2006 Dominican Studies Association Conference

Jul 23

Written By DSA DSA

On the Future of Dominican Studies: Charting the Course ¿Dónde estamos y adónde vamos? In Memoriam of Pedro Mir Poet Laureate of the Dominican Republic May 12 & 13, 2006

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1 ASOCIACIÓN DE ESTUDIOS DOMINICANOS / DOMINICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION & HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE, CUNY DOMINICAN First STUDIES: Interdisciplinary CHARTING THE COURSE Conference on the Future of Dominican Studies: Charting the Course Dónde estamos y adónde vamos? In Memoriam of Pedro Mir Poet Laureate of the Dominican Republic May 12 & 13, 2006 Pedro Mir Artwork by Pedro Gastón Eugenio María de Hostos Community College 500 Grand Concourse Bronx, NY 10451

2 This conference is spearheaded by the Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos and Division of Academic Affairs at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College. ADDITIONAL SPONSORS: Office of the President, Eugenio María de Hostos Community College, CUNY, Banco Popular Dominicano, Comisionado de Cultura Dominicana en los Estados Unidos, Dominican American National Roundtable, Harvard University s David Rockefeller Center for Latino Studies, Hostos Center for Arts and Culture, Latino Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University, Modern Languages at Hostos, Serrano Scholars Program, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at Hostos, Latino/Latin American Studies Program at Syracuse University, The New York Council for the Humanities, Sociology Department at Smith College, Student Government Association at Hostos, The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at The City College, The Hostos Dominican Republic Study Abroad Program.

3 EUGENIO MARÍA DE HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK 500 GRAND CONCOURSE, ROOM B-447 BRONX, NEW YORK TELEPHONE (718) FAX (718) Greetings from the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs May 8, 2006 Dear Colleagues, Students and Friends: Welcome to Eugenio María de Hostos Community College of The City University of New York for the First International and Interdisciplinary Conference on the Future of Dominican Studies: Charting the Course. Dónde estamos y adónde vamos? In Memoriam of Pedro Mir. The Division of Academic Affairs at Hostos is honored to partner with the Dominican Studies Association/Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos in this significant and important activity. This is the first in what is hoped to become a biannual partnership. The Dominican Studies Association/Asociación de Estudios Domincanos is a not-for-profit organization, created by a group of Dominican-American academics in the late nineties, to promote and disseminate the study of the contribution made to humanity by Dominicans in all parts of the globe and of all times, and to provide a mechanism for networking and supporting emerging scholars in the field of Dominican Studies. Given the large number of students of Dominican descent who attend Hostos Community College, it is our privilege to bring such a rich opportunity and experience to the campus. Let this be one more opportunity for Hostos, a prominent center for the dissemination of Latino culture in New York City, to engage in an on-going conversation on the present state of Dominican Studies. We have before us the promise of two very exciting days. On behalf of the Division of Academic Affairs at Hostos Community College, please accept my warmest welcome and best wishes for a successful experience. Sincerely, Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Ph.D. Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs 3

4 SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE 7pm 10pm THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2006 OFF-CAMPUS, RANCHO JUBILEE RESTAURANT Pre-conference dinner, pre-registration and admission fee required. FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2006 SATURDAY, MAY 13, 2006 All sessions in 450 Grand Concourse, 3rd floor All sessions in 450 Grand Concourse, 3rd floor 9:00am-9:45am Registration 9:00am-9:45am Registration 10:00am-10:45am C390 Opening Ceremony 10:00am-10:45am Keynote Address C390 Language, Memory and Identity 11:00am-12:15pm Keynote Address C390 The Bilingual Sublime 12:30pm-2:00pm Lunch Break 2:00pm-3:15pm Session 1 - Concurrent Sessions C Diaspora Studies: An Overview C Engendering Dominican Studies C Filming Room Open 3:30pm-4:45pm Session 2 - Concurrent Sessions C The Fatherland/La Madre Patria Abroad: Figuration of Belonging in Dominican Discourse FDR 5. Pioneering Dominican Studies in the US C The Dominican Republic and the Americas C Filming Room Open 5:00pm-6:00pm Featured Artist/Photographer C Lobby Consuelo Gotay and Eduardo Hoepelman 6:15pm-7:30pm Session 3 - Concurrent Sessions C Emerging Voices in Dominican Studies FDR 9. Escritoras Dominicanas: Tertulia de Escritoras Dominicanas en los Estados Unidos y las amigas C Considering Dominican Literature: Dentro y Fuera 11:00am-12:15pm Session 4 - Concurrent Sessions C The State of Dominican Studies: Language, Literature, Cultural Studies and Social Sciences C Challenging Sexual Norms: Diverse Sexualities and Dominican Studies FDR 13. Dominican Republic Study Abroad Programs: A Status Report C Filming Room Open 12:30pm-2:00pm Lunch Break 2:00pm-3:15pm Session 5 - Concurrent Sessions C Race in the Dominican Republic: Identidad y Prejuicio FDR 16. Status of Dominican Studies in Public Schools - Panel A C Politics and Immigration C Filming Room Open 3:30pm-4:45pm Session 6 - Concurrent Sessions C Legislation Impacting the Dominican Community C Status of Dominican Studies in Public Schools - Panel B FDR 21. Dominican Republic and Haiti: One Island, Two Nations C Filming Room Open 7:30pm Reception Art Gallery Open Mic Readings, Pedro Mir 11am-5pm C362 Saturday, Film Festival Dominican Films 7:30pm Main Theater Admission Fee 4 Performance Victor Victor and His Band Center for Arts and Culture Hostos Box Office

