Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library

The Dominican racial imaginary, surveying the landscape of race and nation in Hispaniola, Milagros Ricourt

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 155-181) and index

illustrationsmaps

index present

non fiction

The Dominican racial imaginary

dictionariesbibliography

Milagros Ricourt

Critical Caribbean studies

surveying the landscape of race and nation in Hispaniola

"The Dominican Racial Imaginary subverts the way of knowledge of Dominican elites by telling the stories of 'the forced delivered child.' This child (a blend of Africans, Tainos, and Spanish) fled to the mountains escaping the abuses of the colonizer and became an adult in maroon communities. This book takes a look at history as a space of interrogation. When and how did Africa become part of the Dominican racial mix? In renewing the past, rather than the imposed Indo-Hispanic racial homogenization narrative, we might see something more--the historical creation of a multiracial rainbow. The stories the child/adult tell about the slave traffic, anti-colonial movements, the division of the island, more anti-colonial revolutions, abolition, and renewal of colonial oppressions. These stories also tell about cultural constructions unique to the island and the formation of a subversive racial imaginary. Battles against the continuity of white supremacist values people cultural practices, and ways of knowing attest to this subverted imaginary. In telling the stories of women dancing under the spell of the snake, of youngsters in New York City wearing dreadlocks, of Dominican intellectuals and politicians searching for their true identity, of people creating cooperation at the Haitian-Dominican border, this book strongly argues that there is a nation of Dominicans battling against the continuity of white supremacist values"--Provided by publisher

Introduction -- Border at the crossroad -- The Creolization of race -- Cimarrones : the seed of subversion -- Criollismo religioso -- Race, identity, and nation

The Dominican Racial Imaginary: Surveying the Landscape of Race and Nation in Hispaniola