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Background Information on Latino/a Literature

First, a word about terms: There is a great deal of debate about whether to use the term "Hispanic" or "Latino/a" to refer to writers in the United States of Spanish descent. Some prefer "Hispanic," but others feel that that term lumps all people of the various Hispanic cultures into one group. In my research, I have noticed that, although many writers refer to themselves as "Hispanic," there seems to be a growing preference, especially in the arts, for the term "Latino/a."

There are roughly five major groups of Latino/a writers:

More than 90% of creative writing by Latino/a writers in the United States has been produced in Spanish; very little of it has been translated. Until World War II, Spanish-language newspapers published short stories, poetry, and local color articles. Spanish-language publishing houses flourished in larger population centers such as Los Angeles, San Antonio, and New York; San Antonio alone had 16 Spanish-language publishing houses during the 1920s.

The Great Depression and the forced "repatriations" of that time, when hundreds of thousands of Latino/as were deported, destroyed much of that publishing industry. After World War II, Latino/a communities turned their attention to assimilation and began to demand civil rights on a large scale. As a result, there was greater access to schooling and later to college for Latino/as, and thus, more use of English.

During the 1960s, however, there was a resurgence of pride in Latino/a culture and language, and a few Spanish-language or bilingual newspapers began to reappear, as well as small, alternative Latino/a literary magazines and publishing houses. They fueled a growing interest in writings by Latino/a writers in both Spanish and English.

By the 1970s, Latino/a literature was booming. Among the Chicano writers were Tomas Rivera (And the Earth Did Not Part, 1971), Rudolfo Anaya (Bless Me, Ultima, 1972), Oscar "Zeta" Acosta (The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, 1972), and Ron Arias (The Road to Tamazunchale, 1975). The 1980s and 90s brought writers such as Arturo Islas (The Rain God, 1983), Rolando Hinojosa (Klail City (1987), Victor Villasenor (Rain of Gold, 1991), and Sandra Cisneros (Woman Hollering Creek, 1991).

Among Cuban writers, one of the best known is Reinaldo Arenas (Farewell to the Sea, 1973, and The Palace of White Skunks, 1990).

Among Puerto Rican writers are Jesus Colon (A Puerto Rican in New York and Other Sketches, 1961), Piri Thomas (Down These Mean Streets, 1967), Nicholasa Mohr (El Bronx Remembered, 1975), Edward Rivera (Family Installmemts, 1983), Ed Vega (The Comeback, 1985), and Yvonne Sapia (Valentino's Hair, 1991).

Among Caribbean writers are Victor Perera (Rites, 1983), Jaime Manrique (Latin Moon in Manhattan, 1992), and of course Julia Alvarez.

Some themes which are common among Latino/a writers are

Because In the Time of the Butterflies is set in the Dominican Republic, many of these themes do not appear in Alvarez's novel; but others do, in various forms.

Background Information on Julia Alvarez

Julia Alvarez was born March 27, 1950, in New York City, but was raised until the age of ten in the Dominican Republic. In 1960, when her father fell out of favor with the Trujillo regime, her family fled the Dominican Republic and settled permanently in New York City. Her first collection of short stories, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991), which chronicles the Garcia sisters' adjustments to American life, is heavily influenced by her own and her sisters' experiences.

She attended Connecticut College from 1967-69, then went on to receive a B.A. from Middlebury College in 1971. She received an M.F.A. from Syracuse University in 1975, and attended the Bread Loaf School of English from 1979-80. She has taught English and creative writing at a number of colleges, and has received numerous awards and grants for her poetry and fiction.

Following is a list of some of her published work:

In an interview for Contemporary Authors, Julia Alvarez spoke of her writing:

"I think of myself at ten years old, newly arrived in this country, feeling out of place, feeling that I would never belong in this world of United States of Americans who were so different from me. Back home in the Dominican Republic, I had been an active lively child, a bad student full of fun with plentiful friends. In New York City, I was suddenly thrown back on myself. I looked around the schoolyard at unfriendly faces. A few of the boys called me a name. I didn't know what it meant, but I knew it couldn't be anything good from the ugly looks on their faces.

"And then, magic happened in my life. Someone appeared with a gift that I didn't recognize as a gift until years and years later: it looked like schoolwork, a writing assignment. An English teacher asked us to write little stories about ourselves. I began to put into words some of what my life had been like in the Dominican Republic. Stories about my gang of cousins and the smell of mangoes and the iridescent, vibrating green of hummingbirds. Since it was my own little world I was making with words, I could put what I wanted in it...

"I found myself turning more and more to writing as the one place I felt I belonged and could make sense of myself, my life, all that was happening to me. I realized that I had lost the island we had come from, but with the words and encouragement of my teacher, I had discovered an even better world: one words can create in a story or poem. 'Language is the only homeland,' the exiled Polish poet Czeslow Milosz has said. And that was where I landed when we left the Dominican Republic, not in the United States but in the English language."

Background Information on Rafael Trujillo

Rafael Trujillo was born in San Cristobal, a small city west of Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic in 1891. His father, Jose Trujillo Valdez, was an opportunistic businessman. He was popular, good-looking, good-natured, licentious, and lacked scruples in business. His mother, Altagracia Julia Molina, was seen as a saint by her neighbors because of her patience with her husband's transgressions. Together, they had eleven children; Rafael was the third (he had an older sister and brother). The family was upper-middle-class in their own small town, but would have been less important in a larger city, a fact which Trujillo discovered when he left home and which he found deeply humiliating.

Trujillo's childhood appears to have been relatively normal. In his adolescence, he developed an early and voracious sexual appetite. He began having constant disputes with his brothers. He also developed an obsession with clothing and perfume. His normal adolescent rebellion grew into minor crimes: he forged a check and later stole money from his job at the post office.