5 HONORED GUESTS Dedicated to Pedro Mir RHINA ESPAILLAT (FEATURED POET AND SPEAKER) Rhina P. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic in 1932, and has lived in the United States since She taught high school English in New York City for several years, and writes poetry and prose both in English and in her native Spanish. Her work has appeared on many internet sites and in numerous magazines, including "The Lyric," "Poetry," "Sparrow," "Orbis," "The Formalist" and "The American Scholar" as well as some three dozen anthologies, among them Contemporary American Poetry (Pearson Longman, 2005); 100 Great Poets of the English Language (Pearson Longman, 2005); A Formal Feeling Comes (Story Line Press, 1994); In Other Words: Literature by Latinas of the United States (Arte Publico Press, 1994); and Twentieth Century American Poetry (McGraw-Hill, 2004). She is a frequent reader and speaker in the Boston area, and conducts workshops at colleges and universities out of state as well. She was one of eighty writers invited to participate in the National Book Festival sponsored jointly by the Library of Congress and the First Lady, and held in Washington, DC, on October 4, Espaillat has eight poetry collections in print: Lapsing to Grace (Bennett & Kitchel, 1992); Where Horizons Go (Truman State University Press, 1998), which won the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize; Rehearsing Absence (University of Evansville Press), which won the 2001 Richard Wilbur Award; "Mundo y Palabra/The World and the Word" (Oyster River Press), a bilingual chapbook that is part of a series titled Walking to Windward: 21 New England Poets; a chapbook in the Pudding House invitational series, titled "Rhina P. Espaillat: Greatest Hits, "; The Shadow I Dress In (David Robert Books, 2004), winner of the 2003 Stanzas Prize; a chapbook titled "The Story-teller's Hour" (Scienter Press, 2004); and Playing at Stillness (Truman State University Press, 2005). Her ninth - a bilingual collection of poems and essays titled Agua de dos rios (Water from Two Rivers) - is scheduled for publication in the Dominican Republic, under the auspices of the Dominican National Library. She has won various other awards, including the "Sparrow" Sonnet Prize, three yearly prizes from the Poetry Society of America, the Der-Hovanessian Translation Prize, the Barbara Bradley Award from the New England Poetry Club, the "Oberon" Prize, and the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award sponsored by "The Formalist." In 2004, she became the first winner of the Tree at My Window Award from the Robert Frost Foundation, specifically for her Spanish translations of Robert Frost and her English translations of Saint John of the Cross and the Dominican poet Cesar Sanchez Beras. In October of 2004, she received (in absentia) the Dominican Republic's Salome Ureña de Henríquez Award for service to Dominican culture and education. Espaillat lives in Newburyport, MA, with her husband Alfred Moskowitz, a sculptor. They have three sons and three grandchildren, and are active in many aspects of the life of the community. Espaillat coordinates the Newburyport Art Association's Annual Poetry Contest, directs the Powow River Poets, which she co-founded, and organizes that group's monthly reading series. She has also been instrumental in bringing about bilingual poetry readings in the North of Boston area, and bilingual activities shared by the high school students of Lawrence and Newburyport. DORIS SOMMER (FEATURED SPEAKER) Doris Sommer is Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, where she also directs the Cultural Agents Initiative [culturalagents.org]. Among her books are One Master for Another: Populism as Patriarchal Rhetoric in Dominican Novels (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984); Cultural Agency in the Americas, (Durham, Duke University Press, 2006); Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education, (Durham, Duke UP, 2004), Proceed with Caution, when engaged by minority writing in the Americas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); in Spanish: Abrazos y rechazos: Cómo leer en clave menor (Bogotá: FCE, 2006) and Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); in Spanish Ficciones fundacionales: La novela nacional en América Latina (Bogotá: FCE, 2005). 5

6 Honored Guests Dedicated to Pedro Mir CONSUELO GOTAY (FEATURED ARTIST) Consuelo Gotay was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico She pursued a B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico and finished an M.A. at Teachers College, Columbia University She studied printmaking with José Antonio Torres Martinó and with Lorenzo Homar in While developing her artists books she received formal training in book binding and printing at the Bernardino Cordero Bernart School in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and the Center for Book Arts in New York in She has been a professor of printmaking and book arts since She worked at the Printmaking Workshop, School of Architecture, University of Puerto Rico, Universidad APEC, Santo Domingo, República Dominicana At present she is Associate Professor of Printmaking on a sabbatical leave at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Puerto Rico where she chaired the Printmaking Department At this institution she helped develop a non-toxic Printmaking Department and Book Arts Studies. Consuelo has been a printmaker, book artist and graphic designer. She has exhibited her work individually in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the United States. She has participated in collective exhibits in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Bulgaria, and the United States. Her work is kept in several collections in the United States and Puerto Rico: New York Public Library, Princeton University Graphic Arts Collection, Museo de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, La Casa del Libro, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte de Ponce, The City University of New York, and Dominican Studies. In recent years she has developed a series of artist s books on Caribbean poets. At present she is working on a new collaborative project with poet Lourdes Vázquez. EDUARDO HOEPELMAN (FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHER) Eduardo E. Hoepelman was born in villa Consuelo, Dominican Republic, where at the age of 15 he took a political activist roll. In 1967, he immigrated to the United States. His history is the history of any working class immigrant coming to our nation. On his first day in New York, he had to work to support his family in the Dominican Republic. He worked to bring them to the United States, too. In the 1960s and 1970s he worked in factories, restaurants, gas stations, constructing sites and gipsy cabs. But Eduardo was always interested in taking pictures. In 1977, he got his first important assignment as a photographer in La Noticia, a Dominican Newspaper where he covered numerous assignments that included Major League Hispanic baseball players at both Shea and Yankee stadiums. In the 1980 s and 1990 s Hoepelman worked for different newspapers and magazines where he covered events related to art, sports, politics, and education. Eduardo E. Hoepelman was the official photographer of Hostos Community College, CUNY for many years starting in He was responsible for taking photographs of all official events happening on campus. Eduardo also did the progress pictures of the Morgan Stanley Children s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian. But, the most important thing about Eduardo is that he always cares about his/our community. 6

