Dominican RepublicSantoDomingo

Liberal Arts ProgramNewsletter I, Spring 2013

January-FebruaryCover photo: A lesson on organic coffee in Río Blanco.

Photo by Jessica, Lewis and Clark College

the GROUP

Acclimatization:

Getting Accustomed to life in the D.R.Urban roosters whose wakeup calls are more reliable than the electricity powering alarm clocks; 4DX movie theaters with tremor seating, and teenagers selling pirated copies of new releases on street corners; motorcycle taxis that manage to fit a driver and 3 passengers, and a brand new state-of-the-art subway system. It can be hard to imagine a bustling capital city in the middle of the Caribbean, a region not often described as having large urban centers and whose daily struggles are often hidden behind the façade of beaches and the often-depicted guidebook and vacationer accounts of a laid-back lifestyle. But even for those trying to imagine Santo Domingo in more realistic terms, the task is a difficult one to achieve without experiencing the city for oneself.

As capital to a developing country, Santo Domingo has been witness to numerous progressive and technological advancements over the past decade, seeing a large increase in infrastructure in targeted areas, including the construction of malls, office and apartment towers, and new roadways. Yet despite this perceived progress, much of the population throughout the capital city and the rest of the country continues to live below the poverty line. Advances in human development have not been consistent with the great advances in infrastructural development that have occurred, leaving Santo Domingo in a unique position that is ripe for observing the challenges facing a complex society making every effort to progress.

During orientation week, we spend a good amount of time dealing with logistics (discussing safety, choosing classes) and introducing the culture (how to relate with your host family, dancing). However, we also spend lots of time becoming familiarized with this complexity that exists in Santo Domingo and throughout the country. Through public transportation tours, students experienceed how people move about the city and were exposed to the many faces of Santo Domingo; during their preparations with the various universities where they take their classes, we talked about different teaching styles and the student-professor relationship that exists in the Dominican education system as well as the differences that exist between each individual institution. And to finish out orientation week, we visited the ruins of two sugar mills—one from the 16th Century, the other from the 18th—in order to learn more about the colonial history of the island. The sugar industry was of great importance during the colonial period, and to provide laborers for the tough work, both the Boca de Nigua and Engombe

mills that we visited were operated using slave labor. Slavery on the island has a long and sometimes overlooked history, and it was an important opportunity for CIEE students to visit two of the sites where slavery occurred—while there, they learned not only about how the sugar mills operated, but also how this history of slavery and the African presence have influenced Dominican culture and society and shaped Dominicansʼ personal identities. As a way to unwind from a day of traveling and learning about these tough realities, students had a bit of time to unwind at nearby playa Palenque, a beach popular amongst local Dominicans.

Top: Santo Domingoʼs modern skyline, viewed from the nearby mountains of San Cristobal; Middle left: Héctor teaches Kristi to dance during an impromptu dance class during orientation week. Middle right: Clark students Cece and John during an orientation activity; left: Resident Director María Filomena González talks to the group at the Engombe sugar mill about the history of slavery on the island during the period of colonization.

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Staff Spotlight: Héctor López

Héctor López graduated from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD) with a degree in architecture, and in addition to his 8 years of contribution to CIEE as Student Services Coordinator for the CIEE Liberal Arts program and Resident Coordinator for the new CIEE Sports and Society summer program, he is also a practicing architect. Through his role with CIEE, Héctor supports students in their cultural adaptation and provides assistance with public transportation, excursions, cultural activities, and coordinates services and activities with the estudiantes de apoyo, a group of volunteer Dominican students who work with CIEE´s programs in Santo Domingo. He also serves an integral role in facilitating studentsʼinternship and volunteer placements. He is able to apply his expertice in architecture through his management of any

projects associated with the upkeep of the CIEE Study Center, and he oversaw a complete remodeling of the Study Center when CIEE rented and refurbished the property in late 2010. Héctor is also an assesor for the Youth Pastoral for the Archdioces of Santo Domingo.

