In his celebrated book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz creates a rich, unforgettable portrait of the lead character. Among other things, Oscar’s sense of Dominican heritage is intimately tied to his worldview as a nerd. This author interview clues us in to this rare, non-steretypical marriage of science fiction and Latino culture. To learn about how Oscar’s identity is fundamentally tied to ideas about race, racism, whiteness, and a colonial heritage of rape, see: The Search for Decolonial Love