By Update, May 4 at 4:08 p.m. ET: Junot Díaz has responded in a statement to The New York Times: “I take responsibility for my past. That is the reason I made the decision to tell the truth of my rape and its damaging aftermath. This conversation is important and must continue. I am listening to and learning from women’s stories in this essential and overdue cultural movement. We must continue to teach all men about consent and boundaries.”
Weeks after Junot Díaz penned an essay for The New Yorker publicly revealing he was raped as a child, women are using social media to speak out about the author’s own alleged problematic behavior. In the months since The New York Times’ exposé about the ways Harvey Weinstein sexually abused and harassed actresses and female employees, a flood of allegations have shaken up Hollywood and various industries, giving birth to the Time’s Up movement, which seeks to put an end to the pervasive behaviors that have led to the sexual abuse and harassment of many. On May 4, author Zinzi Clemmons tweeted about Díaz.
“As a grad student, I invited Junot Díaz to a workshop on issues of representation in literature,” she wrote. “I was an unknown wide-eyed 26 yo, and he used it as an opportunity to corner and forcibly kiss me. I’m far from the only he’s done this 2, I refuse to be silent anymore.”
As a grad student, I invited Junot Diaz to speak to a workshop on issues of representation in literature. I was an unknown wide-eyed 26 yo, and he used it as an opportunity to corner and forcibly kiss me. I'm far from the only one he's done this 2, I refuse to be silent anymore.
— zinziclemmons (@zinziclemmons) May 4, 2018
I told several people this story at the time, I have emails he sent me afterward (*barf*). This happened and I have receipts.
— zinziclemmons (@zinziclemmons) May 4, 2018
I've basically avoided literary functions and posted no photos of myself online in order to avoid people like Diaz and Stein (who I have my own set of terrible stories about as well). I'm sick of these talentless assholes dictating my life. No more.
— zinziclemmons (@zinziclemmons) May 4, 2018
This led others to tweet about their own troublesome encounters with Díaz, including Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties.
During his tour for THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER, Junot Díaz did a Q&A at the grad program I'd just graduated from. When I made the mistake of asking him a question about his protagonist's unhealthy, pathological relationship with women, he went off for me for twenty minutes. https://t.co/7wuQOarBIJ
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
He asked me to back up my claim with evidence. I cited several passages from the book in front of me. He raised his voice, paced, implied I was a prude who didn't know how to read or draw reasonable conclusions from text.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
When I suggested that maybe my question had been answered, and he move on to someone else's question, he refused. He told me he was leaning on me to explain myself, which is what he did with his students. (Never mind that I wasn't his student, or a student at all.)
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
Every time he asked me a question, I answered it, and he became freshly enraged when I refused to capitulate. This went on and on and on and on until he finally ran out of steam.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
And this happened in a room full of people! There's a recording! He was not embarrassed about his behavior at all. A friend of mine was so stressed out from the whole interaction that she texted me saying she'd have to leave so she could go home and take a Xanax.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
And I'll never forget: his male handlers (presumably from the university? I don't know) were sitting directly in front of me, and every time he spoke they nodded enthusiastically and in unison, and every time I spoke, they froze. When I think about those men I want to scream.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
That night, I went to his reading at a local venue. When he got up after his introduction, he said, "Today, someone complained that there was too much cheating in this book. This is for them." Then he read the stories/passages I'd cited hours earlier.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
I'd obviously struck a nerve, though I didn't understand precisely how. Because even if his book contained autobiographical material, I knew that reacting to a reader's criticism this way—confusing yourself for the character—was amateur hour. I knew it even then.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
But what really struck me was how quickly his veneer of progressivism and geniality fell away; how easily he slid into bullying and misogyny when the endless waves of praise and adoration ceased for a second.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
And, like, I was raised with weird Latinx gender shit that I'm still trying to unload and unpack. I know what it looks like. Nothing that I'm describing is particularly novel or unusual. It's just how certain men assert their power.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
In the intervening years, I've heard easily a dozen stories about fucked-up sexual misconduct on his part and felt weirdly lucky that all ("all") I got was a blast of misogynist rage and public humiliation.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
So, Junot Díaz can talk all he wants about writing books that interrogate masculinity, but that's all it is: talk. His books are misogynist trash and folks either don't see it (which disturbs me) or won't acknowledge it (which disturbs me for different reasons).
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
And it sucks for a very particular reason: people of color are so underrepresented in publishing, we have deep attachments to those who succeed. People are defensive about JD because there are so few high-profile Latinx authors. I get it. That doesn't change the facts.
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
Junot Díaz is a widely lauded, utterly beloved misogynist. His books are regressive and sexist. He has treated women horrifically in every way possible. And the #MeToo stories are just starting. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
— Carmen Maria Machado (@carmenmmachado) May 4, 2018
To some, the news came as a shock. But others familiar with his work bring up the misogyny that made its way into his books. Still, others speculate that The New Yorker essay served as a calculated attempt to get ahead of these allegations. As his name trends on Twitter, people continue to weigh in about the accusations. Check out a few below:
The thing that really upsets me about the Junot Diaz allegations is that they shouldn't come as a surprise, given the context of his art. You want to believe he was not writing from experience, that it was bigger than that.
— Andrea González-Ramírez (@andreagonram) May 4, 2018
Anyway, I'm distraught at the revelation of Junot Diaz' extensive history of abusive behaviour. I feel immense shame that I, as an abuse survivor, was so desperate to read his New Yorker essay in good faith, and trust me when I say it's painful and frightening to be wrong again.
— jini maxwell (@astroblob) May 4, 2018
please don't defend Junot Diaz, in no way does his trauma justify the same infliction of harm on anyone else
— eman (@emanjafri) May 4, 2018
Re: Junot Diaz.. There needs to be a whole #MeToo conversation that is JUST ABOUT forcible kissing as a form of sexual assault. It's widespread, enraging, disgusting and abusive and doesn't get talked about nearly enough.
— Cardi's Baby Bump (@alwaystheself) May 4, 2018
I made several attempts to engage men who identified proudly as feminist on Junot Diaz’s behavior, and they were not having it. Don’t you dare ask women especially writers who were abused why they’re coming forward now. Merely critiquing his writing got you dismissed.
— Sofia Quintero (@sofiaquintero) May 4, 2018
Prob 7 or 8 years ago I attended a talk by Junot Diaz followed by a Q&A. A white woman, early twenties, asked a question related to an autobiography she was writing. He looked at her, a woman he had never met or spoken to, and responded, "you don't have a story to tell."
— Beth (@Bethfromhere) May 4, 2018
Editor’s Note: Remezcla has reached out to Díaz’s publisher, Riverhead Books, for comment. We’ll update the piece if more information becomes available.