7 Distinguished Guests HIS EXCELLENCY DR. FLAVIO DARIO ESPINAL (AMBASSADOR OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC TO THE UNITED STATES) His Excellency Flavio Dario Espinal obtained his Law degree (Summa Cum Laude) in the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM). He also holds a Master s] degree in Political Sciences from the University of Essex, England, and a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Virginia, United States. During his studies he received several scholarships from programs and institutions of international prestige, such as the Fulbright program, the Bradley Foundation, the Dupont Foundation and the Institute of World Politics. During the period , he was Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the Organization of the American States (O.A.S.), in which he held the positions of Chair of the Permanent Council, Chair of the Committee on Legal and Political Issues and Chair of the Committee on Hemispheric Security. He was also co-coordinator of the Civil Society Agenda in the process of the Summits of the Américas. Ambassador Flavio Dario Espinal is the former Dean of the Law School at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM), Recinto Santo Tomás de Aquino, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic where he was also professor of Constitutional Law, Public International Law and General Principles of Law. HONORABLE DR. HUGO MORALES, CUNY TRUSTEE HUGO M. MORALES, was appointed by Governor George Pataki in June 2002 as a member of the Board of Trustees of The City University of New York. He was the Medical Director of the Bronx Mental Health Center, which he established and organized in 1965 in order to provide comprehensive ambulatory mental health care services to lowincome minority patients of the Bronx and other boroughs from 1965 to Previously, Dr. Morales was Junior Psychiatrist at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens ( ), Senior Psychiatrist at Manhattan State Hospital in Wards Island ( ), and Director of the Department of Psychiatry at St. Francis Hospital in the Bronx (1966). Dr. Morales is a Diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians, as well as the American College of Forensic Examiners. Dr. Morales received his Medical Degree from the University of Santo Domingo. Dr. Morales was Chairman of the Dominican Board of the Governor's Office for Hispanic Affairs, from 1984 to 1992, and serves as member on the Hispanic Federation Committee, the New York State Department of Health Medical Advisory Committee, the Governor's Task Force on Rape and Sexual Assault, and the Hostos Community College Advisory Board. HONORABLE CARLOS SIERRA, CUNY TRUSTEE CARLOS SIERRA, is an ex-officio voting member of the Board of Trustees and Chairperson of the session of the University Student Senate (USS). As Chair of USS, Mr. Sierra is at the helm of the student organization of the leading and largest public urban university in the nation. A double major in Photography and Political Science at Lehman College, Carlos came to the U.S. at age 13. Forced by economic circumstances to leave school at age 17, he entered a Kansas Job Corps Center, where he earned his GED and learned the trade of cement mason. Carlos was elected Vice President of the Center s Student Government and also received the Center s highest award for achievement. He worked as a cement mason and moved to New York City, where he enrolled at Bronx Community College. He became President of the Photography Club, and was elected President of BCC's Student Government, and also served as editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, The Communicator, as well as the yearbook, Pegasus. After earning his Associate's Degree, Carlos enrolled in Lehman College where once again he joined in Student Government and was elected Student Senator and Community Activity Programmer. Carlos took part in the CUNY Model New York State Senate Session project in 2003 and

8 ABOUT THE PANELS, FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2006 Opening Ceremony, 10:00am-10:45am Moderator Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Hostos Community College Greetings Dolores M. Fernández, Hostos Community College Excellency Flavio Darío Espinal, Dominican Republic Ambassador Honorable Hugo Morales, CUNY Trustee Honorable Carlos Sierra, CUNY Trustee Ramona Hernández, The City College, CUNY Silvio Torres-Saillant, Syracuse University/Harvard University Luis Canela, Banco Popular Dominicano Wally Edgecombe, Hostos Community College Idelsa Mendez, Hostos Community College José García, Hostos Community College Charlene Ramirez, Hostos Community College *And distinguished guests Musical Interlude, 10:45am-11:00am Thelma Ithier-Sterling, Vocalist, Hostos Community College Raymond Torres, Pianist, Hostos Community College C390 C390 Selection of Dominican songs. Keynote Address, 11:00am - 12:15pm The Bilingual Sublime Introduction Silvio Torres-Saillant, Syracuse University/Harvard University Presenter Doris Sommer, Harvard University C390 The bilingual sublime, a deeply human condition that Hispaniola knows very well: modernity is a project of cultural streamlining, imagining that one country is identified by one language. On an island in which two languages interfere with one another, the "barbarous" elements are frightening, but also thrilling. They remind speakers on both sides that language is a construct; that it is porous. Some will defend "purity" with patriotic zeal; others will learn irony and creative convivencia. Session 1, 2:00pm-3:15pm 1. Diaspora Studies: An Overview C390 Moderator Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Hostos Community College Panelists Danilo Figueredo, Bloomfield College Marianela Medrano, Author Freddy Rodríguez, Artist Carlos Sanabria, Hostos Community College This panel will take a multidisciplinary approach, integrating academics and practitioners, to explore and provoke dialogue around a number of issues, including but not limited to: status of migration studies; gender, literature, community, and the woman writer; themes in Dominican American literature in the context of Caribbean studies; art and the artist in the diaspora. 8

9 PANELS, FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2006 Session 1, 2:00pm-3:15pm 2. Engendering Dominican Studies C391 Moderator Ginetta Candelarío, Smith College Panelists Hector Cordero-Guzman, Baruch College Melissa Madera, SUNY Binghamton Elizabeth Manly, Tulane University Milagros Ricourt, Lehman College This panel features pioneering work on the history of Dominican women's political participation ranging from feminist activisms during the Trujillato and Balaguer's twelve years to immigrant women's organizing efforts in New York City. Session 2, 3:30pm-4:45pm 4. The Fatherland/La Madre Patria Abroad / C390 Figuration of Belonging in Dominican Discourse Moderator Panelists Silvio Torres-Saillant, Syracuse University/Harvard University Rita De Maeseneer, Antwerp University Dennis J. Hidalgo, Adelphi University Ramonita Marcano, Academician Ramon Victoriano-Martinez, University of Toronto This panel brings together the scholarship of literary critics and historians working on literary and historical representations of the Dominican experience to examine the ways in which the look from abroad and how the diasporic perspective challenges traditional narratives of belonging in Dominican discourse. 5. Pioneering Dominican Studies in the U.S. FDR Moderator Ramona Hernández, The City College Panelists Héctor Cordero-Guzmán, Baruch College Sherri Grasmuck, Temple University Franklin Gutierrez, York College Compared to other areas of ethnic studies, Dominican Studies is a relatively young field of scholarship in American academia. Around three decades ago, some scholars began to make the Dominican experience in the U.S. the object of their academic work, becoming in the process pioneers of an area of study that would become fundamental for the understanding of the fastest growing Latino ethnic group in the Northeastern United States as we speak. This panel features some pioneering scholars who have made contributions to the field from the angles of literature, sociology, and quantitative analysis of public education. 6. Dominican Republic and the Americas C391 Moderator Anthony Stevens-Acevedo, The City College Panelists James De Filippis, Baruch College Victor Figueroa, Wayne State University Angel Villarini, Catedrático Universidad de Puerto Rico Pedro Morillo, Hostos Community College 9

