Want to learn about my roots....help!

JadeBerry

New member
May 21, 2009
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Both my parents were born in DR, my mom came when she was 8 and I've only been there once when i was 1 (so that doesn't really count), I'm 23 now. I speak some spanish (can read it, can't write it), don't really listen to any spanish music. Basically the only dominican thing about me is the food i eat! I read these forums and wish I had spent my summers there as a kid and got to experience the dominican lifestyle. I now have a 2 year old daughter and don't want her to be as deprived as I was so I really want to know more about the history, any book suggestions and websites would be greatly appreciated!
 
May 12, 2005
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There is a great book about the history of DR by Frank Moya Pons. The exact title escapes me right now, but you can find it on Amazon.
 

Hillbilly

Moderator
Jan 1, 2002
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John Bartlow Martin, a former US ambassarod has written on the DR and so have a ton of others lately. IF you do a search on Amazon you will find a ton of them. Some are good reading (Bosch, Moya-Pons, Cass?) Only Moya is in English, but the US writers, are all in English...
I do not know if Vega has published anything in English.
Samuel Hasard dis a great book back in the 1870s on the country, If you can find a copy it is work having, has some funny things in there but his own drawings of the place and the people are eye-popping~!!

Have fun.

also you can write Edwin Espinal, a young genealogist here...he can maybe help you trace the family roots.

HB
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
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If you haven't already done this, you could read books written in English but set in the DR by authors like Julia Alvarez, Junot D?az and Nelly Rosario.
 

JadeBerry

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May 21, 2009
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I actually read "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz last year and I thought it was great. I haven't really looked for any other dominican authors (i hate doing research, even with the internet at my fingertips!) But I just ordered "Santo Domingo, Past and Present" by Samuel Hazard from Amazon so I'm very excited and can't wait to get it. Your suggestions are really appreciated!
 

Tom F.

Bronze
Jan 1, 2002
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If you live anywhere near NYC, visit Washington Heights and you can get a little feel of the DR.
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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It was written 140 years ago. He was part of a commission that came here to look at the island as part of General Grant's (President Grant) ambition to annex the country and use Saman? Bay as a Naval Coaling Station and base...Better than Guantanamo--part of the overall plan to have a major presence in the Caribbean. However, there was a lot of issues in the Congress and by one vote, that of the racist Charles Sumner who did not want a bunch of "brown" people in the US, the annexation was defeated. Not that it was all that popular in the DR for that matter, having been "unanimously" approved by a very rigged plebicite...

However, what makes Hazard's book so good and allows you to get through the arcane 19th century verbiage, are his descriptions of the people and his drawing of the cities and towns. We who live here today cannot imagine what it was like then.

Read it with patience, you will be rewarded.

HB
 

RacerX

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Nov 22, 2009
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Junot Diaz also has a new book out(2008) it is an anthology of Dominican Masculinity. I had the title saved in my phone but deleting it, it should be on the Barnes and Noble website