Literary Resistance to the Trujillo Dictatorship, 1943-1947

Sokeyra Francisco's senior thesis explores literary resistance to the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic from approximately 1930-1961.
The thesis focuses on writer-activists both within the country and in exile and how their resistance was shaped by their location.

Sam Lacy's Visit to the Dominican Republic in 1946

Sam Lacy, a sports writer for the Baltimore Afro-American, visited the Dominican Republic in April 1946 during a baseball tour.
Lacy's reporting extended beyond sports to include race relations and the historical significance of Santo Domingo (Ciudad Trujillo).
Lacy concluded that claims of Trujillo's unpopularity were unfounded, based on his observations of the president's reverence throughout the country.
Lacy's analysis reflected the propaganda of the Trujillo regime and the fear of Communism during the Cold War.
He attributed claims of Trujillo's unpopularity and violent incidents to communist influence.
Historians reveal that Trujillo was a brutal dictator unpopular both inside and outside the country, demonstrated most notably by his assassination by a group of Dominican men in 1961.

Dynamics of Resistance Against Dictatorship

Organizing resistance under a dictatorial regime is life-threatening.
Demonstrating opposition in an environment demanding reverence carries significant risks.
Organizing dissent is possible and did occur outside of the Dominican Republic, beyond the dictator's reach, where activists and expats worked to raise international awareness, creating a consensus that he was unpopular.
Resistance must be widened beyond direct action to subtle forms like written resistance and counter-discourses.
Il/legible cultural and literary resistance has been obscured due to its covert nature and lack of tangible success in deposing the dictator.

Research Questions

How did Dominicans participate in resistance under and outside of the dictatorship?
How did exiled Dominicans organize their resistance and anti-Trujillo message?
How were Dominicans able to resist the regime and its rhetoric?

Historical Context of the Trujillo Regime

A brief history of the Trujillo regime will detail the dictator’s rise to power and the oppressive environment his regime created and sustained for thirty-one years.
Understanding this atmosphere will reveal how resistance was necessarily il/legible for those living inside of the country versus for those outside of it.
Aída Cartagena Portalatín, from La Poesía Sorprendida (Surprised Poetry) literary magazine, worked to create a consciousness separate from the regime while still living under the dictatorship.
Outside of the country, The Unión Demócrata Antinazista Dominicana (Dominican Anti-Nazi Democratic Union) challenged the regime’s rhetoric from outside of the spatial reach of the dictator.
Dominican expats in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and other countries, resisted the dictatorship through pamphlets such as “Trujillo es un Nazi” (Trujillo is a Nazi), arguing against the claim that Trujillo was an anti-communist ally and that his regime was a democratic one.

Factors Influencing Opinions of the Dictator

The literary and cultural resistance to the Trujillo dictatorship functioned to create counter discourses to the regime’s anti-Black, anti-communist, and democratic rhetoric, organizing against the dictatorship while evading its gaze.
These writer activists created the foundation for legible and illegible resistance against the dictatorship across the Western world despite their failure to topple the dictatorship.

Trujillo's Rise to Power

Trujillo came into power in 1930 as a direct consequence of the United States military occupation of the Dominican Republic from 1916-1924.
Trujillo was trained by United States marines and rose quickly in the ranks, being appointed commander of the Dominican National Police and transforming it into his “virtually autonomous power base.”
In 1930, Trujillo provided the arms for a coup to depose president Horacio Vasquez.
Trujillo then began his push for the presidency using the Army to intimidate other candidates and Dominican voters, leading to his victory.
Violence and the use of force was a crucial element of Trujillo’s tactics both before and during his presidency.
The Dominican government became a tool for Trujillo’s personal enrichment, with the reorganization of the state serving as a pretext for his own exaltation.
Trujillo’s regime was defined by autocratic control of civil society, with most media and radio being state-controlled or owned by Trujillo or his family members.
He also controlled economic sectors, monopolizing the sugar industry and controlling the distribution of milk and salt.

Dissent and Exile

Dissent seemed inconceivable, and actions against the regime came with repercussions such as torture and murder of political prisoners and opponents.
To escape this repressive environment, many Dominicans chose to enter into exile as early as 1930, travelling to places such as the United States, Haiti, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.

US Government and Trujillo

Trujillo remained in power for over thirty years due to the repressive nature of his dictatorship and the support of the United States government.
Viewing the island as an outpost of democracy in a Caribbean vulnerable to the communist threat, the United States supported the dictator because he protected their interests in the region
This support persisted despite the Parsley Massacre of 1937 and growing testimony about the repressive reality of life under the Trujillato.
Trujillo used the good neighbor policy to his advantage to facilitate his rise and secure the support of the United States, bonded against a common enemy: the Communists.

