In Junot Diaz’s collections of short stories he writes about a young man named Ysrael who had his face bitten off by a pig when he was an infant. In his short story “No Face” the reader is given a day in the life of this boy and the tribulations that he has to endure. Not only does he have to deal with the fact that he will most likely have to live with his disfigurement for the rest of his life but he also has to endure persecution from the cruelty of others. He spends his days running and building up the muscle to escape the boys that bully him on a daily basis. The last line in “No Face” states “he runs, down towards town, never slipping or stumbling. No body’s faster” (106). This final sentence, in my mind, represents that he will forever be running thanks to the country he was born in whose poor infrastructure gave him the disfigured face in the first place with no way to correct it.

The text in “No Face” does not explicitly tell the reader why he has to wear a mask in public, but it is through his nightmares that we find out that it was a pig that had broken into his home and bitten it off (157). From birth he seems to be already cursed with disadvantage by the poverty of the nation. It is when he visits temporary Canadian doctors who are visiting the country that he realizes that he is not alone in his ailment. He witnesses two young children who were also disadvantaged by being born without arms and without proper fusing growth plates in the skull (159).

While visiting the Canadian doctors we also learn that there is almost nothing that they can do to improve Ysrael’s situation unless he travels to another country. This further shows how the author wants to show how hostile the environment of his birthplace is and how the only way to find hope in a better life is to move away. There seems to be only heartbreak and troubles waiting for Ysrael if he decides to stay. His home has brought him nothing but reasons to escape in search for a better life elsewhere.

I believe that the author in “No Face” uses physical disabilities to better illustrate how much poor a infrastructure in a country can disadvantage people even from birth. People throughout the short stories are constantly looking to flee from their poverty by moving out of the nation. Ysrael is plagued with disability right off the bat along with many others due to a poor government. As illustrated his home has brought little safety and nutrition to its people. Due to being born into the nation, Ysrael is destined to live a life of running away. He has to either run away from the bullies that throw rocks and balk at his face or he has to move away to the US or Canada in search for a better life.