Program Theme Spotlight:Naming Skin Color in the Dominican Republic1

The following illustrates one of the themes of CIEE Santo Domingoʼs Liberal Arts Program. Students are often challenged in new ways while on the program, and though some experiences can be frustrating, those same experiences can also offer excelent opportunities for student growth and maturity.

by María Filomena González Canalda, Resident Director

The names of skin color with which Dominicans identify is often a challenging or confusing aspect of Dominican identity for our North American students when they arrive to the country. Since they come from a different society with its own system and history of classification, it can be difficult to understand how a different society has a different form of classification.

We first must keep in mind that perceptions of race are cultural, and therefore they are not the same from one society to another. They also can change—theyʼre not fixed through different historical periods. Therefore, classifications of “skin colors” that are used to identify people change over time. In societies where systems of slavery existed, such as ours, “categories” of people were created based on their phenotype and origin.

During the time of Spanish Colonialism, in the 18th Century, only slaves were categorized as having a specific skin color in the territory that now constitutes the Dominican Republic. Historical documents mention the skin colors negro (black), mulato, and pardo(brown) for slaves. It is interesting that slave owners were not assigned a skin color in these same documents—it would appear that they were “transparent.” The term moreno did not refer to a skin color (as it does today), but rather to a person who had been a slave but who had obtained his or her freedom. Documents from the Royal Archive of Bayaguana and Higüey frequently referenced these terms mentioned above; however, in those documents there is no mention of the term indio (Indian), the term most commonly used to describe Dominicansʼ color today.

Between 1822-1844 (during the political unification of the island under the Republic of Haiti), the terms negro, blanco (white), and mulato existed. The term moreno continued with its previous significance of a former slave who had obtained freedom before 1822, the year in which slavery was abolished on the eastern part of the island. However, these terms are only mentioned very sporadically during this time period—they appear only six times throughout 3,000 documents. The term indio is still not mentioned in these documents.

Towards the end of the 19th Century, Dominicans began to be labeled as people “of color,” and later, as mulatos. It was not until the dictatorship of Trujillo (1930-1961) that the term indio officially substituted mulato in the census and on Dominicansʼ cédula(the official and mandatory ID card that all Dominicans carry). Because the term indio was imposed during the dictatorship and maintained by subsequent governments, it is the color by which the majority of the Dominican population currently identifies. In the 1970s, due to requirements by the U.S. government during a period of migration of Dominicans to the U.S., the term trigueño (wheat-colored) substituted indio in passports, because the term indio in Dominican passports caused confusion with the category Native American in the United States.

Currently, the Junta Central Electoral (the government office in charge of issuing Dominicans cédula) has re-instated the category mulato, which is intended to eliminate the term indio.

1 The data presented in this work have been gathered from the following sources: Candelario, Ginetta, Black behind the ears, Duke University Press, Durham & London, 2007; González Canalda, María Filomena. Personas esclavizadas y propietarias en la Bayaguana del siglo XVIII, chapter from the second volumen of “Historia del Pueblo Dominicano”, Academia Dominicana de la Historia, en imprenta; González Canalda, María Filomena. Libertad Igualdad: Protocolos Notariales de José Troncoso y Antonio Abad Solano (1822-1840), AGN, Santo Domingo, 2013; Simmons, Kimberly, Reconstructing racial identity and the African past in the Dominican Republic, University Press of Florida, 2011.

Photo by Jessica

Staff Update

This February was a milestone for Resident Director María Filomena González Canalda, as it marked the publication of her third book on Dominican history, Libertad Igualdad: Protocolos Notariales de José Troncoso y Antonio Abad Solano, 1822-1840, in which she worked with previously unstudied documents about notarial protocol during the political unification of the island under the Republic of Haiti. Maríaʼs second book, Gavilleros, 1904-1916, told the history of the Gavilleros, a group of Dominicans best known for their opposition to U.S. forces during the first of two U.S. military occupations of the Dominican Republic from 1916-1924. The book, which won the National Prize for History award , showed how the Gavilleros were actually present and active within the nationʼs political context before the North American invasion. In addition to her first book, Linea Noroeste: Testimonio de un Patriotismo Olvidado, she has published various text books and co-authored National Exams which are given across the nation.

