Clap When You Land

Clap When You Land is, above all, a coming-of-age story. At the start of the novel, both women are dissatisfied with their circumstances. For Camino, the looming threat of deep poverty that has consumed many of her neighbors threatens her own way of life when tuition bills begin to accumulate. Without her father’s financial assistance, her hopes for a future studying in America dwindle. For Yahaira, who was raised in a Dominican household, her connection to her parents’ homeland feels elusive, like a missing piece of her own identity: “[c]an you be from a place / you have never been” (97). Even as Camino and Yahaira are dealing with the extraordinary circumstance of losing Papi, the loss of their father is a catalyst for both sisters to grow past the boundary lines of adolescence and expand the way they see the world.

Although Clap When You Land follows a traditional format for a bildungsroman, in which a hero (usually a young person) undergoes various trials on their trajectory to gaining experience, for Yahaira and Camino, the path to maturity and self-expression varies. Yahaira’s journey is distinctly a search for answers and an investigation into the secrets that have kept her image of her parents in stasis. Yahaira begins this path to experience before the novel’s action begins, when she uncovers her father’s second marriage certificate, printed with the name of Camino’s mother on it. As a result, Yahaira is often listening closely to the adults in her family, closely gauging and learning about a secret she can sense is being avoided but never named or voiced: “I look from Mami to Tío Jorge / trying to understand what isn’t being said” (189). When the truth of Papi’s betrayal is finally voiced—that he not only was married to another woman but also conceived another daughter—Yahaira’s physical reaction is violent and sudden. This is a crossing of a threshold for Yahaira into maturity as she becomes compelled to travel to the Dominican Republic.

Camino is not as sheltered as Yahaira is. Midway through the story, Camino extolls Tía Solana’s honesty for telling her promptly about Yahaira and her mother. For Camino, the path to maturity is instead charted in the ways she gradually learns to ask others for help with her burdens, at first a dangerous weakness that leads her into dangerous situations. At several junctures Camino has a chance to ask for help in dealing with El Cero from Tía Solana and Carline, but Camino stays silent, refusing to risk harm coming to either of the women. This is the same pattern of behavior that leads Camino to take Yahaira’s passport and attempt to pay El Cero alone. It is not until Camino can accept her stepmother’s help in acquiring a visa, driving away El Cero, and finding a home in New York that Camino’s journey into adulthood is finally resolved.