Contextualizing and Negotiating National Identity Through Ideological Fissures: Representations of the Afro Subject in the Dominican Novel, 1936-2006
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CONTEXTUALIZING AND NEGOTIATING NATIONAL IDENTITY THROUGH IDEOLOGICAL FISSURES: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE AFRO SUBJECT IN THE DOMINICAN NOVEL, 1936-2006 by Arne Romanowski BA, Northern Kentucky University, 2002 MA, Eastern Illinois University, 2004 MA, University of Cincinnati, 2007 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2015 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by Arne Romanowski It was defended on August 27, 2015 and approved by Dr. Juan Duchesne-Winter, Professor, Departement of Hispanic Languages and Literatures Dr. Daniel Balderston, Mellon Professor, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures Dr. Shalini Puri, Associate Professor, English Department Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Jerome Brache, Professor, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures ii Copyright © by Arne Romanowski 2015 iii CONTEXTUALIZING AND NEGOTIATING NATIONAL IDENTITY THROUGH IDEOLOGICAL FISSURES: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE AFRO SUBJECT IN THE DOMINICAN NOVEL, 1936-2006 Arne Romanowski, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2015 This dissertation’s principal objective is to examine the relationship between race and national belonging in the Dominican Republic, and to illustrate the necessity of moving beyond simplistic binaries when attempting to define and understand the process of Dominican national identity formation. In the analysis, I compare the manner in which the Afro subject—the Haitian, the West Indian cocolo, and the Afro-Dominican—is represented in three sugar-cane novels from the 1930s (General Rafael Trujillo's first decade in power), and in two much more recent works published in a politically less restrictive environment close to the turn of the millennium. The main point of reference for this study is an ideology that defines Haitians—and by extension those that resemble Haitians racially—as the opposite against which Dominicans identify themselves. My analysis of the representation of the Afro subject relates to the way race-making functions within the chosen narratives—as evidenced by the extent to which these works, on the one hand, participate in this subject’s negative Othering, and on the other hand point to shared socio-historical and geographical spaces, embracing a politics of social justice or an anti-racist agenda. Through a concept referred to as “fissures”—or openings in the ideological fabric of the iv text—the analysis demonstrates how all five novels are ambivalent regarding their positioning towards the Afro subject's place in the national arena. This type of tension illustrates that the process of constructing concepts of race and consequentially of belonging—essential to Dominican identity formation—is fluid, subjective, and complex, rather than built upon a historically univocal rejection of Haitians. In this way, my study inserts itself in a body of interdisciplinary scholarship demonstrating that a variety of currents and ideologies about race relations, identity formation, and nation building have always coexisted in the Dominican Republic. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ X INTRODUCTION (S) ................................................................................................................... 1 Historical Contexts ............................................................................................................... 2 Beyond Rigid Binaries: Identity, Race, and Discursive Fissures ................................... 21 Sugarcane Novels: Trujillo’s First Decade ....................................................................... 29 Nationalism, Rural Life, and the Afro Subject Prior to La Novela De La Caña .......... 35 The Afro Subject in Broader Contemporary Literary Trends ...................................... 40 Shifting Paradigms: Paving the Way for New Afro-Caribbean Perspectives .............. 45 Recent Novels: New Approaches ....................................................................................... 52 Selected Critical Receptions .............................................................................................. 60 Organization of the Analysis ............................................................................................. 76 1.0 CHAPTER ONE: CAÑAS Y BUEYES: MARGINAL DIFFERENCES AT THE PERIPHERY ............................................................................................................................... 81 1.1 Dialogues Of Difference: Language as Indicator of Social Status ........................ 91 1.2 Incipient Ideological Fissures: Ambivalent Animalization and Unity in Misery .............................................................................................................................................. 95 1.3 Gendered Impotence and Invisibility ...................................................................... 99 vi 2.0 CHAPTER TWO: OVER: THE WORLD OF SUGAR FROM THE MOST DOMINICAN POSITION ....................................................................................................... 105 2.1 Memories of Slavery ................................................................................................ 113 2.2 Not An-Other Black Migrant ................................................................................. 122 2.3 A Few Considerations about Afro-Dominicans and Female Characters ........... 127 3.0 CHAPTER THREE: ARCHETYPES OF PROLETARIAN FUNCTION: CHARACTERS OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN JENGIBRE ................................................ 131 3.1 Fissures Exposed Through Role-Reversal and Flaws in Character ................... 135 3.2 (Race) Naming, Marking, and Language as Tools of Differentiation ................ 143 3.3 Interrogating Spanish Ideals of Patriarchy and Catholicism .............................. 155 4.0 CHAPTER FOUR: RESURRECTING ANGLO-AFRO-CARIBBEAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DOMINICAN NATION : THE COCOLO EXPERIENCE IN TIEMPO MUERTO ................................................................................................................... 168 4.1 Imagery, Narrative Structure, and “Diasporan Creole” ..................................... 173 4.2 Disparate Visions of Blackness ............................................................................... 182 4.3 Where Are the Haitians? ........................................................................................ 193 5.0 CHAPTER FIVE: LA AVALANCHA: LEYENDA NEGRA: TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT ................................................................................................................................ 198 5.1 The Black Legend: Provoking Doubt Through Repetition, Contradiction, and Ambivalence ...................................................................................................................... 202 5.2 Stereotypes, Race-Naming, and the Use of Language .......................................... 217 5.3 Hypocrisy: A Possible Key to Critical Silence? .................................................... 227 FINAL THOUGHTS ................................................................................................................ 234 vii BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 237 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Migrant sugar workers in the Dominican Republic 1885-1935 ..................................... 14 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the product of a long journey. It would not have come to fruition without the help and support of countless people, some of whom I would like to thank here. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my dissertation director, Dr. Jerome Branche, and to my committee members, Dr. Shalini Puri, Dr. Daniel Balderston, and Dr. Juan Duchesne Winter, for stimulating my curiosity in the first place, and for their insight, guidance, and valuable suggestions through the completion of this project. Secondly, I would like to thank my family for their continuous encouragement and unconditional support. Mutti, ich danke Dir für all die ständige Ermutigung und Unterstützung! Lydi, unsere Gespräche waren und sind immer eine große Berreicherung. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my husband Julio, and my son Lucas, who have been right here by my side, living through the trials and triumphs of this process with me. None of this would have been possible without their love, their belief in me, our conversations, the emotional and practical support and understanding that made it possible to keep working, the occasional and necessary push forward, and our little escapes together. Julio, you are my rock; and Lucas, you are my sunshine. Mil gracias mi Lito, vielen Dank mein lieber Schatz! x INTRODUCTION (S) Since the onset of modernity and the European “discovery and conquest” of what is today known as Latin America, questions of race and race relations have been characterized as complex and multifaceted. The colonial system played a fundamental role in shaping the very notion of race, as well as the way that different racial groups were defined and how they related to each other. Naturally, there was quite a bit of variation depending on the manner in which different metropolises chose to administrate their new territories