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Borders have always shaped the history of Hispaniola, but they are not always man-made

Dividing Hispaniola: The Dominican Republic's Border Campaign against Haiti by Edward Paulino (pg.12)

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Five Fiction Books

P1. Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa If you are looking for a colorful yet dark read about Rafael Trujillo – the brutal yet iconic dictator that ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in May 1961, read Vargas’s account of El Jefe’s life and murder.This is fictionalized history at its best with three stories woven throughout the novel, including the gripping account of how the assassination of Trujillo by former loyalist was planned and eventually carried out.The interwoven story of sex and power will not only bring out the raging feminist in you, but might even shed some light on how contemporary Dominican men tend to treat women.(https://www.cabaretelanguage.com/10-books-read-visit-dominican-republic/)

2. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love. (Amazon.com)

3.The Color of My Words by Lynn Joseph

This powerful and resonant Américas Award-winning novel tells the story of a young girl’s struggle to find her place in the world and to become a writer in a country where words are feared.

Seamlessly interweaving both poetry and prose, Lynn Joseph’s acclaimed debut is a lush and lyrical journey into a landscape and culture of the Dominican Republic.

The Color of My Words explores the pain and poetry of discovering what it means to be part of a family, what it takes to find your voice and the means for it to be heard, and how it feels to write it all down.(Amazon.com)

4. Wicked Weeds: A Zombie Novel by Pedro Cabiya

Set at the contact zones between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, this is a polyphonic novel, an intense and sometimes funny pharmacopeia of love lost and humanity regained; a most original combination of Caribbean noir and science-fiction addressing issues of global relevance including novel takes on ecological/apocalyptical imbalance bound to make an impact. A Caribbean zombie—smart, gentlemanly, financially independent, and a top executive at an important pharmaceutical company—becomes obsessed with finding the formula that would reverse his condition and allow him to become "a real person." In the process, three of his closest collaborators (cerebral and calculating Isadore, wide-eyed and sentimental Mathilde, and rambunctious Patricia), guide the reluctant and baffled scientist through the unpredictable intersections of love, passion, empathy, and humanity. But the playful maze of jealousy and amorous intrigue that a living being would find easy to negotiate represents an insurmountable tangle of dangerous ambiguities for our "undead" protagonist. (Amazon.com)

5. The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

It is 1937 and Amabelle Désir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a wealthy colonel. She and Sebastien, a cane worker, are deeply in love and plan to marry. But Amabelle's  world collapses when a wave of genocidal violence, driven by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, leads to the slaughter of Haitian workers. Amabelle and Sebastien are separated, and she desperately flees the tide of violence for a Haiti she barely remembers. Already acknowledged as a classic, this harrowing story of love and survival—from one of the most important voices of her generation—is an unforgettable memorial to the victims of the Parsley Massacre and a testimony to the power of human memory. (Amazon.com)

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Five Nonfiction Books

 1. In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

Set during the last days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, three young sisters, members of a conservative, pious Catholic family, who had become committed to the revolutionary overthrow of the regime, were ambushed and assassinated as they drove back from visiting their jailed husbands.

Thus martyred, the Mirabal sisters have become mythical figures in their country, where they are known as Las Mariposas (the butterflies), from their underground code names. Alvarez, a Dominican-American, has fictionalized their story in a narrative that starts slowly but builds to a gripping intensity. Each of the girls–Patria, Minerva and Maria Terese (Mate) Mirabal–speaks in her own voice, beginning from their childhood in the 1940s; their surviving sister, Dede, frames the narrative with her own tale of suffering and dedication to their memory.

Alvarez captures the terrorized atmosphere of a police state, in which people live under the sword of terrible fear and atrocities cannot be acknowledged. As the sisters’ energetic fervor turns to anguish, Alvarez conveys their courage and their desperation, and the full impact of their tragedy. (From Publishers Weekly)

2.  The Dominican Republic Reader: History, Culture, Politics by Eric Paul Roorda

Despite its significance in the history of Spanish colonialism, the Dominican Republic is familiar to most outsiders through only a few elements of its past and culture. Non-Dominicans may be aware that the country shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and that it is where Christopher Columbus chose to build a colony. Some may know that the country produces talented baseball players and musicians; others that it is a prime destination for beach vacations. Little else about the Dominican Republic is common knowledge outside its borders. This Reader seeks to change that. It provides an introduction to the history, politics, and culture of the country, from precolonial times into the early twenty-first century. Among the volume's 118 selections are essays, speeches, journalism, songs, poems, legal documents, testimonials, and short stories, as well as several interviews conducted especially for this Reader. Many of the selections have been translated into English for the first time. All of them are preceded by brief introductions written by the editors. The volume's eighty-five illustrations, ten of which appear in color, include maps, paintings, and photos of architecture, statues, famous figures, and Dominicans going about their everyday lives. (Amazon.com)

