Clap When You Land Themes

Clap When You Land tells the stories of two 16-year-old girls, New Yorker Yahaira and Camino, who lives in the Dominican Republic. Both girls’ lives fall apart when, one June day, they receive word that their father, Papi, has died in a plane crash. In the weeks after the crash, the girls discover that their father kept huge secrets while he was alive—most notably, that he had two wives in two separate countries…

Though the conflict of Clap When You Land centers around one massive secret—that Papi was living a double life, splitting his time between his family in New York City and his family in the Dominican Republic—nearly every character in the novel keeps a secret of some sort. In almost all cases, however, the novel proposes that regardless of what a person’s secret is or how noble or helpful they think they’re being in keeping it…

By showing how differently Papi’s daughters live, Clap When You Land highlights how class, nationality, and money aren’t just things that make life more comfortable—rather, money and a passport, the novel shows, can mean the difference between thriving and barely surviving. Yahaira, who grew up in New York City in an apartment that Papi and Mami own, is mostly blind to the privileges that being a middle-class American citizen offer her. She has…

Both Yahaira and Camino are 16, almost 17, and for both girls, their burgeoning maturity—particularly when it comes to their bodies—represents a threat to their safety and their senses of security. Since Camino was 13, Papi has been paying men in the neighborhood to leave her alone. But without Papi’s money to deter him, El Cero, a known pimp, begins stalking and threatening Camino, trying to convince her that she should work for him…