Yahaira’s relationship to chess represents her relationship to Papi. More specifically, Yahaira’s changing relationship to chess and her father shows how she comes of age. Papi teaches Yahaira to play chess when she’s a little girl, and though she’s naturally good at the game, what she really loves—and what motivates her to keep getting better—is Papi watching her win. Yahaira’s relationship to chess, then, isn’t based off a love of the game. Rather, it’s rooted in how close chess brings Yahaira to Papi, something that Yahaira characterizes as childish and even naïve.
In the year before the novel begins, Yahaira discovers that Papi has been keeping a major secret from her: he has a second wife in the Dominican Republic. She learns about Papi’s other life at around the same time that a strange man assaults Yahaira on the subway. When Papi doesn’t answer Yahaira’s calls, texts, or emails asking for help and support, Yahaira pulls away from chess—and this causes her and Papi to grow apart. The novel suggests that Yahaira’s decision to pull away from chess (and the trauma that precipitated her decision) represents how Yahaira is beginning to grow up and see her parents as fully formed people capable of keeping secrets and having their own lives. So, while Yahaira once saw Papi as an enthusiastic (if unskilled) chess player whose moves she could always discern well in advance, Yahaira’s discovery teaches her that Papi is actually far better at hiding his true feelings—and deepest secrets—than Yahaira ever thought to give him credit for.
Additionally, though, discovering Papi’s secret and quitting chess allows Yahaira to come of age in an important way. Realizing that she really only liked playing for Papi’s sake gives Yahaira the nudge she needs to explore things she’s actually interested in and develop her own identity. So, while the traumatic circumstances surrounding Yahaira’s choice to give up chess cause a huge rift in her relationship with Papi, leaving chess behind also allows Yahaira to come of age and develop independence.
Chess Quotes in Clap When You Land
But before we got off at our stop,
Papi turned to my nine-year-old self & said:
“Never, ever, let them see you sweat, negra.
Fight until you can’t breathe, & if you have to forfeit,
you forfeit smiling, make them think you let them win.”
Did I love chess?
I did chess.
But love? Like I
love watching beauty tutorials?
[…]
Or how I love Papi’s brother, Tío Jorge,
holding my hand and saying I make him proud
for myself not for what I win?
Like I loved my father, that kind of love?
Consuming, huge, a love that takes the wheel,
a love where I pretended to be something I wasn’t?
I did chess. I was obsessed with winning.
But never love.
Things you can buy
with half a million dollars:
a car that looks more
like a space creature than a car.
[…]
Five hundred flights
to the Dominican Republic.
A half million Dollar Store chess sets,
with their accompanying boxes.
A hundred thousand copies
of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Apparently a father.
The squares do not overlap.
& neither do the pieces.
The only time two pieces
stand in the same square
is the second before one
is being taken & replaced.
& I know now, Papi could not
move between two families.
[…]
He would glide from family to family,
square to square & never look back.
[…]
Everything has a purpose, Papi taught me.
But what was his in keeping
such big secrets?
Papi will have two funerals.
Papi will have two ceremonies.
Papi will be mourned in two countries.
Papi will be said goodbye to here & there.
Papi had two lives.
Papi has two daughters.
Papi was a man split in two,
playing a game against himself.
But the problem with that
is that in order to win, you also always lose.
[…] & here we are: Tía like a bishop,
slashing her long machete. Mami, the knight with rims. My body
in front of my sister’s body: queens.
Papi, who I know is here too. He did
build that castle he always promised.
Chess Symbol Timeline in Clap When You Land
