The Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nation, and Archives of Contradiction

by Lorgia García Peña

In The Borders of Dominicanidad Lorgia García-Peña explores the ways official narratives and histories have been projected onto racialized Dominican bodies as a means of sustaining the nation's borders. García-Peña constructs a genealogy of dominicanidad that highlights how Afro-Dominicans, ethnic Haitians, and Dominicans living abroad have contested these dominant narratives and their violent, silencing, and exclusionary effects. Centering the role of U.S. imperialism in drawing racial borders between Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the United States, she analyzes musical, visual, artistic, and literary representations of foundational moments in the history of the Dominican the murder of three girls and their father in 1822; the criminalization of Afro-religious practice during the U.S. occupation between 1916 and 1924; the massacre of more than 20,000 people on the Dominican-Haitian border in 1937; and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. García-Peña also considers the contemporary emergence of a broader Dominican consciousness among artists and intellectuals that offers alternative perspectives to questions of identity as well as the means to make audible the voices of long-silenced Dominicans.

Genres: Nonfiction, Race, Academic, History

288 pages, Hardcover

Published November 8, 2016

Reviews

[Arturo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for everybody interested in Dominican literature, history and culture. A wonderful, and poignant analysis of foundational texts from the Dominican canon such as "Las vírgenes de Galindo" which is demystified and deconstructed to reveal how history was falsified to construct one of the founding myths of the Dominican nation. Lorgia García-Peña also delves deeply into the works on Dominicanyork artist Josefina Báez showing how her body, speech and performance contradicts the main narrative of Dominican nationhood and personhood. A truly great contribution to Dominican Studies!

[tinaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you know the “I no black. I dominican.” meme, this tells of the reasoning for that. Although this is a dense read I think even reading one chapter can introduce someone to the unknown history of the Dominican Republic and Haiti as well as the US involvement in these countries.

Using various writings and figures, the themes of racial paradigms are made and constructed as well as contradicted between dominicans and haitians. I am compelled to learn more about the history and feel as if this review is underwhelming for the amount of information in this book.

[Miguel Yarull · Rating 4 out of 5]

Valiente y minuciosa, “dominicanidad” es una obra exigente que recompensa, poniéndole el cascabel a la historia cultural y racial de la isla y a sus herencias.

[Nella ☾ of Bookland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and eye-opening. Dense and hard to read.

[Betty F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spent the day reading this and dang, just feeling a range of emotions. I'm glad to finally have delved in after having read the first chapter when I first bought it years ago and seeing my notes of anger that still resonated at how the rearranging of history by those telling it in this case nationalists made it so that anti-Haitinism has been a part of Dominican history since the island gained "independence." Learning more about the massacre of 1937, the US military intervention in 1965 and the continued othering of Haitians and ethnic Dominicans just makes this book so important in that it's all about the contradictions therein of all these moments in history that made me understand the present DR more. Really appreciated the last chapter about the Dominicano ausente (the absent Dominican) and the delving in of the phrase that has picked up popularity in recent years 'ni de aqui, ni de alla.' That feeling of othering that happens because folks migrated and for kids of those people (me!) there was a quote that really resonated. "But which tongue is native for an immigrant whose mother tongue is Spanish and whose language of instruction was English? How can she articulate the multiplicity of her experiences in the host language without losing part of her own history?" Ooh that's it. There's so much more I am still stewing on and I'll have to come back to this to add to my thoughts. This does such necessary work of analyzing the effects of colonization, imperialism, nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Reading this and the book about Puerto Rico's history back to back has me wanting to continue just reading all the books about Caribbean and Latiin American history.

[Yarel Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author demonstrates deep study of authentic resources to contradict the documented history of the Dominican Republic and the relationship, as a result, with Haiti which then relates to Dominican identity. This a great resource to build a foundation of knowledge of Dominican history, the Dominican diaspora, and the works that exist that continuously challenge and contradict Dominican identity.

[Daniel Guarín · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting academic book to know more about the Hispaniola island and its history.

[Hector · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read

[Yehimy Duran · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is ridiculous. How is it that in this book only the Trujillo barbarism against Haitians is mentioned but never what happened to the massacre of Moca and the Cibao ?

[Mills College Library]

327.73072 G2167 2016