Classes and InstitutionsWhile the CIEE Liberal Arts Program in Santo Domingo certainly has a focus in the social sciences, it is hard to pigeonhole the program strictly as a social sciences program. Partly this is due to a unique characteristic of this program—studentsʼ opportunity to take their classes in multiple universities and institutions. Not only does this broaden the range of classes that students can take while participating in the program, it also gives them a more complete picture of the Dominican reality. The student body and student life is quite different from one institution to the next, and through taking classes throughout the city, students are exposed to this complexity of Dominican society.

The CIEE Study Center, which offers courses designed specifically for CIEE students, is housed in a classic example of the Neo-Hispanic architectural style that dominated the neighborhood of Gazcue in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the neighborhood was favored by members of the Dominican bourgeoisie. The house was designed by Guillermo González Sánchez, considered the father of modern Dominican architecture. Today, Gazcue is a lively and much more middle-class neighborhood where many historically-registered houses share the streets with newer building projects. It is still known for its tree-lined streets and proximity to the Caribbean Sea, the Colonial Zone, and the modern city center. Classes available through the CIEE Center include Spanish Language and Culture, Dominican-Haitian Relations, Social and Ethnocultural Contemporary Caribbean Identity, and Development Internship, among others depending on interest each semester.

The Technological Institute of Santo Domingo (INTEC) has much more of a traditional university feel—a campus filled with students, nearby (cheap!) restaurants and hangout spots, and a great library.

It is a private university founded in the mid-1970s by a group of professionals and businessmen who were disenfranchised with the level of freedom of expression and critical thought existent in the Dominican university system of the era. The university, which specializes in the areas of social sciences, humanities, medicine, business, and engineering, is known for its high academic quality. Students this semester are taking classes such as Urban Sociology and Environmental Engineering.

The Instituto Bonó has a very small student body, and occupies a small area near one of the bustling transportation hubs where the streets are alive with vendors and transportation employees yelling out their destinations trying to attract patrons. The place is so lively and illustrative of the daily lives of most Dominicans that there was even a famous song written about life in that neighborhood. The Instituto Bonó is comprised largely of male students from low-income sectors of the D.R. and elsewhere throughout Latin America who are studying to become priests. It was founded in the 1980s by the Jesuit Order, which sought to create an institution that followed the doctrines of Latin American Liberation Theology and encouraged freedom of expression and critical thought. This semester, students here are taking classes such as Contemporary Atheism and Latin American Literature.

Finally, students had the option this semester of taking Dominican Social History, a class taught by Resident Director María Filomena Gonzalez, at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), the nationʼs largest public university, and a Dominican social fixture unto itself.

The CIEE Santo Domingo Study Center

INTEC

Oda de Guachimánby Keva Luke, Siena College

Guachima´n soy yoProteger la gente yo hago

El sol y la lunaMi u´nica compan˜i´aDiez horas cada di´a

Sentado, yo estoy de guardiaLos trabajadores entranEn sus oficinas esta´n

Mientras yo estoy afueraPreparado para la guerra

Con rifle o porraSiempre observando la horaA veces recibo una sonrisaUn gracias, un buen di´aEl trabajo es muy solitario

Solo con el sol y la luna yo habloLos pa´jaros cantan y vuelanAy la tranquilidad que me dan

Almuerzo un sa´ndwich de loncheraDe jamo´n y mantequilla

Quiza´s deberi´a andar alrededor del edificioPara dar buen servicioLas paredes altas y suras

Unas fortalezasLa noche viene

El cielo las estrellas tieneMi mujer y mi varo´n esta´n en casaLa mujer amasando la masaEl otro guachima´n vino

Yo salgoMe monto en guagu¨ita

37 la RutaPa´ la casucha

Para una fri´a duchaCenare´ con el chiquitito

Ojala que e´l tenga buen futuroDormire´ a lado de la mujer

Mientras los ratones empiezan a roerA la madrugada, me levantare

Yo saldre´Guachima´n soy yo

Para dar to´ lo servicio.

