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2015: The Year of Reading Women discussion
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Julia Alvarez
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Linda
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Mar 16, 2015 09:32AM
I've read it several times and would consider a re-read (I use it in a class).
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any time--since it's a re-read, it'll go fast for me, so I don't have to worry much about other conflicts with my f2f, etc.
I am nearly halfway through the book, is anyone else reading?
I've read it several times, so will try to grab it out of my office this weekend. Go ahead with comments; it's not that I know it by heart, but I do know it pretty well.
what made you re-read, despite the painful story?I like Patria's voice, her self-awareness...
Well, first, it's life experience--my ex-husband's Dominican, and that was the first country outside the US that I ever visited. So there's always a certain fondness for the first place that you ever visit, I guess.I teach a course on the Caribbean (in Spanish). When we get to the issue of diaspora, I use this, even though it's in English (she and Diaz are about the best examples out there, from the DR). So I've read this several times, and have also read Dede Mirabal's own version, bc I thought it would be interesting to see what her take was on it.
When we discuss it, we discuss those different voices, as well as the topics of the dictatorship and life under it, Catholicism vs popular or synchretic religions, women's rights at the time, the matter of translation (both language and experience/culture), etc.
I have always had difficulty keeping Patria and Dede separate when reading, just because she does a wonderful job of making Maite's distinct from everyone elses. But yes, there's a certain strength to Patria's voice, a thoughtfulness followed by unwavering confidence in her decisions.
Wow I thought Patria was really distinctive, at least as much as Mate, if not more, while Minerva (what a perfect name!) and Dede seem more... unaffected? Maybe it's Patria's character that's remarkable, her self-control.The Taino are mentioned quite a few times with an awareness of colonisation. The BBC recently showed a documentary about the Taino, I should look for it to see if it's available on iPlayer...
Trujillo apparently invited some Spaniards 'to whiten the race' in the '40s. It's also mentioned that he uses skin lightening products, but otherwise race hasn't been explored much as a topic, I wish there were more.
However, I think it's a very interesting novel in terms of framing gender & gender roles...
The Tainos lived throughout the DR/Hispaniola, Puerto Rico. They were pretty much exterminated, though some remnants of the culture remian (a few archaeological sites, some words--such as canoe (canoa), Hammock (hamaca), and hurricane (their god Huracan).Race was and still is a complicated topic. There's a wide range, every color you can imagine between dark black skin and "white" skin. It's a country where the majority have some amount of African heritage, but it's a question of who recognizes it and who wants to deny it. That denial has been a topic in poetry and literature in the area for almost a century now (look for Nicolas Guillen, for example, or Vizcarrondo and Luis Pales Matos). We talked about it last semester in another class; there was a young man from a well-known and wealthy DR family in the class. When we looked at the statistics on the DR's most recent census, he agreed that the number claiming to be white should be lower and those claiming to be black should be higher.
Trujillo was known for using pancake flour to lighten his skin, and the part about the "love potion" or his medals is no joke, either. One of his nicknames mentioned in the book "Chapitas" came from his childhood, when he asked his mother to sew bottle caps onto his clothes, as if they were medals. You can find mention of the pancake flour (even the actual powder box he used) in a video series done with Alex Haley on "Black in America" (I think DR and Haiti are episode one or two). The tackle the whole complicated nature of the question of race in the Hispanic Caribbean, though I think they kind of go a bit far in the other direction.
I translated a colleague's book on one chapter of Trujillo's eugenic project. After he invited the Spaniards, Jews, and Hungarians (most of which failed, because they were all from large urban centers, and did not want to be on small farms in the middle of nowhere along the Haitian border--which is where Trujillo sought to lighten the lines), he invited the Japanese. While the majority of the Jews moved into urban centers, along with the Hungrians and Spaniards escaping the various wars of Europe, some stayed behind and established what came to be a strong dairy industry.
So when Japan opened its doors to let a few of its citizens out, Trujillo jumped on that, thinking that that would be the next stage of lightening the skin color of border residents. The same thing happened--in the interior, they were missing fish, a large part of their diet, and not doing as well farming. Others stayed, and that's what my colleague (in History) was researching. There are some great stories in her book (Valentina Peguero) on the culture clashes. It would have been happening just about the time the events in this book took place.
Since I haven't been in a very long time (divorced over 20 years now), I've often wondered aloud in class if, now that Volkswagen has brought back the beetle, the black ones are selling in that country (I recently purchased a VW, and the dealer has an old black one, from this time period, in the showroom. Even though I didn't grow up there/in that time, it makes me shiver to see it). One of my students has had a series of Dominican boyfriends, and she has confirmed through them and their families that, no, the black ones aren't really selling down there.
Here's a link to the photos of the women themselves...it probably doesn't come up a lot in the book because they weren't affected by it, in large part. https://www.google.com/search?q=mirab...
Wow thank you for all this and especially the pictures. I finished the book tonight, still have to process some...
There's a lot to process! Usually hard for most of my students to wrap their heads around, since we don't imagine our government of being capable of such things (even though it could be).There's also a connection to where I live locally now; I always award 2 pts on an exam to the first person who can come up with the connection between Trujillo and where we are....makes the afternoon fun; usually is awarded to that student who doesn't have time to sit around and google.
I found this interesting because I'd done my diss on testimonial lit, so I wanted to see what the fictionalized account was. Then, when Dede published hers, I wanted to see what was different. Still haven't seen the film yet (is there more than one? One in Spanish, one in English?)
Didn't know Dede had written her own account or about movie!
The TV Movie was done years ago, but I (sadly) have yet to see it. Maybe it didn't make the jump across the pond. Starring Lumi Cavazos (Like Water for Chocolate), Salma Hayek, Edward James Olmos...I'm sure the DOminicans were thrilled to see the major roles played by Mexican actors. Oh, well. They did get Marc Anthony, so I guess that's getting closer.Dede's account came out just a couple of years ago.
Little Minou became a congresswoman...
Here's a link (not great editing on this article, but to give you an idea). Apparently, there was yet another movie, this time in Spanish with Michelle Rodriguez. And a documentary.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frankli...
Her memoir is entitled "Vivas en su jardin", but I can't tell if it's "Alive in their garden" or "Alive in His garden."
Hmmm. ...there's an audiobook available in Spanish, read by Dede herself. That would be kind of cool, I think!
That does sound cool. It makes you think about truth and living history to have all these tales and tellers swimming about
Well, having studied testimonial before, I thought it was interesting that, having met with Alvarez when she was writing this (admittedly fictionalized) story, she then felt the need to sit down with someone else and tell it again. I don't know whether it was the novel's popularity and the possible generation of future income that sparked it, or the need to tell the "real" version. I didn't find anything in the intro that would indicate a difference of opinion with Alvarez, or discontent with the way she told it.Yes, interesting to have the lone survivor of the group tell her story in her own voice. It's such a small country, it would be hard to throw a stick in any part of it and not hit someone who knew the family, or one of them.
Indeed, it was an audacious idea like it or not
If I remember correctly, the only huge discrepancy (and not huge, but huge because the novel and the movie made it huge, though it was indeed a pivotal moment in the series of events) was the way the conversation between Minerva and the dictator went down. Apparently, she didn't really slap him, I think was the difference. Regardless, it was a conversation that left the dictator's interest piqued, since no one ever defied him and lived to tel about it. And neither did she...
Indeed, though perhaps we can say she survived longer than most after doing so!
