Cañete-Quesada, Carmen

Junot Díaz’s novel centers on the life of Oscar Wao, a black overweight, “ghetto nerd” who is obsessed by two passions: women and science fiction. Although Oscar identifies himself as a Dominican-American, he does not resemble the “ideal” Dominican man and does not share the stereotypical “Dominican qualities”, such as hyper-sexual or machismo behavior. His peculiarities, on the contrary, classify him not only as an outsider within North American society but also within the Dominican community. By placing this marginal character in the center of his novel, Díaz reconsiders and reconstructs “Dominicanness” as it has been presented by previous Dominican authors. This thesis explores the way Díaz breaks away from conventionalism and offers a more complex and diverse image of Dominican-American identity today.

This research study on the antislavery novel, Sab (1841), by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, explores issues of race, gender and social status in Cuban society during the 19th century. Avellaneda’s narrative establishes a difference between ethnic, gender and economic privileges portrayed through the most influential characters in the novel: the slave, Sab; the daughter of the landowner, Carlota; orphaned daughter of Carlota’s uncle, Teresa; and Enrique, a British landowner and Carlota’s fiancé. This study pays particular attention to Teresa’s resistance to the patriarchal values in a colonial society ruled by Spain. I consider this character crucial to understand the antislavery discourse that Avellaneda incorporates in her novel to destabilize a hierarchical and prejudiced society. Furthermore, I will illustrate the major role of Teresa in the novel, whose presence has been shaded by the central female character, Carlota, and frequently underestimated by the critics.

Following the end of Fulgencio Batista’s regime and with the triumph of the
Revolution in January 1959, the new government joined efforts to give voice to
previously marginalized members of society. Examples of such marginalized groups
included peasants, afro-Cubans, and other low-class citizens. But homosexuals did not
fall under this social reform and were initially stigmatized with a conservative discourse.
Reinaldo Arenas explores this issue in his autobiography Before Night Falls (1992). The
text tells his story as a young man that was initially enthusiastic about the Cuban
Revolution, but who later grew resentful towards an oppressive political system that led
to his persecution, his incarceration, and finally in 1980 his exile. This research study
explores Arenas’ queer approach for an alternative interpretation of Cuban society that
challenges the Revolution’s homophobic political discourse during its first couple of
decades.

The legacy of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and its implications have
stipulated a major point of contention in contemporary Spanish society. While the
historical accuracies of the war had been silenced during General Francisco Franco’s
dictatorship (1939-75), the exhumation of mass graves in recent years has revived a
general interest in rescuing the historical memory of those who lost the war. Accordingly,
in 2007, the Historical Memory Law (“Ley de la memoria histórica”) was passed.
However, while there are many Spaniards who strongly support the recovering of the
historical memory of this tragic period in Spain, there are others who find it unnecessary
to reopen old wounds. This historical episode of the Spanish Civil War remains a
stringent controversy in today’s Spanish society. Through observing both historical and
present-day rationales, this research project analyzes how the contending political
ideologies in Spain today (“las dos Españas”) are rooted in its past conflict.

This thesis investigates the case of the legendary Mirabal sisters, or the so called “Mariposas” [the “Butterflies”]: three young Dominican women who sacrificed their lives to end the tyranny of General Rafael L. Trujillo. The purpose of this thesis is to compare the portrayal of the Mirabal sisters in two different books, In the Time of the Butterflies (1994) by Dominican-American writer Julia Álvarez and Vivas en su jardín [Alive in their Garden] (2009) by Dedé Mirabal, the only sister to survive. Mirabal implements an important biographical component in her testimony while Álvarez utilizes the genre of historical fiction to describe the events leading to the sisters’ assassination in 1960. This thesis explores the concepts of “truth” and “fiction” in Mirabal’s memoir and Álvarez’s historical novel, arguing that the range of objectivity and subjectivity in these two genres are interchangeable in the representation of this tragic episode in the history of the Dominican Republic.

As a result of General Rafael Trujillo’s desire to “whiten” the Dominican society during his regime (1930-61), various immigration incentives were placed into effect in
order to attract Europeans and Asians to the small country in the Antilles from the 1930s
to the 1950s. In a period when Europe was ravaged by wars, numerous Europeans
accepted the refuge offered by the small country. However, it was not until the mid-1950s
when Asians, particularly Japanese people, accepted to relocate to the Dominican
Republic. As a result, Trujillo accomplished repopulating the Dominican-Haitian border
with people of non-African descent and growing the agriculture sector with the
perseverance of the Japanese immigrants. In my research, I explore the process of
assimilation and hybridization of this important community that counts for approximately
550 Dominican-Japanese.