Mayes, April J., author.
Gainesville : University Press of Florida, [2014]
Added to CLICnet on 11/17/2014
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Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Debating Dominicanidad in the nineteenth century — The changing landscape of power in the sugar-growing East — The culture of progress in San Pedro de Macorís — Policing the urban poor — Debating Dominicans’ race during the U.S. occupation — Gender and Hispanidad in the new era.
- This book examines how the Dominican Republic came to value being white over being black, especially given how many Dominicans are of African descent. Mayes looks at a seminal period of Dominican history, from the War of Restoration to the early decades of Trujillo’s rule.
- The Dominican Republic was once celebrated as a mulatto racial paradise. Now the island nation is idealized as a white, Hispanic nation, having abandoned its many Haitian and black influences. The possible causes of this shift in ideologies between popular expressions of Dominican identity and official nationalism has long been debated by historians, political scientists, and journalists. In The Mulatto Republic, April Mayes looks at the many ways Dominicans define themselves through race, skin color, and culture. She explores significant historical factors and events that have led the nation, for much of the twentieth century, to favor privileged European ancestry and Hispanic cultural norms such as the Spanish language and Catholicism. Mayes seeks to discern whether contemporary Dominican identity is a product of the Trujillo regime–and, therefore, only a legacy of authoritarian rule–or is representative of a nationalism unique to an island divided into two countries long engaged with each other in ways that are sometimes cooperative and at other times conflicted. Her answers enrich and enliven an ongoing debate. — Publisher’s description.
Subjects:
- Ethnicity — Dominican Republic.
- Racially mixed people — Race identity — Dominican Republic.
- National characteristics, Dominican.
- Racism — Dominican Republic.
- Race awareness — Dominican Republic.
- Social classes — Dominican Republic.
- Dominican Republic — Race relations.
Requested by Lansing, M