Documenting and Raising Awareness of the Dictatorship

Literature about the dictatorship was produced as early as the 1940s, while Trujillo was still in power, demonstrating that public intellectuals and writers across the Americas were invested and aware of the hypocrisy of United States support of a dictatorship in the Caribbean.
Books like Angry Men, Laughing Men by Wenzell Brown (1947), Trujillo: Little Caesar of the Caribbean by Germán E. Ornes (1958), and La Era de Trujillo by Jesús de Galíndez (1958) documented the political affairs and horrors of the dictatorship.
This culminated in an episode of a CBS TV series entitled “Trujillo: Portrait of a Dictator,” a fifty-nine-minute documentary aired in 1960 about the state of the country, the rise of the dictator, and his brutal power.
Historian Lauren Derby developed the theory of informed consent and exchange in The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo (2009) to understand the experiences of those living under the dictatorship.

Theory of Informed Consent

Derby focuses on everyday forms of repression and Trujillo’s adoption of cultural phenomena to craft a cultural history of the Trujillo era, arguing "patronage and fear created a culture of compliance."
Building on this conception of informed consent, other scholars have investigated how the Trujillo regime engaged with different sectors of Dominican society, such as women and peasants.
Derby’s theory reinforces the narrow definition of resistance possible under the Trujillato because it limits the structures that can be resisted.
The structures that were possible to resist nearly completely exclude the dictator and, as she argues, the very state practices that sustained his grandiose stature.

Spaces of Resistance

While the dictator created a culture of fear and patronage, it does not mean that no Dominican was able to find or create spaces in which to resist the regime and its rhetoric.
Focus on resistance to the dictatorship has been narrow, emphasizing underground movements and unsuccessful missions to infiltrate the country by Dominicans in exile.
In order to explore resistance by Dominicans living on the island and abroad, the definition of resistance must be expanded to include cultural and literary forms of resistance and evasion.

The "Interlude of Tolerance" (1944-1947)

When the AFRO’s Sam Lacy visited the Dominican Republic in 1946, Trujillo had been president for sixteen years, and Dominicans in exile were attempting to garner international attention.
The years between 1944 and 1947 are known as the “Interlude of Tolerance,” during Trujillo’s third term, when he allowed some liberties to labor and the political opposition to perform democracy on an international stage.
He instituted labor laws that set an eight-hour work day and paid leave and encouraged the formation of opposition parties.
Despite the interlude, the culture of fear and compliance remained, and Dominicans needed to craft covert modes of resistance, notably through literature.

La Poesía Sorprendida (Surprised Poetry)

La Poesía Sorprendida literary magazine began publishing works in 1943, representing ideals of anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, and anti-colonialism.
Anthony Dawahare (2015) writes about surrealism as an international movement, emphasizing the role of Caribbean surrealism through the work of this literary magazine, arguing that the surrealist poetic imagination worked directly against the neocolonial dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo.
The sorprendistas developed a kind of free zone through their surrealist poetry in which they could escape the reach of the dictatorship, creating spaces in which their dissent could exist as they worked to “surprise” the Dominican public out of complacency.
The establishment of a literary magazine was an evasive action because it challenged Trujillo’s totalitarian control of Dominican production.
The autocratic nature of the regime infiltrated all aspects of lived experience for Dominicans in the country

Criticism of Trujillo

La Poesía Sorprendida magazine evaded Trujillo and his rhetoric through its surrealist imaginings, escaping Trujillo’s censorship for the four years that it was active and crafting a space outside of the imagination and reach of the dictator.
Aída Cartagena Portalatín was the only woman on the board of directors of La Poesía Sorprendida literary magazine and published her own works in the magazine.
Her first poem published in the magazine, Vispera del sueño (1944), presented “a world at rest” presumably juxtaposing life under the Trujillo regime with what a post-dictatorship world would look like
In Una Mujer Está Sola (1955), Cartagena Portalatín meditates on the female condition, relegating her and all women to a state of isolation and peripheral existence.
Cartagena Portalatín intertwines her feminist commentary and critique of society with her anti-trujillo stance, subtly masking her resistance of Trujillo’s rhetoric and evading his gaze.
Her engagement with La Poesía Sorprendida, which Dawahare has identified as “the manifestation of contradictions that the regime tried to conceal,” belies her role as a clandestine political actor during this era, resisting the dictatorship and its rhetoric through her writings and her work with the magazine.

