RE-MAPPING HISPANIOLA: HAITI IN DOMINICAN AND DOMINICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE By Megan Jeanette Myers Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Spanish August, 2016 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: William Luis, Ph.D. Ruth Hill, Ph.D. Lorraine López, Ph.D. Benigno Trigo, Ph.D. Copyright © 2016 by Megan Jeanette Myers All rights reserved ii Dedicated to my three Mars: My Dominican ahijadas, Marializ and Marisol, and my own sweet Marcela iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am incredibly thankful for the support of so many individuals with whom I have worked on this project. I am especially grateful for the support of my dissertation advisor, Professor William Luis. Thank you for your guidance and for pushing me to produce the best work possible. I chose to come to Vanderbilt in large part to work with you and you never disappointed me. Thank you for your advice during the academic job search and for giving me the opportunity to work with the Afro-Hispanic Review and the Latino and Latina Studies Program at Vanderbilt. I also want to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Professor Ruth Hill, Professor Lorraine López, and Professor Benigno Trigo. Thank you for your thoughtful comments during my doctoral exams and for your time and support. I am incredibly thankful to Vanderbilt for all the opportunities it has provided me in terms of funding and academic support. A Summer Research Award from the Graduate School allowed me to conduct preliminary dissertation research in the Dominican Republic. A FLAS (Foreign Language Area Service) Grant awarded by the Center for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt gifted me the opportunity to learn Haitain Kreyól at Florida International University in Miami, FL and in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. The service-free 2015-2016 academic year award, given by the Spanish and Portuguese Department, was instrumental in the completion of my dissertation. I am also grateful to the Vanderbilt Curb Center for encouraging me to think about the broader implications of my dissertation project as a 2015-2016 Public Scholar. The Center for Second Language Studies (CSLS) also represents an important piece of my five years at Vanderbilt. Thank you to Felekech Tigabu, Todd Hughes, and Virginia Scott for welcoming me as part of iv the CSLS team and for your support and friendship. I am grateful for Digital Humanities working groups hosted by the CSLS like the Geospatial Analysis group led by Todd Hughes. I also need to say thank you to Cliff Anderson and Lindsey Fox for helping me to display my digital map on my domain name, remapping-hispaniola.org. I am especially grateful to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Vanderbilt. Thank you to the wonderful professors and scholars with whom I did my course work and to the language coordinators for being expert teaching mentors, especially Frances Alpren. Lilliana Rodríguez, the Department Administrative Assistant, is a face I will miss seeing so often. Thank you for your help, Lilliana, and for answering so many of my questions. Thank you to fellow graduate students that helped to create a rich, interactive learning environment in the Department. A special thank you to Rosie Seagraves for sharing your graduate school knowledge, to Camille Sutton for being a wonderful mom-scholar example and my favorite vecina, and to Tim and Katie Foster. To my dear friend, Ben Galina, thank you for always being there for me. I hope we continue to “treat” each other to coffee for years to come. To my parents, Shelley/Gammy and Ron/Rocky/Pappy, I am not sure I could ever thank you enough. You taught me to follow my dreams and encouraged me to attend Middlebury where my love of languages and literature reached new heights. Thank you for the gift of education and for being such wonderful role models. I also need to thank my siblings. To my “twin,” John, I am forever grateful for your reading of an earlier version of my dissertation. Starbucks on me (for life). Seriously. To my much more chic little sister, Ellen, thank you for checking in on me often and for your words of support. I also need to thank my second family, the Myers, the family I was lucky enough to marry v into. A special thank you to the grandmas, Mimi and Gammy, for visiting Nashville often to help take care of Marcy. You made my dissertation and job-hunt much less stressful! Thank you, also, to my Border of Lights/Frontera de Luz “family,” especially Julia Alvarez and Bill Eichner, and to my Dominican family: Bichan, Gladys, Dolores, Silbano, and Rubio…thank you for being my “home” on la isla. I saved the “best” and most important thank you for last. I need to thank my eighth-grade sweetheart and husband, Chris (Peaches) Myers. Thank you for believing in me and supporting all of my (sometimes crazy) endeavors. Your love and support made this project possible. Te quiero mucho. Finally, thank you to my “dissertation baby,” Marcela Steel Myers. You remind me everyday what is important in life and you taught me that work time is precious and requires 100% focus so I can be all about family when I am home. You light up our lives, Marcelita! vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1: WHOSE HAITI?: PAN-LATIN AMERICAN INTERPRETATIONS OF HISPANIOLA .................................................................................................................. 27 The Haitian Revolution’s 200th Anniversary and Beyond ............................................. 31 A (Literary) Border: Between History and Fiction ....................................................... 39 Kingdom of (Carpentier’s) World ................................................................................. 45 Manuel Zapata Olivella’s Dual Erasure ........................................................................ 58 Curbing an “Addiction:” Mario Vargas Llosa’s Dominican Republic .......................... 73 Multiple “Hispaniola(s)” ............................................................................................... 82 CHAPTER 2: DOUBLE TAKES: WRITING HAITI DURING THE TRUJILLATO (1930-61) .......................................................................................................................... 86 The trujillato and Trujillo’s “Revaluation and Reconstruction” of the Dominican Republic ......................................................................................................................... 86 Marrero Aristy and Prestol Castillo: Just Two More “trujillistas teóricos?” ................ 93 Not Over it!: Reading Haiti in Ramón Marrero Aristy ................................................. 96 Freddy Prestol Castillo’s Literary “péndulo:” El masacre se pasa a pie and Paisajes y meditaciones de una frontera ...................................................................................... 115 CHAPTER 3: A DISAPPEARING ACT: MARCIO VELOZ MAGGIOLO’S LÍNEA . 143 Toward a Typification of the Haitian-Dominican Border? ......................................... 143 The (Un)delineated Line in El hombre del acordeón .................................................. 152 La L/línea “no tan delineada” ...................................................................................... 157 Beyond Lyrics: Rebellion in El hombre del acordeón ................................................ 165 (The impossibility of) “una historia simple” ............................................................... 170 La vida no tiene nombre: “novela de ocupaciones” .................................................... 176 On/Off the Border: El Seibo ........................................................................................ 183 Los dos padres-villanos: Ramon’s Two-part Rebellion .............................................. 188 Race (Un)-simplified: The Case of the Haitian-Dominican ........................................ 191 “Pocas obras [dominicanas]” on the Haitian Subject? ................................................ 194 CHAPTER 4: HISPANIOLA BEYOND ITS BORDERS: HAITI IN DOMINICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE ......................................................................................... 197 vii “Hyphenated [Dominican] Subjects” With Alternate Views of Haiti ......................... 197 Wed to Haiti: Julia Alvarez’s Long-Distance (Literary) Relationship ........................ 205 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: An Afro-Nerd Paves the Way for Racial Inclusivity .................................................................................................................... 211 “Enemies” on the Island, “Relatives” in Nueva York: Carving a Space for Haitians in Novel and Memoir ....................................................................................................... 219 A Tri-Hyphenation?: Embracing “Haitian” in Addition to the “Dominican” and the “American” .................................................................................................................. 234 CONCLUSION