The Murder of the Mirabal Sisters in the Dominican Republic

At the highest point on the winding highway over the Dominican Republic’s northern mountains, there is a place that is called what it is: La Cumbre, The Summit. In the daytime, in the sunshine, or under a soft tropical rain, it is a beautiful spot, with the impossibly green mountainsides falling away on both sides of the crest. But on the night of November 25, 1960, it was the scene of unutterable horror, witness to an automobile rolling and tumbling down the cliff, with the violated and mutilated corpses of three women inside. They were three of the four sisters of the Mirabal Reyes family, who were murdered for their political involvement: Patria Mercedes (born on February 27, Dominican Independence Day, in 1924, and accordingly named “homeland”), María Argentina Minerva (born March 12, 1926), and Antonia María Teresa (born October 15, 1935). Their driver, Rufino de la Cruz (born November 16, 1923), was murdered with them. The fourth Mirabal sister, Bélgica Adela “Dedé” (March 1, 1925–February 1, 2014) who was not directly involved in her sisters’ opposition activities, survived to be their witness. The brutal murder of the charismatic Hermanas Mirabal was the most notorious, and the most widely reviled, of the countless crimes committed by the regime of Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until 1961. The Mirabal Sisters’ demise mobilized international censure of the Trujillo regime and contributed to its downfall, because they were the most charismatic of his victims, and because their kidnapping and murder constituted the most outrageous of the crimes committed during his lengthy dictatorship. In 1999, the United Nations designated November 25, the date of the Mirabal Sisters’ murder, to be memorialized as International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which it has been ever since.

Los juegos del dictador: Rafael Trujillo, el centenario dominicano y la solidaridad antillana durante los Juegos Interantillanos de 1944 = The Dictator’s Games: Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican Centenary, and Antillean Solidarity during the 1944 Inter-Antillean Games

Resumen: Este artículo analiza los Juegos Interantillanos realizados en Ciudad Trujillo (Santo Domingo) en 1944. Dicha competencia fue parte de las celebraciones oficiales del centenario de la República Dominicana y participaron los tres países hispano-Caribeños: Cuba, Puerto Rico y la República Dominicana. Entre los objetivos de los Juegos se contaba fomentar la fraternidad en el Caribe hispano. Sin embargo, el mensaje de paz y hermandad que el discurso oficial de los Juegos promovía contrasta con la dictadura del General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. El argumento de este estudio es que los Juegos Interantillanos sirvieron como una herramienta al servicio de la hegemonía dictatorial y complementaba la brutal represión del trujillato. Estos Juegos también contribuyeron a reforzar la identidad de la República Dominicana como una nación hispano-Caribeña, diferente y superior de sus vecinos no-hispanohablantes, especialmente en comparación a Haití.Palabras clave: Juegos Interantillanos, Movimiento Olímpico, República Dominicana, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, Solidaridad, Centenario.Abstract: This project analyzes the Inter-Antillean Games held in Ciudad Trujillo (Santo Domingo) in 1944. That tournament was part of the official celebrations of the Dominican Republic’s Centennial celebrations and featured the three Spanish speaking Caribbean countries: Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Among the Games’ objectives was fostering Spanish Caribbean confraternity and goodwill. However, the Games’ message of peace and goodwill that the official discourse promoted contrasts with the dictatorship of General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. This article argues that the Inter-Antillean Games served as another hegemonic tool of the regime and complemented the trujillato’s brutal repression. It also served as a way to further establish the Dominican Republic as a “Spanish” Caribbean nation, different and better than their nonHispanic Caribbean neighbor, especially to Haiti.Keywords: Inter-Antillean Games, Olympic Movement, Dominican Republic, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, Solidarity, Centenary.

