Dominicanidad in Contra (Diction): Marginality, Migration, and the Narration of a Dominican National Identity.

Abstract

ABSTRACT

DOMINICANIDAD IN CONTRA (DICTION): MARGINALITY, MIGRATION, AND THE NARRATION OF A DOMINICAN NATIONAL IDENTITY

by

Lorgia García Peña

Through a close reading of various historical and fictional texts, Dominicanidad in Contra (Diction) proposes an analysis of Haiti and the United States as two important psychological borders that have informed the process of imagining Dominicanidad. It departs from four key events that have shaped the contradictory narration of nation: (1) The Galindo murders in 1822; (2) The first United States military intervention of the Dominican Republic (1916-24); (3) The 1937 massacre of ethnic Haitians in the northern borderlands during the Trujillo Regime; and (4) The “democratization period” that began after the War of 1965 and which resulted in the massive migration of Dominicans to New York City. My project analyzes Dominican national narration as a contra (diction), insisting on the complexity of experiences that informed and defined how the nation was written Chapter 1 explores the constitution of the national discourse as anti-Haitian, anti-black and Hispanophile. The chapter puts into dialogue two fictional narratives: Cesar Nicolás Penson’s “Las Vírgenes de Galindo” and Max Henríquez Ureña’s La conspiración de Los Alcarrizos, with official documentations regarding the murders⎯ court transcripts, witness testimonies, newspaper articles⎯. Chapter 2 revisits the first U.S. military intervention (1916-24) by analyzing the emergence and persecution of a peasant religious leader, Olivorio Mateo and his followers, and the sexual oppression of women by U.S. marines as seen through Nelly Rosario’s Song of the Water Saints. Chapter 3 analyzes four representations of the 1937 Massacre: Juan Bosch’s “Luis Pié,” Freddy Prestol Castillo’s El Masacre se pasa a pie, Jacques Stephen Alexis’s Compère Général Soleil, and Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones. The final chapter focuses on Dominican identity discourses as produced by the U.S. Diaspora in Josefina Báez’s performance Dominicanish.