10 PANELS, MAY 12, 2006 Session 2, 3:30pm-4:45pm 6. Dominican Republic and the Americas, continued C391 The Dominican Republic has the longest tradition of relations with the rest of the Americas of any of the contemporary nations of the continent as we know them today. Its territory, unified initially with that of the current Republic of Haiti under Spanish rule as the senior colony of La Española, was the launching board from which the Europeans first embarked in the colonization of South, Central, and North America. That interaction has continued to our day, and through tourism, migrations, and commerce, it has actually intensified during the last three decades, intertwining intimately with the overall process of globalization. This panel features four specialists who will comment on different angles of this rich and complex process. Session 3, 6:15pm-7:30pm 8. Emerging Voices in Dominican Studies C390 Moderator Anthony Stevens-Acevedo, The City College Panelists Ginetta Candelarío, Smith College Belkis Necos, The City College Maritza Straughn-Williams, Colby College Every day new scholars join the field of Dominican Studies. This panel showcases four of these emerging voices, all of them currently working in research about different aspects of Dominicans as a people. The panelists will share part of their research on Dominican racial perceptions in life-narratives, changing gender behaviors in relation to sexuality and sexual health, and early colonial slavery in Dominican history. Though apparently apart from each other in time and matter, the four papers actually share underlying connections that take place inside Dominican culture across time. 9. Escritoras Dominicanas: Tertulia de Escritoras Dominicanas en los Estados Unidos FDR Moderator Sonia Rivera-Valdés, York College Authors Annecy Báez Dinorah Coronado Margarita Drago Carolina González Jacqueline Herranz-Brooks Juleyka Lantigua Marianela Medrano Yrene Santos Paquita Suarez-Coalla Bilingual readings of poetry and prose of published works and works in progress by members of Tertulia de Escritoras Dominicanas en los Estados Unidos y las amigas. 10. Considering Dominican Literature: Dentro y Fuera C391 Moderador Franklin Gutierrez, York College Panelists Miguel Aníbal Perdomo, Academician León Félix Batista, University of Massachussets Chiqui Vicioso, Author Dominican authors reflect on issues related to Dominican literature and the craft of writing. 10

11 PANELS, MAY 12 & 13, 2006 Reception, 7:30pm - 9:00pm, Open Mic Readings of Pedro Mir s Poetry Moderator Chiqui Vicioso, Author Art Gallery This reception is open to all conference participants, guests and friends. The microphone is open to any who would like to read from written works of Pedro Mir. About the Panels, Saturday, May 13, 2006 Keynote Address, 10:00am - 10:45am Language, Memory, and Identity Introduction: Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Hostos Community College Presenter: Rhina Espaillat, Poet and Author C390 Language, Memory and Identity is a brief talk on the way the sense of self of the deracinated person is shaped by bilinguality, and altered by the acquisition of "adopted" memories. Remarks will be followed and illustrated by the reading of several poems and an autobiographical essay that touches upon the immigrant experience and its emotional impact. Musical Interlude, 10:45am-11:00am Thelma Ithier-Sterling, Vocalist, Hostos Community College Raymond Torres, Pianist, Hostos Community College C390 Session 4, 11:00am-12:15pm 11. The State of Dominican Studies: C390 Language, Literature, Cultural Studies and Social Sciences Moderator Panelists Luis Alvarez-López, John Jay College Francisco Chapman-Veloz, John Jay College Edgardo Díaz-Díaz, John Jay College Anabel González, John Jay College Raymond Torres, Hostos Community College This session is a roundtable on popular culture, music and Dominican identity: Merengue y Bachata. (Reformulando la identidad Dominicana a través de la Música Popular Dominicana: Merengue y Bachata). 12. Challenging Sexual Norms: Diverse Sexualities and Dominican Studies C390 Moderator Carlos Decena, Rutgers University Panelists Yoseli Castillo, Academician Maja Horn, FLACSO The presenters and discussant on this panel have been working to give voice to the concerns, experiences, and politics of people whose sexual and gender practices, identities, and lives do not conform to traditional expectations of what Dominican men and women are or should be. Combining the perspectives of scholars, activists, and artists, this panel intends to foreground not only the presence of sexual diversity of Dominicans in the Dominican Republic and in the diaspora, but to challenge all students of the lives and realities of Dominican communities to become more cognizant of the ways in which gender and sexual norms shape these lives and realities. In this way, the participants on this panel hope to begin a conversation with scholars and members of the Dominican community to further the project of making our society and communities more tolerant of the many manifestations of gender and sexual diversity. 11

12 PANELS, MAY 13, 2006 Session 4, 11:00am-12:15pm 13. Dominican Republic Study Abroad Programs: A Status Report C391 Moderators Ana I. García Reyes, Hostos Community College Néstor Montilla, Hostos Community College Greetings Hon. Carlos Sierra, CUNY Trustee Hon. Luiz Diaz, NYS Assemblyman Panelists Lynne Guitar, Universidad Madre y Maestra Irma Nicasio, Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo Odalís Pérez, Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo This panel will focus on study abroad programs and their role as catalysts to foster research. There will also be a special Hostos Community College study abroad video presentation. Session 5, 2:00pm-3:15pm 15. Race in the Dominican Republic: Identidad y Prejuicio C390 Moderator Carlos Sanabria, Hostos Community College Panelists Kenny García, University of Michigan, Dearborn Irma Nicasio, Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo Odalis Perez, Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo Luis Vargas, Hostos Community College This panel will focus on issues relating to identity and racism in the Dominican Republic. In his presentation, Kenny Garcia will examine the Arab and Asian presence in the country and Dominican identity. Luis Vargas, in turn, will discuss the problems of racism and anti-haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic. 16. Status of Dominican Studies in Public Schools (Panel A) FDR Moderator Robert Mercedes, NYC Department of Education / ADASA Panelists Francesca Peña, NYC Department of Education Martha Madera, NYC Department of Education Jocelyn Santana, NYC Department of Education Angelica Infante, NYC Department of Education This panel will focus on the status of New York City public schools from an administrative perspective. 17. Politics and Immigration C391 Moderator Ginetta Candelarío, Smith College Panelist s Milagros Batista, Alianza Dominicana Charles Robert Venator Santiago, Ithaca College Aldrin Bonilla, Hostos Community College This panel presents researchers and activists working with community responses to immigration issues, and deportation laws and policies targeting Dominicans in the United States and Haitians in the Dominican Republic. 12

13 PANELS, MAY 13, 2006 Session 6, 3:30pm-4:45pm 19. Legislation Impacting the Dominican Community C390 Moderators Ana I. García Reyes, Hostos Community College Néstor Montilla, Hostos Community College Presenters Ms. Lilliam Perez, District Office Director for NYS Assemblyman Eric Schneiderman Ms. Alejandra Castillo, White House Intern Respondents Hon. Grace Diaz, Rhode Island State Representative Hon. Luis Diaz, NYS Assemblyman Hon. Adriano Espaillat, NYS Assemblyman Hon. Carlos Gonzalez, New Hampshire State Representative Hon. Miguel Martinez, NYC Assemblyman Hon. José Peralta, NYS Assemblyman Hon. Juan Pichardo, Rhode Island State Senator Cid Wilson, Dominican American National Roundtable This panel will focus on legislation impacting the Dominican community. 20. Status of Dominican Studies in the Public Schools (Panel B) C391 Moderator Daniel Abreu, Gregorio Luperón High School Panelists Indira Acevedo, HS student, NYC Public School System Mariely Gonzalez, HS student, NYC Public School System Nancy Diaz, NYC Public School System Nelida Polanco, NYC Public School System This panel will focus on the status of New York City public schools from the perspectives of teachers, students and parents. 21. Dominican Republic and Haiti: One Island, Two Nations FDR Moderator Luis Alvarez-López, John Jay College Panelists José Bello, Banco Popular Dominicano Edgardo Díaz-Díaz, John Jay College Christina Jones, Howard University Anthony Stevens-Acevedo, The City College From colonies to nations: inter-island migrations, human rights violations and the Dominican diaspora perspectives about the Haitians and the Dominican-Haitians in the Dominican Republic. 13

14 NOTES 14

15 ABOUT THE FILMING ROOM: TELLING YOUR STORY The filming room, Telling Your Story, is located in 450 Grand Concourse, room 361. This room was designed by the conference planning committee to be the vehicle through which conference participants can share reactions to the conference sessions and presentations or elaborate about personal experiences by narrating stories about growing up Dominican or Dominican American. The Telling Your Story room will be staffed by Hostos faculty volunteers ready to assist you with all the technical details. Each video participant must sign a waiver, which will be provided. The room will be open during the following times. Friday, May 12 Saturday, May 13 2:00pm - 3:15pm 3:30pm - 4:45pm 11:00am - 12:15pm 2:00pm - 3:15pm 3:30pm - 4:45pm Share accomplishments you have attained or struggles you have overcome, viewpoints that you hold or beliefs that you follow. This room was designed by the planning committee for you to personalize your contribution to this landmark conference on the Future of Dominican Studies. RECORDING POLICY All material presented during this conference are the property of the individual presenting. All recordings of this conference are the property of the Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos. Recording, videotaping or otherwise copying the proceedings of this conference is not permitted without express consent of the presenters and Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos. The proceedings will be videotaped by the Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos and may be viewed by individuals wishing to do so by submitting a written request. For more information, please contact Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos. 15

16 ABOUT PEDRO MIR A Poet of His People, A Poet of the World By: Silvio Torres-Saillant True literary artists bear witness to the challenge of the human condition as it is lived in their particular time and place within the confines of discrete circumstances. The clearer their success in capturing the drama of existence and communicating it to their home public with conviction, the greater their chance of producing texts that speak persuasively to people elsewhere. In the Dominican Republic no one lays a more legitimate claim to intimacy with the yearnings of the Dominican people as well as with the texture of their collective voice than Pedro Mir. No author writing in the country enjoys more popularity and reverence than he among both literary and non-literary readers in virtually all sectors of society. The agreement by the full multi-partisan legislature of the Dominican Congress in 1982 to confer upon Mir the title of National Poet suggests the high regard in which his native audience holds him. In New York, the home of many Dominicans, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Hunter College in June of 1991 and eight months later he became the subject of major conference at Hostos Community College. In January 1993 Mir received the National Prize for Literature, the highest honor a literary artist can aspire to in the Dominican Republic. The multitude of voices that celebrated the prize include spokespersons as distinguished as poet and playwright Manuel Rueda, who dedicated a whole issue of his weekly Isla Abierta to Mir. The sentiment of the general public was perhaps best captured by the daily El Siglo, whose editorial for the occasion described Mir s best known poem as the common property of all Dominicans. Born on June 3, 1913, in the southerly city of San Pedro de Macorís, of a Puerto Rican mother and a Cuban Father, Mir published his first poems in 1937 through the agency of Juan Bosch, who had already achieved notoriety in Dominican letters. Mir soon attained recognition not only among young intellectuals, who hailed him as a social poet but also among the cultural commissars of the Trujillo dictatorship, who viewed him with suspicion. By 1947 it had become clear that he should leave the country. Once he did, the scribes of the regime undertook to suppress his name, as is evident in a Dominican poetry anthology whose first edition in 1943 had prominently displayed his poems but omitted him completely in the second edition of Treading the path of exile came without glamour for Mir. Abroad, he did not enjoy the visibility of prestigious political expatriates such as Bosch, who befriended Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Nicolás Guillén, Romulo Gallegos, and Miguel Otero Silva, among other major literary figures of Latin America. Mir did not form part of famous intellectual circles. Rather, he quietly earned a humble living, doing menial jobs, as he continued to write. While in Cuba, in 1949 he published Hay un país en el mundo and in 1952 committed to print his Contracanto a Whitman during a brief sojourn in Guatemala, where his small collection Seis momentos de esperanza also appeared the following year. These publications elicited no fanfare, but they laid the groundwork for the poetics that would thenceforward characterize Mir s oeuvre. The epic breadth of his song, the historical incisiveness of his themes, the upliftment of hope as an inexorable dogma, and the lyrical fabric of his verse, all emerge palpably in the thin volumes. Mir may be said to have consistently worshipped the muse of history, and in that faith he shows a striking kinship with typical Caribbean poets of the stature of Aimé Césaire, Nicolás Guillén, and Kamau Brathwaite. In characteristics Antillean fashion, he has also gone outside the realm of verse production to explore historical processes of his country and the larger Caribbean region. His essay Tres leyendas de colores, which he completed in 1949 and did not publish until 20 years later, traces the origins of the modern Caribbean to the first three revolutions of the Americas, which took place on the island of Hispaniola. Subsequently, El gran incendio (1969), Las raíces dominicanas de la doctrina de Monroe (1974), the three- 16

17 PEDRO MIR CONTINUED volume text La noción de período en la historia dominicana ( ), and Historia del hambre (1987) each combine the prose style of a mature literary craftsman with the rigor of a professional historian to achieve penetrating insights into the most crucial junctures that have shaped the Dominican Republic, its place in world affairs, and the intransigent endurance of its people. His prose fiction further illustrates Mir s dedication to the historical imagination in the scrutiny of the Caribbean experience. La gran hazaña de Límber y después otoño (1977), a collection of three animal fables linked by a cornice, Cuando amaban las tierras comuneras (1978), a novel set chronologically between the 1916 and the 1965 military occupations of the Dominican Republic by the United States, and Buen viaje, Pancho Valentín! (1981), the fictional memoirs of a man returning to the native land after a long absence, derive most of their dramatic tension from the historical imperatives that frame the characters and the dilemmas they encounter. Mir has produced considerable work in the fields of history, fiction, and even art criticism and theory, in which he has written Apertura a la estética (1974), Fundamentos de teoría y crítica de arte (1979), and La estética del soldadito (1991). His achievements in other literary genres and areas of intellectual endeavor notwithstanding, his verse remains the best known facet of his writings. Probably to Mir s own chagrin, with him the poet has greatly overshadowed the essayist, the fiction writer, and the thinker. But that has to do with the fact that when he came back from his long exile in 1962, following the death of Trujillo, it was as a poet that he first won the hearts of his native audience. His poetry recitals in the 1960s and 1970s attracted large and enthusiastic crowds of workers, students, and cultural activists in Santo Domingo and cities of the interior. The popularity of Hay un país en el mundo, which became the common property of all Dominicans as soon as the poet regained his homeland, has continued unabated. Not only has the poem gone through innumerable reprintings and frequent staged choral readings, but it has inspired several renditions by artists working in other forms, such as painting, etching, music, and photography. For many years following his return, Mir s reputation rested largely on the published poems he brought from exile. However, he subsequently produced major poetic texts that supplement and deepen the known elements of his verse. Moved by the deaths of the Mirabal sisters, whose brutal murder by the agents of the tyrant on November 25, 1960, had shaken all layers of Dominican society, Mir produced Amén de mariposas (1969), a poem in which he successfully retakes the epic mode to explore the historical roots of the horror. In Poemas de buen amor y a veces de fantasía (1969), a sequence of sonnets and other lyric poems, he aims to historicize the realm of Eros by delving into the pleasures of the human body and placing love and sex within materialistically explainable parameters. The next volume of verse by Mir, entitled Viaje a la muchedumbre (1971), consists of thirteen poems, the majority of which are linked thematically by the search for a principle of coherence to harmonize the individual and the collective and to cancel out the presumed dichotomy between self and community. The following year a short selection of his poems published by Siglo XXI Editores in Mexico, under the editorship of Jaime Labastida, borrowed the title Viaje a la muchedumbre (1972). Oddly enough, the Siglo XXI anthology neglected to mention that the title had come from an existing volume, nor did it include the sonnet Viaje a la muchedumbre, the text that gave the original collection its name. As with any selection, the Mexican anthology gives a partial picture of the scope and amplitude of Mir s poetry. But despite its shortcomings, it has played a decisive role in enhancing the international visibility of the poet. Though most readers outside the Dominican shores who have read him have done so through Labastida s selection, there is much more to Mir. Suffice it to mention El huracán Neruda (1975), a major epic poem which remains his last known work in verse. Hinging thematically on two onerous Chilean deaths, that of President Salvador Allende and that of the immense Pablo Neruda, which occurred both in September

18 PEDRO MIR CONTINUED within twelve days of each other, the poem convincingly moves from threnody to exultation. The dark shadows cast upon the peoples of the Americas by the demise of two bright beacons of hope are refashioned into a source of light. The poem illustrates a dynamic whereby the sense of history gets placed on the rails toward a vision of utopia. In that sense, the text furthers the hopeful worldview that prevails in all of Mir s works throughout his five decades of rich literary production. Like few other poets of his or any other generation whether at home or abroad, Mir has forged a diction that has placed him incontestably as the foremost epic singer of his people s experience. In that respect, his achievement parallels the glorious feat he himself attributes to Whitman as the supreme interpreter of the American collective at one given point in history. In Contracanto a Walt Whitman, a text in which the great poet of Manhattan the son serves as vehicle for an epopeia of the relationship between the United States and the rest of the Americas, the speaker rhetorically asks: For what has a great undeniable poet been but a crystal-clear pool where a people discover their perfect likeness?... And what but the chord of a boundless guitar where the fingers of the people play their simple, their own, their strong and true innumerable song? {Tr. Cohen} Dominicans have undoubtedly spotted their perfect likeness in the verse of Mir. Whenever people of other nationalities have come upon his poetry, they too have seen themselves in it. The high esteem his work has received from readers in other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean is greater than one could reasonably expect given its limited international diffusion. Were he from a country with official institutions devoted to supporting, preserving, and exporting the nation s most valuable cultural products, his world-wide reputation would equal that of the best known authors today. Even so, his work has traveled. Partial translations of his poems exist at least in Russian, Armenian, French, and English. The present bilingual edition, the amplest collection of his poetry to appear in any language thus far, will give both Spanish-and-English-speaking readers in the United States the opportunity to recognize themselves in the poetic visage of one of the most authentic literary artists to have come from the Caribbean. Readers will find here a voice that speaks to the world as urgently as it does to the Dominican people. Dr. Silvio Torres-Saillant is the Director of the Latino/Latin American Studies Program and Associate Professor in the English Department at Syracuse University. He is the founding Director of the CUNY-Dominican Studies Institute. Reprinted with permission from the author. Source: Countersong to Walt Whitman & Other Poems. Translated by Jonathan Cohen & Donald D. Walsh. 18

19 NOTES 19

20 ABOUT THE CONFERENCE CONCEPT The Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos / Dominican Studies Association in collaboration with: Banco Popular Dominicano, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at Hostos, Comisionado de Cultura Dominicana en los Estados Unidos, Harvard University s David Rockefeller Center for Latino Studies, Hostos Center for Arts and Culture, Latino Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University, Modern Languages at Hostos, Serrano Scholars Program, Latino/Latin American Studies Program at Syracuse University, The New York Council for the Humanities, Sociology Department at Smith College, Student Government Association at Hostos, The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at The City College, the Dominican American National Round Table, the Hostos Dominican Republic Study Abroad Program. presents its first major interdisciplinary conference on Dominican Studies, hosted at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College on May 12-13, Rationale To bring together Dominicanists of every generation to continue the conversation on the status of Dominican Studies. To contribute to the professional development of young scholars in the field. To contribute to the recovery and integration of the Dominican experience to studies on the Latino experience in the United States. To discuss and investigate the important role that the Dominican contribution has played in Latin America and the Caribbean. To celebrate and disseminate Dominican history and culture throughout the continental United States, the Caribbean, Latin America and elsewhere throughout the world. To strengthen Hostos and The City University of New York s commitment to education and their link to the public school system in the Bronx and throughout New York City. To provide opportunities for cultural enrichment and intellectual growth for faculty and students throughout the city. Overview Dedicated to Don Pedro Mir, the late poet laureate of the Dominican Republic, the conference aims to foster conversations among speakers located in various disciplines, interdisciplinary areas, scholarly generations, and conceptual paradigms. It will bring together Dominican and non-dominican academics who have produced or promoted bodies of knowledge pertinent to the Dominican experience in diverse sites the United States, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere to take stock of what has been achieved in Dominican Studies as an emerging field of inquiry over the last thirty years and to assess the discernible aspirations of the stock-holders with an eye on charting a course for the future. Presentation topics will include: the purviews of languages, literatures and linguistics; social sciences and cultural studies; education and the public schools; political leadership and community empowerment; gender and sexual orientation; race, ethnicity, and the challenge of diversity; the place of Dominicans in Caribbean Studies; and the rapport of the diaspora with the ancestral homeland in imagining the Dominican community globally. Additionally, the event will feature an exhibit of visual arts inspired by the immigrant experience of Dominicans; a display of the collected works published by Dominican authors and Dominicanists over the last quarter century; and a tribute to the legacy of Don Pedro Mir. Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos, President Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos, Vice President Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Ph.D. Ramona Hernández, Ph.D. 20

14 NOTES 14

16 ABOUT PEDRO MIR A Poet of His People, A Poet of the World By: Silvio Torres-Saillant True literary artists bear witness to the challenge of the human condition as it is lived in their particular time and place within the confines of discrete circumstances. The clearer their success in capturing the drama of existence and communicating it to their home public with conviction, the greater their chance of producing texts that speak persuasively to people elsewhere. In the Dominican Republic no one lays a more legitimate claim to intimacy with the yearnings of the Dominican people as well as with the texture of their collective voice than Pedro Mir. No author writing in the country enjoys more popularity and reverence than he among both literary and non-literary readers in virtually all sectors of society. The agreement by the full multi-partisan legislature of the Dominican Congress in 1982 to confer upon Mir the title of National Poet suggests the high regard in which his native audience holds him. In New York, the home of many Dominicans, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Hunter College in June of 1991 and eight months later he became the subject of major conference at Hostos Community College. In January 1993 Mir received the National Prize for Literature, the highest honor a literary artist can aspire to in the Dominican Republic. The multitude of voices that celebrated the prize include spokespersons as distinguished as poet and playwright Manuel Rueda, who dedicated a whole issue of his weekly Isla Abierta to Mir. The sentiment of the general public was perhaps best captured by the daily El Siglo, whose editorial for the occasion described Mir s best known poem as the common property of all Dominicans. Born on June 3, 1913, in the southerly city of San Pedro de Macorís, of a Puerto Rican mother and a Cuban Father, Mir published his first poems in 1937 through the agency of Juan Bosch, who had already achieved notoriety in Dominican letters. Mir soon attained recognition not only among young intellectuals, who hailed him as a social poet but also among the cultural commissars of the Trujillo dictatorship, who viewed him with suspicion. By 1947 it had become clear that he should leave the country. Once he did, the scribes of the regime undertook to suppress his name, as is evident in a Dominican poetry anthology whose first edition in 1943 had prominently displayed his poems but omitted him completely in the second edition of 1951. Treading the path of exile came without glamour for Mir. Abroad, he did not enjoy the visibility of prestigious political expatriates such as Bosch, who befriended Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Nicolás Guillén, Romulo Gallegos, and Miguel Otero Silva, among other major literary figures of Latin America. Mir did not form part of famous intellectual circles. Rather, he quietly earned a humble living, doing menial jobs, as he continued to write. While in Cuba, in 1949 he published Hay un país en el mundo and in 1952 committed to print his Contracanto a Whitman during a brief sojourn in Guatemala, where his small collection Seis momentos de esperanza also appeared the following year. These publications elicited no fanfare, but they laid the groundwork for the poetics that would thenceforward characterize Mir s oeuvre. The epic breadth of his song, the historical incisiveness of his themes, the upliftment of hope as an inexorable dogma, and the lyrical fabric of his verse, all emerge palpably in the thin volumes. Mir may be said to have consistently worshipped the muse of history, and in that faith he shows a striking kinship with typical Caribbean poets of the stature of Aimé Césaire, Nicolás Guillén, and Kamau Brathwaite. In characteristics Antillean fashion, he has also gone outside the realm of verse production to explore historical processes of his country and the larger Caribbean region. His essay Tres leyendas de colores, which he completed in 1949 and did not publish until 20 years later, traces the origins of the modern Caribbean to the first three revolutions of the Americas, which took place on the island of Hispaniola. Subsequently, El gran incendio (1969), Las raíces dominicanas de la doctrina de Monroe (1974), the three- 16