La blancura en el paraíso: narrativas de identidad de inmigrantes japoneses, acción colectiva, y la responsabilidad nacional de Japón

En la década de los cincuenta, el gobierno dominicano, bajo la presidencia de Rafael Trujillo, ofreció tierras gratuitas a los inmigrantes japoneses para que se instalaran en la frontera domínicohaitiana. Las colonias japonesas -o colonias agriculturales- fueron parte de los proyectos de construcción de la nación en la República Dominicana (RD) y en Japón, lo cual posiciona a las colonias japonesas como una solución para el “problema haitiano” y para la sobrepoblación, respectivamente. Sin embargo, a lo largo del tiempo las colonias fallaron, dejando a muchos migrantes japoneses decepcionados y con la necesidad de navegar su identidad nacional entre dos estados. Este artículo examina la manera en la que los inmigrantes japoneses cambiaron intereses locales y nacionales, ideologías y experiencias vividas para llevar a cabo una demanda en contra del gobierno japonés por una infundada experiencia paradisíaca de inmigración en la RD. El caso en la corte japonesa provee un argumento irresistible para explorar cómo los inmigrantes pusieron de moda nuevamente discursos nacionales de identidad y acciones legales colectivas para hacer responsable a su gobierno natal por su asentamiento, mientras también abrazaban múltiples identidades nacionales y etno-raciales en su nueva patria.

Advocating Suffrage and Sovereignty

Chapter 1 traces the increasing involvement of Dominican women in national politics through the 1920s and 1930s from the U.S. Occupation to the first decade of the Trujillo regime. During this period, Dominican women used the Pan-American arena to press for changes at the local level and they employed the rhetoric of egalitarian rule to assert their place in the theatre of democracy that Trujillo had begun to act out locally for the international stage. By proving themselves as skilled, networked, and non-threatening agents, the women active prior to and during the first decade of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo made themselves central to a carefully orchestrated national and international reputation, garnered concrete political gains like suffrage, and allowed for their continued engagement with the politics of the Dominican state through an intense period of transition.

Una isla y dos naciones: relaciones dominico-haitianas en el masacre se pasa a pie de Freddy Prestol Castillo

La frontera entre la República Dominicana y Haití ha sido tradicionalmente un lugar difuso, mítico y también trágico. A través de ella se cuentan historias de las poblaciones de dos países muy cercanos en composición étnica, pero muy diversos en el plano cultural. Esta porosa región de la isla fue testigo de la más sangrienta matanza étnica que ha tenido lugar en el Caribe durante el siglo XX. En 1937, el dictador dominicano Rafael Trujillo ordenó el asesinato de todos los haitianos que se encontraran del lado dominicano de la frontera. Este horrendo episodio ha sido contado en numerosas ocasiones por escritores haitianos. Pero la única obra narrativa que de alguna manera expresa la versión dominicana de los acontecimientos, tuvo que esperar 36 años desde su redacción para ser para ser publicada en 1973. Se trata de la novela-testimonio El Masacre se pasa a pie de la autoría de Freddy Prestol Castillo. En este artículo analizo esta obra literaria como una representación de las tortuosas relaciones entre dos naciones que por razones históricas están obligadas a compartir una misma isla.

Intimate Violations: Women and the Ajusticiamiento of Dictator Rafael Trujillo, 1944-1961

The foundation of social order, the primary essence and basic nucleus of every political organization, rests in the family, without whose stable and healthy development, the prosperity of the nation is impossible. On the afternoon of August 10, 1959, several dozen Dominican and Cuban women gathered in the streets of Havana. Dressed in black as though headed to a funeral, they mourned the political situation in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Specifically, they targeted the dictator Rafael Trujillo, calling him the “Jackal of the Caribbean.” As they paraded through the streets carrying placards and visiting newspaper offices, tliey were focusing attention on their specific struggles as women and motliers. Their posters read, “Dominican Women Support the Revolutionary Government”; “We Ask for the Expulsion of Trujillo from the OAS”; and “We Represent the Mourning of the Assassinations Committed by Trujillo.”

Intimate Violations: Women and the Ajusticiamiento of Dictator Rafael Trujillo, 1944-1961

The foundation of social order, the primary essence and basic nucleus of every political organization, rests in the family, without whose stable and healthy development, the prosperity of the nation is impossible.On the afternoon of August 10, 1959, several dozen Dominican and Cuban women gathered in the streets of Havana. Dressed in black as though headed to a funeral, they mourned the political situation in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Specifically, they targeted the dictator Rafael Trujillo, calling him the “Jackal of the Caribbean.” As they paraded through the streets carrying placards and visiting newspaper offices, tliey were focusing attention on their specific struggles as women and motliers. Their posters read, “Dominican Women Support the Revolutionary Government”; “We Ask for the Expulsion of Trujillo from the OAS”; and “We Represent the Mourning of the Assassinations Committed by Trujillo.”