3. Dividing Hispaniola: The Dominican Republic's Border Campaign against Haiti by  Edward Paulino

The island of Hispaniola is split by a border that divides the Dominican Republic and Haiti. This border has been historically contested and largely porous. Dividing Hispaniola is a study of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo’s scheme, during the mid-twentieth century, to create and reinforce a buffer zone on this border through the establishment of state institutions and an ideological campaign against what was considered an encroaching black, inferior, and bellicose Haitian state. The success of this program relied on convincing Dominicans that regardless of their actual color, whiteness was synonymous with Dominican cultural identity. (Amazon.com)

4. The Dominican Racial Imaginary: Surveying the Landscape of Race and Nation in Hispaniola by Milagros Ricourt

This book begins with a simple question: why do so many Dominicans deny the African components of their DNA, culture, and history?  Seeking answers, Milagros Ricourt uncovers a complex and often contradictory Dominican racial imaginary. Observing how Dominicans have traditionally identified in opposition to their neighbors on the island of Hispaniola—Haitians of African descent—she finds that the Dominican Republic’s social elite has long propagated a national creation myth that conceives of the Dominican as a perfect hybrid of native islanders and Spanish settlers. Yet as she pores through rare historical documents, interviews contemporary Dominicans, and recalls her own childhood memories of life on the island, Ricourt encounters persistent challenges to this myth. Through fieldwork at the Dominican-Haitian border, she gives a firsthand look at how Dominicans are resisting the official account of their national identity and instead embracing the African influence that has always been part of their cultural heritage.   Building on the work of theorists ranging from Edward Said to Édouard Glissant, this book expands our understanding of how national and racial imaginaries develop, why they persist, and how they might be subverted. As it confronts Hispaniola’s dark legacies of slavery and colonial oppression, The Dominican Racial Imaginary also delivers an inspiring message on how multicultural communities might cooperate to disrupt the enduring power of white supremacy. (Amazon.com)

5. Blacks, Mulattos, and the Dominican Nation by Franklin J. Franco

Blacks, Mulattos, and the Dominican Nation is the first English translation of the classic text Los negros, los mulatos y la nación dominicana by esteemed Dominican scholar Franklin J. Franco. Published in 1969, this book was the first systematic work on the role of Afro-descendants in Dominican society, the first society of the modern Americas where a Black-Mulatto population majority developed during the 16th century. Franco’s work, a foundational text for Dominican ethnic studies, constituted a paradigm shift, breaking with the distortions of traditional histories that focused on the colonial elite to place Afro-descendants, slavery, and race relations at the center of Dominican history. (Amazon.com)

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“The only way to get rid of him was to kill him.”

Captain Florio Risk holds the Colt 1911 .45 used by Antonio Imbert-Barrera, right, to assassinate the President of the Dominican Republic Rafael Trujillo, known as the worst, most brutal dictator to ever reign in Latin America.

Antonio was a Major General under President Trujillo, and one of 14 conspirators to kill him. Trujillo ruled like a Stalinist, imprisoning and killing suspected adversaries based on little, fabricated, or no evidence. Maj. Gen. Antonio Imbert-Barrera’s own brother was a victim of the regime.

The night of May 30 1961 the conspirators followed their President’s limousine and sprayed it with gunfire on the road. The security detail spilled out and there was a brief firefight. The dictator was wounded while a group of 4 flanked and rushed him, led by Antonio.

“I was lying 10 feet from him. I aimed my .45 and shot. One bullet hit him in the chin. It knocked him on his back, and he must have died instantly. He never moved again.”

The assassination was the easy part. Trujillo’s brother took control of the country, hunted down and executed 12 of the 14 conspirators. Antonio survived, staged another coup and actually became President of the Dominican Republic himself for a time. The D.R. stabilized and Antonio Imbert-Barrera became a national hero. He died of natural causes in 2015.

His .45 is kept in a museum along with the bullet-ridden car of the former dictator.

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“Merengue” by me. Ode to my country’s roots. Dominicana.🌹

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Boca Chica, República Dominicana

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Gonna post this whole series eventually. I’m learning a lot by watching these, so apologies if there’s anything in them that’s debatable or inaccurate (pointing it out would be great so I can reblog and add that to our collection of education over here).

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Puerto Plata

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3/11/17: Nelson Cruz, with Team Dominican Republic down 5-3, hits a monstrous three run home run to lead his national team past Team USA in the first round of the World Baseball Classic.

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República Dominicana

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more views from the 809 🇩🇴

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Untitled (Platano)

by Guarionex Rodriguez