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Dark Dude by Oscar Hijuelos

Discussion guide written by Karen McElravy.

Summary

Born with fair hair and pale skin, Rico feels out of place in Harlem and in his Cuban family. After he nearly looses his best friend to heroin, and witnesses a shooting at school, he starts skipping. Eventually that catches up with him and his parents plan to send him to military school in Florida. The night before he's supposed to leave, he writes a note, meets his best friend, and they hitchhike to Wisconsin. Their friend Gilberto won the lottery and moved out there to go to college. Rico tries to make a life as regular Midwestern white kid. He gets a job in a gas station, makes friends and meets a girl, but memories of his parents and heritage keep pulling him back. Reminiscent of The Outsiders, this book explores Latino identity and misidentity.

Booktalk

Rico feels like he just doesn't fit in. His parents and sister have dark hair and dark skin like most of the Latinos in Harlem, but Rico inherited the light skin and fair hair of his Irish-Cuban grandfather. Long stays in the hospital when he was a small child meant he never learned to speak Spanish properly. He likes comic books, music, and science fiction. His mother is disappointed in him and tells him so every day. He's not the masculine, Spanish-speaking, strong, dark, proper Latino she wants for a son. At school and on the street people give him funny looks and call him Pinky, alemán (German) or, worst of all, dark dude, meaning he isn't dark at all, just someone out of place and out of his depth.

After skipping school too much and threatened with military school, Rico runs away to Wisconsin, the land of milk and honey. In Wisconsin he's sure he can just be himself. In Wisconsin, he won't have to prove he's Latino. In Wisconsin, it's all birds, cows, and corn, like a summer camp he never got to attend. In Wisconsin, there's an outhouse. That he has to clean out. But Rico could get used to it if he has to.

The problem is, he can't just leave his heritage behind. He just can't escape those memories of his family, especially his Papá, his longing to hear Spanish, and his yearning for a taste of Cuban food, even a thousand miles away, surrounded by regular white Midwestern kids. Rico's got to figure out how to reconcile how he looks on the outside with how he feels on the inside. If you ever feel like an outsider yourself, you'll want to read Dark Dude by Oscar Hijuelos.

439 pages, 8th grade and up

Discussion questions

Warning! Some of the questions contain key elements of the plot. Do not read if you don't want to know what happens!

  1. What makes Rico eventually go back to New York, while Jimmy and Gilberto want to stay in Wisconsin?
  2. Rico really likes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and says that his life is like Huck's life. What similarities and differences can you see between Dark Dude and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
  3. What do you think of Gilberto's philosophy of life as he explains it to Rico, after Rico gets ripped off at the gas station?
  4. Have you ever gotten to know someone different from yourself? Talk about that experience. What did you learn about them? And about yourself?
  5. What are the perks of living in the city? The country? Which would you prefer?
  6. Rico writes many drafts of a letter to his parents, gets rid of his bad feelings about the situation, and is able to come to a better decision. What do you do to get rid of your bad feelings?
  7. The publisher says that it doesn't want to publish Dark Dude comics because it's "too ethnic." Do you think things have changed today? Do you see heroic ethnic characters in books, comic books, movies, and music?
  8. What sort of superhero character would you create to deal with the issues in your life? What would your powers be?

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Snacks

Cuban and Carribean snacks like tostones (fried plantains), yellow rice, pasteles, and tamales.