Student Spotlight: Keva

For our Spanish-speaking readers, the following is a poem written by

Siena College student Keva Luke, Oda de Guachimán. It does a

remarkable job humanizing an often-marginalized though ever-p r e s e n t r e p r e s e n t a t i v e o f

Dominican society, the armed watchman (guachimán). This poem

is also unique in Kevaʼs utilization of Dominican colloquialisms.

Baseball game

Ponchelo! Aficéalo! Dos estrai con el rancho ardiendo! Even if you know Spanish, these phrases might seem quite foreign to you, but it only takes a couple of days of being in the D.R. before students learn to talk pelota, or baseball, which rivals politics as the dominant conversation theme and is rivaled by none when it comes to national passions. In a word, baseball in the D.R. is huge, and often serves as a way for students to integrate more thoroughly into Dominican culture. Baseball fan or not, attending a Dominican Professional League game is a requirement for anyone who really wants to understand Dominican culture, so within several weeks of arriving, we all went to to ballpark (or pley, as it is called in Dominican Spanish), to watch a heated playoff game between Santo Domingoʼs Escogido Lions and Santiagoʼs Eagles of the Cibao. Games here are long, but the time is filled with much more than just baseball, including dancers, conjuntos

(bands consisting of drums and horns blaring rythms from the bleachers), and animated fans jovially taunting supporters of the rival team. The atmosphere at Dominican baseball games is much more relaxed and celebratory than most people are used to, but the passion for the game is just as intense. This particular game did not disappoint, as it was full of scoring, lead changes, and a bit of good old-fashioned controversy between the umpires and the teamsʼmanagers.

Museo de la Resistencia and class visits

Santo Domingo is home to many sites of cultural interest, and while students visit many of these independently, we also make several visits as a group and through class visits. One of the most important of these visits is to the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance, located near the CIEE Study Center, in Santo Domingoʼs historic Colonial Zone. This museum offers the testimonials of generations of men and women who fought against the dictatorial and authoritarian regimes in the Dominican Republic during the 20th

century. The museum teaches visitors about resistance movements against two 20th Century U.S military occupations, the brutal 31-year dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, the Revolt of 1965, and the fight for democracy during the period of 1966-1978. The museum exposes the harsh reality of living without democratic freedoms and the struggle that so many democratically-minded Dominicans dedicated themselves to in order to gain access to these freedoms. The recently-established museum has been very eye-opening to many of its Dominican visitors and further helped CIEE students to contextualize what they have learned in their classes and understand the importance of Dominicansʼ struggle to enjoy democracy.

Students enrolled in CIEEʼs Language and Culture in the Dominican Republic class also visit several sites of interest as part of their course curriculum. So far, theyʼve visited livestock market, art museums, and Santo Domingoʼs Mercado Modelo, a lively market that sells just about everything from souvenirs to silverware.

Above: Our view from the packed stadium. Photo by Jordan; Left: Some

of the group poses before game time.

Photos: The Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance

CIEE Santiago Visits CIEE Santo Domingo

One of the unique characteristics of CIEE in the Dominican Republic is the amount of options that students have when studying here with CIEE. In addition to our Liberal Arts program in Santo Domingo, the city of Santiago, just two hoursʼ drive from Santo Domingo, has two semester programs as well, one focusing on Liberal Arts and one focusing on Service Learning (not to mention Santiagoʼs Community Public Health and Santo Domingoʼs Sports and Society: Baseball in Context summer programs). Each of these programs offers very different experiences to its participants, and as a way to foster integration and the sharing of experiences between participants of each of our programs, there have been several opportunities already this semester for students of the various CIEE Dominican Republic programs to meet one another and exchange stories.