In 1913, he married Aminta Ledesma, a country girl; her family objected to the marriage, but relented when they discovered she was pregnant. Their daughter, Julia Genova, was born in 1914; she died in 1915. Later, after he had achieved a position of power, Trujillo, ashamed of having married so "inferior" a woman, repudiated his wife and attempted to destroy any documentation of this period of time.

In 1913, he exhibited his first interest in public affairs. He took part in various rebellions, then joined "The 44," a criminal-political group. He met several of his later colleagues there, notably Miguel Angel Paulino, one of the principal agents in the terror and violence of 1930 and after.

In 1915, his second daughter, Flor de Oro (meaning "flower of gold"), was born. His marriage lasted on paper until 1925, but he and his wife lived together only sporadically. When he divorced his first wife, however, he did not deny his daughter; he idolized her.

In 1918, Trujillo entered the National Police, or the army. He had finally found a place where he felt he belonged. He saw the Army as his road to well-being, power, wealth, and glory, as it had traditionally been in Latin-American countries. He rose through the ranks with remarkable speed. In that year, there were uprisings of bandits in the sugar cane fields. Trujillo took part in only one small raid. Later, he portrayed himself as having wiped out hundreds of bandits singlehandedly. In July 1919, he became a lieutenant. (In 1933 and 1934, after he became president, he quietly had all the former bandit leaders killed, one by one, so that they wouldn't contradict his lies.) He became a captain in 1922; in 1923, a major; in 1924, lieutenant colonel and Chief of Staff. In 1925, seeing glory in his future, he divorced his first wife. In this year, also, he secretly hired two journalists to plant public relations articles about him in the press.

In 1926, the first park was named after Trujillo, in the town of San Francisco de Macoris.

In 1927, he married Bienvenida Ricart, a young woman from a wealthy and powerful family. For him, it was a marriage of convenience, meant to enhance his social and political standing. Almost immediately, he was unfaithful to her: he took as his mistress Maria Martinez, the daughter of a baker, and established her in an apartment. She bore Trujillo his first son, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Martinez, whose nickname was Ramfis, on June 5, 1929. By the time he was four, Trujillo had made him a colonel, with equivalent pay and privileges.

In 1927, Trujillo became Brigadier General.

On February 28, 1930, at the age of 39, Trujillo used the power of the army to topple President Vasquez and install his own pawn, Estrella Urena. He began to oppress the countryside, using the army to intimidate and terrorize the people, killing his political opponents and making arbitrary arrests. In May 1930, in rigged elections, Trujillo was elected President. He was inaugurated August 16. He began an all-out terror campaign designed to bring the country completely under his control. "The 42," a gang of thugs, toured the countryside in a red Packard known as "carro de la muerta"--the death car--filled with gunmen who did random drive-by shootings. On June 1, they assassinated Virgilio Martinez Reyna and his wife. Reyna had been one of Trujillo's opponents. He was slashed and mutilated by machetes; his house was wrecked. This was Trujillo's doing, but he accused Urena of it, thus disposing of Urena, as well. After Reyna's death, many previous political leaders went into exile in other countries.

Trujillo was full of contradictions: he believed in both electronics and the evil eye. He got advice from scientists and witches. He was suspicious and cunning, yet was constantly taken in by con men. He was brutal and masculine to excess, yet he used perfume by the cup, along with other beauty aids such as powder, and he constantly gossipped. He collected neckties; he owned more than 10,000 upon his death. He tinted his hair and had facials regularly. He loved cattle, but only a few humans. He dominated his country, but failed to control his children. He was profoundly immoral and theatrical; he loved drama: his favorite act at the circus was, symbolically enough, the tightrope walker. He was oppressive and destructive; yet he improved the economy with public works, made improvements in schools and other social services, and heightened national unity. Despite this, he ruled only for the benefit of himself and his family. He corrupted public morals through fear and seduction, destroyed the spirit of the Dominicans, and made hypocrisy and dishonor essential skills.

Trujillo's drive for power was his central motivation. He was obsessed with money and its power. His ego led eventually to megalomania, yet he was not without personal magnetism and charm. He distrusted everyone; he had no friendships. He ruled by instinct and emotion, and used secrecy and unpredictability as weapons. He had a complete absence of scruples. He had no religious sense (although he believed in folk magic), so there was nothing to restrain his lust for power. At one point, he is quoted as saying, "The word 'cemetery' is a Greek word which signifies rest for the dead and inexorable warning for the living."

He had almost no formal education; he never read a whole book. As a result, he had deep feelings of social rejection and was always hyperaware of social status, and thus of real or imagined slights. Oddly, though he ruled by fear, he was always hurt by anyone's dislike, and never failed to avenge it. Perhaps in spite of, or perhaps because of, this facet of his personality, he preferred plump mulatto women, usually uneducated, and almost always virgins. He had no hesitation to use social pressure to force them into compliance if they were reluctant: the loss of a job, the harming or jeopardizing of a member of the family. He recited poetry to them in the bedroom, went to bed with them once or twice (although he had a few favorites in whom his interest lasted a little longer); afterward, he often arranged marriages for them and provided for any children the union may have produced.

If he had someone assassinated, he took gifts, condolences, and tears to the survivors. He often gave them money, as much as 5-10 thousand dollars.

He once said, "He who does not know how to deceive does not know how to rule." His love of charade helped contribute to the secrecy with which he ruled. He used instability as a tool to undermine the public morale and make his own government stronger. Under his regime, fiction and truth bled into one another.

Trujillo ruled for 31 years, until he was assassinated on May 30, 1961. His body was eventually placed in a mausoleum in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France.

My thanks to Donald Hook, whose book, Madmen of History, provided this information on Trujillo.