Santo Domingo

Dominican Republic historical stages of democratization To begin with, the main focus for this project is on Dominican Republic transition to its current political system, which is, representative democracy. The Dominican Republic has a fairly new constitution that was enacted in 2010 and it is composed of three different government branches. Similar to the United States, the three branches of government are legislature, execution, and judicial. The president is head of state and government,…

It was August 5, 2015. It was a sunny, hot day in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. For most people, it would have been a perfectly beautiful, day. However, for me, it felt like my life was ending. I got into my dad’s car and he drove my mom and me to the airport. While in the car, I felt that my face was wet with tears and was becoming red. I couldn’t believe it, but I was crying. My dad noticed and turned around. He told me that everything was going to be all right. His words made my tears…

Have you ever been judged on how you look or act? How you were raised or where you were born? In the book How the Garcia Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez writes the story of four siblings Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia who throughout their life have a hard time with immigrating to the US after their father got into trouble with their dictator in the Dominican Republic. Throughout the book, they struggle with bullying a school, peer pressure from men, and relationship issues with every man…

he practiced human sacrifice. This facilitated Cortés attack on Montezuma; Cortés had help from local natives that wanted to see Montezuma dead. Night of Tears June 30, 1520 Cortes lost a lot of Spanish and Native Indian men that night as a war broke out. Cortes was being insubordinate to Cuba governor and would not return to Cuba. This caused governor Velasquez to attack Cortes. Cortes left Lutenant Alvarez in charge while Cortes left Tenochtitlan, Alvarez made a big mistake by killing…

The “Big Stick” In the first decade of the 1900’s, the United States was in a progressive movement and were also getting involve in foreign affairs. The president during this time Theodore Roosevelt, a republican, was one of the first modern presidents the United States had encountered and he began to not only expand the power of the presidency but also industry, business and military. This time period in the United States was know as Imperialism. Roosevelt felt like the only way to expand the…

The Life of Junot Diaz and His Notable Works Junot Diaz is known for incorporating different genres in his works that stem from the traumatic events that he and his family experienced under the wrath of the dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who ruled the Dominican Republic for more than 30 years, before becoming immigrants (Contreras 5).“Diaz establishes an interesting technique that brings together different genres of North American pop culture: the comic book, science fiction film, and 1960’s…

The Dominican Republic and Haiti share the Island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, jointly occupying a space of less than 30,000 square miles. Despite their close proximity, the differences between the two are abundant: whereas Haitians take strong pride in their African roots and speak Creole, Dominicans pay homage to Spain as their motherland, and speak Spanish. The list of differences between the peoples of the two peoples is large, yet the roots of these cultural dissimilarities lie in…

vital role of monks during the Spain’s colonial efforts. A similar appreciation for Cisneros’ reforms allows an empowering study of women in relation to Cisneros. Jodi Bilinkoff’s article “A Spanish Prophetess and Her Patrons: The Case of Maria de Santo Domingo” utilizes the importance of Cisneros’ reforms to study more closely the role of beatas in boosting the legitimacy of those efforts. Bilinkoff argues that Cisneros’ own legitimacy relied on the endorsements of beatas, who both assisted his…

Oscar de la Renta Where it all began On July 22, 1932 an artist was born. In Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Oscar Aristides Renta Fiallo was born, or known around the world as Oscar de la Renta. In 1951, when Oscar turned 19, his father wanted him to join him in his insurance business, but he decided to study painting and sketching at the Real Academia de Bella Artes in San Fernando, Madrid instead. During this time Oscar drew clothing sketches for newspapers and fashion houses for extra…

Haiti the French colony of St. Domingue (Santo Domingo) was the most productive and one of the wealthiest colonial economies throughout the world. St. Domingue had established three prominent classes. Firstly, there were the Whites, who controlled the activities on the land. These Whites composed of a planter élite also known as the grands blancs and they also had a larger class of petits blancs. It should be noted that the foreign born French whites saw themselves as superior to the whites…