Activities with Service Learning students included a guided tour of the Colonial Zone, Santo Domingoʼs most famed neighborhood and home to many sites of significance to the islandʼs Colonial history. We also shared in a seminar with members of the Peace Corps during which students were able to learn about the Peace Corpsʼ mission in the Dominican Republic and throughout Latin America. While this was a good opportunity for students interested in pursuing work or service abroad after graduating from college, it was also a great opportunity to openly discuss the theories and dynamic that sometimes support and other times challenge the presence of international aid organizations in the developing world. During the Santiago Liberal Arts programʼs visit to Santiago, everyone stopped by our CIEE Santo Domingo Study Center to participate in typical Dominican pastimes: dominos and vitilla, a neighborhood variation of baseball using bottle caps as balls and broomsticks as bats.

Above left: Students from CIEE Santo Domingo and CIEE Service Learning in Santiago meet for a walking tour of the Colonial Zone. Photo by Jordan; Above right: Learning dominoes with students from Santiago-Liberal Arts. Center: Observing the cigar making process during our tour of the Colonial Zone. Photo by Jordan. Right: Taking a moment to pose with the Santiago-Service Learning Group after a presentation from the Peace Corps.

Daytrip to the Alta Gracia Factory and Bonao

In late January we visited the Alta Gracia clothing factory, a model free trade zone factory located in the beautiful town of Villa Alta Gracia, about an hour outside Santo Domingo that for the past several years has provided work and dignified wages to its more than 100 employees. Formed in part in response to recent anti-sweatshop movements at many U.S. colleges and universities demanding that college apparel be produced in factories where workers are treated and paid fairly, the Alta Gracia Factory is unique in several ways. First, workers are not only allowed, but also encouraged, to unionize. The workersʼ union is quite active and transparent and continues to work hard to help its workers achieve many advances once thought to be unattainable. Second, the workers at this factory make four times the average salary paid to free trade zone employees in the Dominican Republic. This “dignified salary,” as they call it, allows workers the opportunity for advancement for themselves and their families. Many workers proudly state that as Alta Gracia employees, they have been able to continue with their high school or university education or pay for their children to attend quality schools. They also enjoy high quality health care and each worker is invited to be a part of the decision making process during union meetings. For example, the weekly work schedule was determined by the workers themselves and allows for workers to pursue outside interests in addition to reaching production quotas. During our visit to the factory, students were shown the t-shirt making process and also had the opportunity to speak with union representatives. Students who are particularly interested in fair-wage labor and workersʼ rights have the opportunity to complete their internship work with the Alta Gracia clothing factory. We would like to encourage everyone to look for the Alta Gracia clothing tag on apparel the next time youʼre at your university bookstore.

After visiting the Alta Gracia factory, we climbed the nearby mountains to visit the Río Blanco Ecotourism Project, an area funded by USAID and the Dominican Sustainable Tourism Alliance that works with community members from the area to protect pristine natural resources and create sustainable ways to make a living and attract eco-tourism, including providing tours of the organic coffee that is produced in the region and making sustainable bamboo furniture. After receiving a brief tour of a coffee plantation and a furniture shop (and of course drinking some fresh, organic coffee), we hiked down a valley to a beautiful river, where we had some time to take a little dip in the water.

Above left: A grove of amapola trees in bloom near during the ascent to Río Blanco. Photo by Jordan. Above right: Spelman student Faith leads a group of students through a mixed grove of banana and coffe. Middle: A member of the Rio Blanco Ecotourism Project shows us part of the roasting process. Bottom right: One of the employees of the Alta Gracia clothing factory. Photo by Jessica.

Weekend Excursion to Samaná/ Caño Hondo

The Dominican Republic is one of the most ecologically-diverse countries in the Caribbean, and we consider it an important part of the program to introduce students to some of this diversity in a responsible and conscientious way. So in February we had a relaxing yet exciting weekend excursion to the Samaná area, staying in a beautiful eco-lodge at the border of Los Haitises National Park, an area famous for its mangrove forests, bird-life, caves with Taino pictographs, and most importantly as an important stop along the migration paths of hundreds of humpback whales every January-March. Over the weekend we went on a whale watching excursion, where we immediately found a newborn whale calf and its mother, and were later surprised by a group of dolphins playfully challenging our boat to a race through the water. We also went on a guided nature hike through the national park where we learned of the many types of flora that inhabit the area, the unique geological conditions that have contributed to the elaborate series of karsts that are found throughout the national park, and entered several of the parksʼ caves to explore and view the pictographs. Additionally, we received a lesson on the importance of the three types of mangroves that inhabit the area, and efforts to restore their presence after Hurricane George wiped many of them out in 1998.

