Suchergebnisse

Baseball reflects the sacrifice, commitment, and determination that Dominicans displayed during foreign occupation (1916–1924; 1965–1966), dictatorship (1930–1961; 1966–1978), and the struggle for sovereignty. Success in international tournaments and as the birthplace of a majority of foreign-born players in Major League Baseball (MLB) fosters national pride and generates revenue. But baseball has also been marred bycorruption political interference and exploitation. After its late-19th-century arrival, baseball helped knit Dominicans together, overcoming geographic, racial, and class divisions. It became the national pastime during the first US occupation, when games against US forces asserted Dominican nationalism while anti-imperialist guerrillas battled in the mountains. Baseball encouraged a national identity based on competition and achievement. During baseball's "Romantic Epoch," men or boys of similar social standing organized teams and tournaments, sometimes recruiting top players regardless of race or class. Rivalries led teams to import players from Cuba and across the hemisphere, integrating the country into a transnational circuit of leagues and barnstorming. Interaction with other baseball-playing countries furthered competition for talent and led to Dominicans playing in the Negro Leagues. In the 1950s, factories, sugar mills, and the military sponsored clubs which competed in an amateur system that produced players like Juan Marichal and Manuel Mota. During the 1940s and 1950s, after US baseball integrated, competition for players pushed Latin American leagues to affiliate with MLB. Dominican organizers resumed national professional tournaments in 1951 and founded the Dominican Professional Baseball League in 1955. Financial and institutional support from Trujillo helped establish what became a baseball industry. Integration also brought opportunities for Dominicans in MLB, beginning with Ozzie Virgil in 1956 and Felipe Alou in 1958. Cuba's prohibition of professional sport in 1961 coupled with the prominence of players like Alou and Juan Marichal drew attention to Dominican players. Over time, Dominicans developed prototype academies that now lie at the center of MLB's player development system. More than a thousand Dominican recruits as young as sixteen train in these academies and compete in the Dominican Summer League with the goal of becoming major leaguers; most are released without leaving the island. While Dominican baseball has been a point of pride and opportunity for many Dominicans, it has also reflected the inequities of global capitalism. Despite criticism of the academy system for exploiting youth, tens of thousands seek the chance to play in the major leagues.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Miguel -- Across the Mona Passage -- Orlando -- The Culture of Migration -- Marta -- The Psychology of Migrant Motivation -- Raúl -- Border Enforcement -- Saúl -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Scholarship on the literary production of Dominicans in the United States has grown steadily since the late 1980s, when scholars of Dominican descent began to make a case for the inclusion of their writings in Latino literature. While individuals of Dominican ancestry had written in the United States at least since the start of the 20th century, a cadre of literary artists with a sense of the cultural meaning of their location "in the United States" as opposed to "in the Dominican Republic" did not emerge until the massive immigration of people from the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. The death of the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, whose government had limited the population's mobility to foreign destinations, the passage by the US Congress of the 1965 Immigration Act, which increased immigrant quotas from the Caribbean and other parts of the Third World, and the US military invasion of 1965 to "prevent another Cuba" all figure as the principal causes of the "great exodus." With the cities of New York; Providence, Rhode Island; and Lawrence, Massachusetts, serving initially as their principal destinations, Dominicans soon formed neighborhoods mostly in the Northeast. By the late 1970s the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights had become the mecca of Dominican life in the country and a hub of writers. There emerged the first Spanish-language literary magazines, literary groups, and anthologies. With the arrival on the literary scene of authors of Dominican ancestry working in English and publishing in mainstream venues, the literature of this group began to attract critical attention. Julia Alvarez published her collection of poems Homecoming in 1984. Then her novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent (1991) made her a household name. The triumphant debut collection of short fiction Drown (1996) by Junot Díaz, who subsequently added a Pulitzer Prize to his credit with the novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), further increased the public appeal of writers of Dominican descent. The first-rate poetry of Rhina P. Espaillat, whose literary practice preceded the formation of Dominican neighborhoods in New York, and the compelling prose fiction of Loida Maritza Pérez, Angie Cruz, Ana-Maurine Lara, Annecy Báez, and Nelly Rosario have made it increasingly common for scholars to work on this literary production. The vigorous productivity of Hispanophone authors—from Marianela Medrano to Yrene Santos, Juan Tineo, and Miriam Ventura––has attracted less scholarly consideration. The hybrid writings of Josefina Báez, who moves from English to Spanish and vice versa, have elicited substantial interest by literary critics.