Apolitical Stance

In her last interview, Cartagena Portalatín resisted the assertion of herself as a political actor or even as a writer that was political, defining herself as apolitical to escape retribution.
In seeming contradiction to her assertion of an apolitical character is Cartagena Portalatín’s involvement in the Album simbólico en el vigesimoquinto aniversario de la era de Trujillo (1957), “a 365-page anthology of verse commemorating the 25th anniversary of the dictator’s rise to power." The participation in veneration of the dictator in some capacity was common and involuntary for intellectuals and artists living under the regime.
In addition to her involvement with La Poesía Sorprendida, Cartagena Portalatín often traveled to Paris while Trujillo was in power, engaging with other intellectuals and travelling often.
After the death of the dictator in 1961, Cartagena Portalatín’s critique of the regime surfaced in a much more legible manner when she founded the literary magazine Brigadas Dominicanas (Dominican Brigades) in which outward critiques of the dictatorship and renunciation of its rhetoric appeared.

Radical Phase

Other poems, novels, and works by Cartagena Portalatín published after the dictatorship focus on themes of feminism, colonialism, and highlight the African diaspora and especially her identity as an Afro-Latina woman.
This second phase of her writing is known as the “radical” phase for its less traditional and more “aggressive” tone.

Indo-Hispanic identity

Cartagena Portalatín continued to actively resist the Indo-Hispanic identity that Trujillo was crafting to define the Dominican people, resisting the narrative of a solely Spanish and Indigenous Dominican heritage through her affirmation of her Afro-Dominican identity and the African heritage of the Dominican people.
After four years of publishing, the end of La Poesía Sorprendida literary magazine came in 1947, coinciding with the end of the interlude of tolerance. These years marked a stark return to the dictators’ policies of complete control and established an even more violent reality than before.
Reports testify to a stiffening policy in the Dominican Republic as early as May of 1946 with the government working in its “suppression of allegedly subversive elements.”

"Trujillo es un Nazi" (Trujillo is a Nazi), 1943

In 1943, Ellis O. Briggs, counselor of the Embassy of the United States of America in Havana, Cuba, wrote to the U.S. government informing them about a publication by the Unión Demócrata Antinazista Dominicana (Dominican Anti-Nazi Democratic Union) entitled “Trujillo es un Nazi.”
The 52-page pamphlet dedicated itself to combating the assertion of democracy in the Dominican Republic, accusing the dictator himself to be a Nazi agent and identifying various aspects of the regime that supported this claim.
The legacy of literary resistance to the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo allowed those involved in creating “Trujillo es un Nazi” to subvert Trujillo and his surveillance by organizing outside of the country and under a unified front.

Evasion as Resistance

The first manifestation of resistance that occurred was the escape and exile of its authors. Exiled Dominicans in Cuba that participated in the creation of this pamphlet committed their first act of resistance in their movement away from the geographic locality of the dictator and to other Latin American countries.
Once Trujillo was squarely in power, the regime’s surveillance extended to movement in and out of the country. Passports were held by the Dominican government, and Dominicans seeking to leave had to request permission from the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
In evading the spatial reach of the dictator by entering into exile, Dominicans could evade the informed consent and exchange imposed on those living in the country.
The low possibility of legible resistance inside of the country versus the possibility of organized resistance outside of it created the impression that “Trujillo [was] not nearly as unpopular in his country” as he was understood to be from the outside.
“Trujillo es un Nazi” was one of the many efforts by the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (Dominican Revolutionary Party), known as the Unión Demócrata Antinazista Dominicana in Cuba, to combat the representations of a democratic Dominican Republic.

Motivation and Focus of the Pamphlet

The pamphlet is concerned with the relationship between international communism and fascism and the leader of the Dominican Republic, stating as much in the first page:

Faithful to its essential purposes—fighting against Nazi-fascism everywhere and determined support for the Dominican people in the battle for the reestablishment of true democracy in our country—, today the Dominican Anti-Nazi Democratic Union delivers to the public conscience of America and the world the present brochure.
By centering ideologies that were anti-communist and democratic, the Unión contrasted the performance of democracy coming from the Trujillo regime. The regime, much like those of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and Tiburcio Carías in Honduras, conflated challenges to their power and regimes with international communist threats.
The Unión Demócrata Antinazista Dominicana was strategic in undoing the smoke screen that Trujillo had built to safeguard his autocratic regime through their argument in “Trujillo es un Nazi,” targeting Trujillo himself as well as the government and its policies, in the process revealing the hypocrisy and totalitarian nature of the regime.

Nazi Affiliations

The assertion that Trujillo was an agent of Adolf Hitler is one that the authors claim to have lodged at the dictator long before the war reached the Western hemisphere, communicating that Trujillo himself displays a commitment to the ideologies of fascism.
The authors point to Trujillo’s actions and apparent negligence for regional unity, the presence of Nazi agents in the Dominican Republic, and the fascist qualities of the Dominican Army to support their argument. They presented evidence of their claims by detailing Trujillo’s actions and even including decoded correspondence between Trujillo and other government officials to support their claims.
By drawing these international connections, the Unión hoped to awaken the United States and the rest of Latin America to the reality of Trujillo’s rule, communicating that his investment in democracy was untrue.
In the era of Trujillo, the Dominican Army was a direct extension of the dictator’s power and influence.

