, Chino? […] The next month, they hiked the subway fare from twenty-five cents to thirty-five cents. […] So we waited, and we waited, and we filed and we filed. Finally, when we knew our demands weren't going to be met, when we knew […] the sanitation department wouldn't even lend us brooms to clean our streets, we had no choice but to take over the streets of East Harlem.”

Related Characters: Willie Bodega (speaker), Julio Mercado
Related Symbols: Drugs
Page Number: 32-33
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 1 Quotes

“[…] Mr. Blessington told me I was going to end up in jail, so why waste my time doing homework?”

Related Characters: Sapo (speaker), Julio Mercado, Mr. Blessington , Mr. Tapia
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:

Julia-day-Burgos is so obscure it would be hard to find a single poem of hers. In any language.

Related Characters: Mr. Blessington (speaker), Julio Mercado, Sapo, Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Julia de Burgos
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 2 Quotes

If Sapo killed that reporter then he deserved to go to jail. I thought that, but I knew I didn’t mean it. I felt bad for Sapo. I also knew I would never rat out Sapo or Bodega. I wasn’t going to say a word.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Sapo, Alberto Salazar
Related Symbols: Drugs
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:

No wonder Bodega’s name had spread like a good smell from a Latin woman’s kitchen.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Edwin Nazario , Veronica “Vera” Vidal
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 4 Quotes

With her light skin, semiblond hair, pale seagull blue eyes, she could easily pass herself off as something other than a woman born and raised in East Harlem. She spoke as if she had spent her formative years in some boarding school, walking around with a big lettered sweater tied around her shoulders.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Veronica “Vera” Vidal , John Vidal (Vera’s husband)
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’ll buy her one bigger than that! One with a diamond as big as the Palladium.”

Related Characters: Willie Bodega (speaker), Julio Mercado, Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Veronica “Vera” Vidal , John Vidal (Vera’s husband)
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 5 Quotes

“When you complain that you’re gonna feel awkward graduating with a big belly, I know what you really mean. You mean people are gonna think, ‘She may be smart, but she was stupid enough to get herself knocked up.’ But when you go to church it all changes. They like you pregnant and you like them to like you pregnant.”

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:

“Blanca, why does me becoming Pentecostal have any bearing on you getting your privileges back? On you playing the tambourine in front of the congregation? Why do they look at me and my faults and not you and your merits?”

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Sapo, Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:

“And he loved her. And she, and she—don’t tell me you don’t know what she did. Don't tell me you don’t know that she later left to fornicate with other kings. Don’t tell me you don’t know that she left her king and went with others, and don't tell me you don’t know this princess was called Israel. And she went with other gods and slept with many idols. You still don't know what she did? […] I’ll tell you what she became. You all know what she became, don't tell me you all don't know what she became. She became a harlot! […] A whore! […] A prostitute!”

Related Characters: Roberto Vega (speaker), Julio Mercado, Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Claudia , Pastor Velasquez
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:

They had seen the coming of the Lord. He was coming soon, maybe even that very night. Roberto Vega had told them so. The kingdom of God would arrive, and they would all go to heaven, to the penthouse in the sky. Until then, they would go back home to the rats and roaches.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Roberto Vega
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:

He was the Lord’s stud, wanted by sisters in Christ who all hoped to be his chosen.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Claudia , Roberto Vega
Page Number: 140
Explanation and Analysis:

“For a Latina that’s not married, twenty-seven is ancient. Nobody is going to want to marry her.”

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia, Claudia
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 6 Quotes

I always knock the people in Blanca's church, but a lot of them were right there that night helping us move our things, everyone splashing around ankle-deep in water. If we hadn’t had Blanca’s spiritual brothers and sisters we would have been moving things out all night.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:

All I understood was that Bodega was in trouble. Not with the fire department, which would know right away it was arson and dismiss it as another case of pyromania in a neighborhood crawling with fire-bugs. Nor with the media, who needed sensation and since no deaths had occurred would give it only passing mention, like a footnote in a thousand-page book.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia
Page Number: 149
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 8 Quotes

“Look around, Julio. Every time someone makes a million dollars, he kills some part of the world. That part has been us for so long, and it will continue to be us unless we fight back. The day will come when, lust like the white guy, we will also steal by signing the right papers […] What do you think, it comes from nothing? America is a great nation, I have no doubts about that, but in its early days it had to take some shady steps to get there. Manifest Destiny, that was just another word for genocide.”

Related Characters: Edwin Nazario (speaker), Julio Mercado, Willie Bodega
Page Number: 159-60
Explanation and Analysis:

That night Sapo dropped me off at one of the new-old buildings Bodega had renovated on 116th and Lexington. Those buildings had been condemned for years. The City of New York takes so much time to either renovate or bulldoze a condemned building it’s like those guys on Death Row who die of old age rather than execution. Bodega had bought the entire row from the city and had slowly renovated three of them. He had improved the block. Improved the neighborhood. Given people a place to live.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Sapo, Edwin Nazario
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 9 Quotes

The captain talked as if he were bored; it was all a formality, something he had done too many times and could do in his sleep.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Sapo, Alberto Salazar , DeJesus , Ortiz , Captain Leary
Page Number: 178
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Round 10 Quotes

“Let’s not say anything right now, okay? I’m going to be staying at Mami’s for a while. At least until the baby is born. I think that's best. Best for both of us.”

Related Characters: Nancy “Blanca” Saldivia (speaker), Julio Mercado, Sapo, Blanca’s mother
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:

I would never have guessed he was Latin. He was more American than Mickey Mouse and just as old.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Sapo, Veronica “Vera” Vidal , John Vidal (Vera’s husband)
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 3, Eulogy Quotes

Everyone was there like in some pageant for a dying monarch. And to pass the hours on fire, Bodega tales began winding around the avenue. Almost everyone had one, and those that didn’t added to the tales by retelling them.

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:

“Willie Bodega doesn't exist […] l’m sorry. […] Pera! […] You can stay with me.”

Related Characters: Julio Mercado (speaker), Willie Bodega , Geran , Hipolito
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis: