Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Clap When You Land, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family
Secrets
Grief
Money, Security, and Immigration
Growing Up and Sexual Violence
Summary
Analysis
Camino hasn’t spoken to El Cero since he last approached her. But today, after Camino finishes swimming, El Cero walks up to her on the beach. Vira Lata didn’t accompany Camino to the beach today, but Camino scans the trees for him anyway. El Cero smiles boyishly, but he’s not an innocent boy. And it doesn’t matter right now that Camino is grieving, orphaned, and poor. She’s “a girl a man stares at.” El Cero offers to give Camino a ride home, points to his motorbike, and then grabs her wrist.
Camino hopes, on some level, that being overwhelmed with grief and an orphan might make her less of a target for El Cero—but realistically, she knows what she’s going through doesn’t matter to him at all. Ultimately, she’s just a body he’d like to exploit for profit. This is also why El Cero grabs her here. This isn’t an innocent, kind offer to drive her home: he wants to overpower her and make her feel indebted to him.
Themes
Just as Camino pulls her arm away, her cell phone rings. It’s Tía: they’ve found Papi’s remains, and he’s going to be buried here. Camino knows there’s no more reason to hope for a miracle; there were no survivors. Camino will need to light candles and make arrangements. She puts her phone away and tells El Cero that she has nothing for him. She feels sick since she got this news here, in a location she loves with a man she hates. As Camino hurries away, El Cero yells that she owes him a lot—and he has a lot to offer her.
With Tía’s phone call, Camino can no longer hope that Papi might’ve survived the crash. The beach has positive associations for Camino, but getting this news here with El Cero watching changes how she views the beach. With Papi confirmed dead, Camino is in danger from El Cero and perhaps from other men like him—and nowhere, even her favorite places, are safe.
Themes
At home, Tía has already lit the candles. Papi wasn’t her brother, but she’s known him his whole life—she was seven years old and a healer’s apprentice when she sat in on his birth. She watched him fall in love with Mamá and was the first to hold his child. Papi always treated Tía with the utmost respect. Before this moment, Camino hasn’t thought about what Tía lost when Papi died. He was like family to her.
Camino is already pretty mature, but here, she takes a step further toward coming of age. Realizing that Tía is grieving too—that Tía lost someone important to her, and that Tía herself isn’t just a caregiving robot—shows that Camino is developing more empathy for the adults around her.
Themes
Tía is plucking feathers from a chicken, her sharp machete by her side, when she says that she’s heard rumors. Camino wishes she could carry the machete. Tía continues that Don Mateo and a fruit seller have seen El Cero waiting for Camino after school or on the beach, and the Saints have warned her to be cautious. Camino wants to say it's true and admit she’s afraid—but Tía angrily says that she raised Camino to be smart. She raised Camino to have a future and choices, and she did everything to make that so. Camino’s heart sinks: Tía thinks Camino is asking for El Cero’s attention, not that he’s stalking her.
At first, this conversation seems like exactly what Camino needs and wants: Tía sees what El Cero is doing and may have advice for how to stop it. However, when it becomes clear to Camino that Tía thinks Camino is soliciting El Cero’s attention, things take a sinister turn. Blaming Camino for what El Cero is doing implicitly makes it Camino’s responsibility to make El Cero stop stalking her—but without help, Camino has no way to evade El Cero.
Themes
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Camino wishes she could tell Tía that she hasn’t encouraged El Cero—he just won’t leave her alone. Camino wants to say that she’s afraid El Cero will corner her somewhere and that she won’t know what to do. But what would Tía do? Though the community she serves loves and respects her, she’s also older and poor. El Cero doesn’t care about healers—and he cares less about girls who are just “dollar signs” to him. Don Mateo is too old to help, and Tío Jorge doesn’t know Camino. There’s no one to stop El Cero anymore. Camino can’t even think about what El Cero might do to Tía if she tried to stand up for Camino.
It's interesting that Camino, when Tía accuses her of wanting El Cero’s attention, clams up rather than tell Tía the truth—perhaps she fears that Tía won’t believe her. But even worse is that Camino knows that telling the truth wouldn’t actually do anything. Both she and Tía are powerless against a wealthy, dangerous man like El Cero, and the last thing Camino wants to happen is for her beloved aunt (or Don Mateo) to get hurt. Noting that Camino has a Tío Jorge creates more intrigue—do Camino and Yahaira have the same father, who has a brother named Jorge in New York?
Themes
Camino explains that she’s “from a playground place.” The oceans residents need to fish are cleared of fishing boats so tourists can kite surf. Developers buy the lush land and build luxury hotels on it. Her island exports its crops while kids go hungry, and other countries worsen global warming, putting the island in danger. Women and girls like Camino are “branded jungle gyms”; foreign men pick them to play with. El Cero is involved in all of this. If you’re not from an island, you don’t know what it means to be “of water.” You don’t know what it’s like to learn to deal with hurricanes and “quench an outside thirst” while all the water you need to survive disappears. Camino knows what Tía isn’t saying: that the women involved in sex work here aren’t the ones who benefit.