During their free time, students enjoyed swimming in the series of freshwater swimming holes that run through the eco lodge property, taking a few rides on the zipline, and making sʼmores during our nightly bonfires.

All of the activities in which we participated are led by local guides from the Green Brigade, a group of people dedicated to educating local inhabitants of the ecological importance of the region and empowering those individuals to not only maintain the region, but also to educate others. Members of the Green Brigade were some of the first responders to a proposed cement

factory right in the middle of the national park, and with their help, national consciousness was raised and ultimately communities across the nation banded together to successfully protest the construction of the cement factory.

Top left: A sunset walk back to the hotel after a day of observing whales. Photo

by Jordan. Top right: Clark student Xavier prepares his specialty, roasted coconut (tastes earily similar to hotdogs). Left: Rafael, a member of the Green

Brigade an our guide, points out some Taino pictographs. Photo by Jessica. Above: Whales! A calf and its mother. Photo by Jessica.

Above: Yasmilda and Indhira roast some marshmallows during our excursion to Samaná. Above right: The group has a jumprope-a-thon. Right: Resident Director Maríá helps Siena student Keva celebrate her birthday during one of our monthly student meetings.

A special thanks to Jessica (Lewis and Clark Colege) and Jordan (Dennison University) for contributing most of the photos to this newsletter!

Ave. Pasteur 151, esquina Lea de CastroGazcueSanto DomingoDominican Republic809-685-9189www.ciee/org/study-abroad

CIEE Study CenterSanto Domingo, Dominican Republic

About Us

The CIEE Study Center in Santo Domingo is designed for students who want to improve their Spanish language skills while studying contemporary social issues that affect Latin America and specifically the Caribbean region. Through its course offerings at several different academic institutions, a wide variety of courses may be taken by CIEE students. From very early in the program, students are encouraged to create goals for the semester and analyze the ways in which those goals can be met, as well as consider how they may address the potential challenges to meeting those goals. Several times throughout the semester, students revisit these goals in order to assess their progress, so that in the end each student has a successful and worthwhile semester.

The semester isnʼt over yet and thereʼs still lots we plan on doing so keep an eye out for our next newsletter!

If you have any questions about our program or our Study Center, we are happy to assist you!

María Filomena Gonzalez, Resident Directormgonzalez@ciee.org

Nathaniel Thompson, Assistant Resident Directornthompson@ciee.org

Jensine Fraser, Study Abroad Advisorjfraser@ciee.org

The CIEE Santo Domingo team. Top row: Yasmilda, Elvin, Mayra. Middle row: Hector, Indhira, Maria, Nathaniel, and Nena, CIEEʼs furry, faithful companion.

Staff Update

This semester we had to say goodbye to Lina Ariaga, who for the past year had served as our Health, Host Family, and Excursion Coordinator, as she accompanied members of her family to spend the next several years living in Mexico. We all miss Lina, especially the patience and friendliness she exhibited every day without fail, but we also wish her luck in her new life in Mexico. Though Linaʼs departure was of course unfortunate, it also allowed Yasmilda Vidal, who has been with us for over two years serving as Administrative Assistant, to take on a new role as our new Health, Host Family, and Excursion Coordinator. Yasmilda has taken to her new role very quickly, and her previous knowledge of the program has allowed her transition to run smoothly and enabled her to contribute her own vision to the program. We have also brought on Indhira Pimentel as our new Administrative Assistant. In addition to her work with CIEE, Indhira is also a current student at the UASD, studying architecture. Look for a staff spotlight on Indhira coming soon!