Government Policies

The authors of "Trujillo is a Nazi" argue that these communist and Nazi affiliations further influenced the policies of the Dominican government as evident in the conduct of its diplomatic centers, extending their argument beyond the figure of Trujillo and to the structures of the government and country.
The establishment of the Dominican-German Institute of Scientific Research supported their claims that Trujillo himself was a Nazi because of the cooperation between the two countries needed to bring the institute into existence.
In consequence, the atmosphere that Trujillo was crafting inside of the country, according to these exiles, was one tolerant of fascism and secretly supportive of the Fuhrer.
*Whether or not these claims are true or mere speculation, the authors of "Trujillo is a Nazi" underline foundational differences between the ideals of the dictator and themselves in unraveling Trujillo’s rhetoric and regime.

Relationship Between the Dominican Republic and Haiti

The Unión included a section of the pamphlet dedicated specifically to Dominican-Haitian relations, calling for harmony and solidarity between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Richard Lee Turits argues that a shift in Trujillo’s policies to do with Haitians living in the Dominican Republic can be seen right before and especially after the 1937 massacre.
In stark contrast to the words of Peña Batlle and the policies of the dictator, the Unión challenged the rhetoric of an innocent and democratic republic perpetuated by Trujillo’s propaganda by calling out the "violent anti-Haitian journalistic campaign that is dangerously stirring up the spirits."
While the exiled Dominicans who participated in writing this pamphlet do not contend with the rumors that they themselves are Communists, they do the important work of revealing the contradictions in Trujillo’s regime.

Contradicting Claims

In contradiction with Sam Lacy’s claim that Trujillo was one of the “Western world’s favorite communist targets,” these exiles framed the dictator himself as a fascist Nazi, unveiling his performance of democracy to reveal the true autocratic and capitalist motivations of his regime.
From their own words they wanted the international community to understand that they were not “communist agitators” and that Trujillo was the true enemy.
Counselor of the Embassy Ellis O. Briggs maintained the United States government up to date about the activities of Dominican exiles in Havana, including a list of anti-trujillo publications published by the Unión including “Trujillo es un Nazi,” “América contra Trujillo” (America Against Trujillo), “La Propaganda de Trujillo al Desnudo” (Trujillo’s Propaganda Naked), “Dos Actitudes Ante el Problema Dominicano- Haitiano” (Two Attitudes to the Dominican-Haitian Problem), and “La Historia del Hombre Que Se Proclamo Igual a Dios” (The Story of a Man Who Proclaimed Himself Equal to God).

Location and Possibility

Location defined the range of possibility for those organizing against the Trujillato and its rhetoric. Inside of the country, activists and resisters had to claim an apolitical stance as they attempted to organize against the dictator as did Aída Cartagena Portalatín.
Those organizing against the dictator were able to assume a much more political stance if they were located outside of the country. For the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano and Dominicans living across the Americas, their activism could manifest as overtly political and, in fact, often did so to attract more international attention.
In September 2021, President Luis Adinader of the Dominican Republic gave a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in which he stated that Haiti is a place of “regional insecurity” and therefore cannot hold “free, fair, and reliable elections,” calling on the international community to consider Haiti a pressing issue in the region in need of security.
This speech, as well as the erasure of birthright citizenship through ruling 168-13 in 2013, in effect targeting Dominicans of Haitian descent and leading to their deportation, are policies that grow out of the regime’s projects of hispanidad nationalism and the legacy of neo-trujillismo.

Failure of Resistance

This reality emphasizes the failure of La Poesía Sorprendida and the Unión Demócrata Antinazista Dominicana, and other resistance efforts by Dominicans, to dismantle the dictatorship and substantially intervene in its rhetoric and policies.
Despite the different ways they had to engage in resistance to the Trujillo dictatorship, activists inside and outside of the country failed to dismantle the regime and its legacy.
organized political activity, in tandem with these literary efforts, was required to deal a successful deathblow to the regime and its trujillista personifications.
However, this fact does not diminish their success in combating the dictator’s rhetoric through their evasion of his gaze and their literary resistance.
Their efforts demonstrate that there exists a legacy in resisting the personifications of the Trujillo regime in Dominican society.
Aída Cartagena Portalatín and La Poesía Sorprendida, as well as the Unión Demócrata Antinazista Dominicana through “Trujillo es un Nazi,” represent only a few efforts to take down Trujillo.
As we uncover how the resistance manifested we can begin to uncover the long legacy of Dominican resisters who understood that rhetoric is power in the fight against oppression.