Camino frames the Dominican Republic as a place where tourists come to “play,” while locals starve and are forced to sell various aspects of their homes or themselves (their land and their bodies) to please the tourists. Islanders, Camino insists, must constantly change how they behave to serve these outsiders—all while giving up the things they need in order to survive. Camino then applies this framework to sex work (at least, sex work where pimps control women’s activities and money): it’s the tourists and the pimps who get the good deal, not the women who are doing the dangerous work.
Themes
Tía doesn’t think girls should wear all black, so Camino had to wait until she was 13 to buy her first black dress. Now, she pulls out the black dress that she got for middle school graduation so she can meet with the priest. Tía wears white, signifying that the Saints protect her. The priest will raise a brow, but priests don’t want to know about what people do in secret. Now, Tía and Camino stand and look at themselves in the mirror. Camino wipes away Tía’s tears, and Tía accepts the gesture. Tía doesn’t think girls should wear black, but Camino feels like a woman today.
Now, Tía and Camino must throw themselves into planning Papi’s funeral. This is a big moment for Camino as she dons her black dress: she’s had this dress for several years now, but she only now feels like she’s a woman who has every right to wear such a garment. Papi’s death, this shows again, is forcing Camino to grow up. The novel again highlights how Tía’s belief system exists alongside Catholicism, offering practitioners multiple ways to worship and make sense of painful events (like Papi’s death).
Themes
Camino asks if Papi’s brother, Tío Jorge, is coming with Papi’s body. Tía hesitates and says she doesn’t know. However, her body language suggests she knows more than she’s letting on. Camino asks how they’re supposed to plan a funeral or plan to host people without knowing who’s coming, but Tía refuses to answer any of Camino’s questions.
Tía’s caginess here creates more tension—as does the fact that Camino asks if Tío Jorge will accompany Papi’s body. It’s seeming increasingly likely that Camino and Yahaira do have the same father (and that Tía knows this), but that this is a secret from both of Papi’s daughters.
Themes
In the middle of the night, Tía shakes Camino awake, interrupting a bad dream about Papi. Camino realizes Tía has her healer’s bag, so she gets dressed; she can tell this is an emergency. Outside, Nelson is waiting for them. There’s only one reason he’d be here. They navigate the uneven streets to the small yellow house. The power is out, so a few candles illuminate the one-room house. It’s clean, but too small for Maman, Carline’s father, Tía, Camino, Nelson, and Carline. Carline is on the couch, red-faced and sweaty.
Carline has gone into labor, seemingly too early. Camino’s description of Carline’s home reaffirms that Carline’s family is struggling to make ends meet. But this passage also highlights that lots of people in the neighborhood struggle, as everyone—except Camino and Tía, who have a generator—are without power right now.
Themes
As Camino wipes Carline’s forehead, Tía asks questions about when the contractions started and how long ago Carline’s water broke. Carline should really be in a hospital, but Maman explains that the baby is coming too fast, and everyone panicked. Camino explains to readers that there’s a lot of tension in the DR about who deserves medical care, so it’s a scary thing for a Haitian parent to take their child to a hospital to give birth. Camino and Nelson tidy the room and lay out towels and sheets to protect the couch while Tía coaches Carmine through pushing. Carline’s father’s hands tremble: maybe he, like Tía, is praying.
The Caribbean island of Hispaniola features the Dominican Republic on one side and Haiti on the other. Haitian people have been crossing the border into the Dominican Republic since it was formalized about a century ago, and they make up the largest ethnic minority in DR. As such, Haitian people are subject to racism and discrimination—this is why Maman is too afraid to take Carline to the hospital. They trust Tía, a beloved family friend, to help them where they have little reason to trust a hospital to give Carline appropriate care.
Themes
Camino sits behind Carline, supporting her and trying not to think about how badly premature labor can go. Tía tells Carline to push, but Carline is exhausted. Camino tells her friend that she’s worked too hard to not birth this baby. Finally, a small body falls into Tía’s hands. It’s a boy, and it’s silent. Tía is a miracle worker. People are afraid of her, but they still call for her in emergencies because she can negotiate with the dead to bring people back. It doesn’t always work.
As Camino explained earlier in the novel, Tía taught her that it’s inappropriate to dwell on worst-case scenarios, specifically death. This is why Camino throws herself into supporting Carline: it gives her something to calm her scared mind. In this passage, Tía is able to use her faith to perhaps work a miracle, rather than grieve for Papi.
Themes
Tía calls for the baby’s life to return as Carline weeps. She presses her fingers into his chest and blows air into his blue lips. Suddenly, the baby breathes—just as the electricity returns, filling the house with light. Camino has been so caught up in death and funerals that it’s amazing to see this baby—who shouldn’t be alive—live. Everyone is crying. Tía gives instructions for teas and ointments to make, and she says she’ll come back if Carline needs help. Maman hugs Camino on the way out, gives her some pesos, and promises to wash and return the sheets. Carline’s father is silent, but he cries as he walks Camino and Tía out.
It certainly seems miraculous when Carline’s baby takes his first breath just as the lights come back on. This miraculous moment shows Camino that there is hope and good things can still happen, even after Papi’s death. In a way, witnessing Camino’s baby live helps Camino deal with her grief, as it rips her out of her sadness and shows her that life does indeed go on.
Themes