17 PEDRO MIR CONTINUED volume text La noción de período en la historia dominicana (1981-83), and Historia del hambre (1987) each combine the prose style of a mature literary craftsman with the rigor of a professional historian to achieve penetrating insights into the most crucial junctures that have shaped the Dominican Republic, its place in world affairs, and the intransigent endurance of its people. His prose fiction further illustrates Mir s dedication to the historical imagination in the scrutiny of the Caribbean experience. La gran hazaña de Límber y después otoño (1977), a collection of three animal fables linked by a cornice, Cuando amaban las tierras comuneras (1978), a novel set chronologically between the 1916 and the 1965 military occupations of the Dominican Republic by the United States, and Buen viaje, Pancho Valentín! (1981), the fictional memoirs of a man returning to the native land after a long absence, derive most of their dramatic tension from the historical imperatives that frame the characters and the dilemmas they encounter. Mir has produced considerable work in the fields of history, fiction, and even art criticism and theory, in which he has written Apertura a la estética (1974), Fundamentos de teoría y crítica de arte (1979), and La estética del soldadito (1991). His achievements in other literary genres and areas of intellectual endeavor notwithstanding, his verse remains the best known facet of his writings. Probably to Mir s own chagrin, with him the poet has greatly overshadowed the essayist, the fiction writer, and the thinker. But that has to do with the fact that when he came back from his long exile in 1962, following the death of Trujillo, it was as a poet that he first won the hearts of his native audience. His poetry recitals in the 1960s and 1970s attracted large and enthusiastic crowds of workers, students, and cultural activists in Santo Domingo and cities of the interior. The popularity of Hay un país en el mundo, which became the common property of all Dominicans as soon as the poet regained his homeland, has continued unabated. Not only has the poem gone through innumerable reprintings and frequent staged choral readings, but it has inspired several renditions by artists working in other forms, such as painting, etching, music, and photography. For many years following his return, Mir s reputation rested largely on the published poems he brought from exile. However, he subsequently produced major poetic texts that supplement and deepen the known elements of his verse. Moved by the deaths of the Mirabal sisters, whose brutal murder by the agents of the tyrant on November 25, 1960, had shaken all layers of Dominican society, Mir produced Amén de mariposas (1969), a poem in which he successfully retakes the epic mode to explore the historical roots of the horror. In Poemas de buen amor y a veces de fantasía (1969), a sequence of sonnets and other lyric poems, he aims to historicize the realm of Eros by delving into the pleasures of the human body and placing love and sex within materialistically explainable parameters. The next volume of verse by Mir, entitled Viaje a la muchedumbre (1971), consists of thirteen poems, the majority of which are linked thematically by the search for a principle of coherence to harmonize the individual and the collective and to cancel out the presumed dichotomy between self and community. The following year a short selection of his poems published by Siglo XXI Editores in Mexico, under the editorship of Jaime Labastida, borrowed the title Viaje a la muchedumbre (1972). Oddly enough, the Siglo XXI anthology neglected to mention that the title had come from an existing volume, nor did it include the sonnet Viaje a la muchedumbre, the text that gave the original collection its name. As with any selection, the Mexican anthology gives a partial picture of the scope and amplitude of Mir s poetry. But despite its shortcomings, it has played a decisive role in enhancing the international visibility of the poet. Though most readers outside the Dominican shores who have read him have done so through Labastida s selection, there is much more to Mir. Suffice it to mention El huracán Neruda (1975), a major epic poem which remains his last known work in verse. Hinging thematically on two onerous Chilean deaths, that of President Salvador Allende and that of the immense Pablo Neruda, which occurred both in September 1973 17

19 NOTES 19

20 ABOUT THE CONFERENCE CONCEPT The Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos / Dominican Studies Association in collaboration with: Banco Popular Dominicano, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at Hostos, Comisionado de Cultura Dominicana en los Estados Unidos, Harvard University s David Rockefeller Center for Latino Studies, Hostos Center for Arts and Culture, Latino Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University, Modern Languages at Hostos, Serrano Scholars Program, Latino/Latin American Studies Program at Syracuse University, The New York Council for the Humanities, Sociology Department at Smith College, Student Government Association at Hostos, The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at The City College, the Dominican American National Round Table, the Hostos Dominican Republic Study Abroad Program. presents its first major interdisciplinary conference on Dominican Studies, hosted at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College on May 12-13, 2006. Rationale To bring together Dominicanists of every generation to continue the conversation on the status of Dominican Studies. To contribute to the professional development of young scholars in the field. To contribute to the recovery and integration of the Dominican experience to studies on the Latino experience in the United States. To discuss and investigate the important role that the Dominican contribution has played in Latin America and the Caribbean. To celebrate and disseminate Dominican history and culture throughout the continental United States, the Caribbean, Latin America and elsewhere throughout the world. To strengthen Hostos and The City University of New York s commitment to education and their link to the public school system in the Bronx and throughout New York City. To provide opportunities for cultural enrichment and intellectual growth for faculty and students throughout the city. Overview Dedicated to Don Pedro Mir, the late poet laureate of the Dominican Republic, the conference aims to foster conversations among speakers located in various disciplines, interdisciplinary areas, scholarly generations, and conceptual paradigms. It will bring together Dominican and non-dominican academics who have produced or promoted bodies of knowledge pertinent to the Dominican experience in diverse sites the United States, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere to take stock of what has been achieved in Dominican Studies as an emerging field of inquiry over the last thirty years and to assess the discernible aspirations of the stock-holders with an eye on charting a course for the future. Presentation topics will include: the purviews of languages, literatures and linguistics; social sciences and cultural studies; education and the public schools; political leadership and community empowerment; gender and sexual orientation; race, ethnicity, and the challenge of diversity; the place of Dominicans in Caribbean Studies; and the rapport of the diaspora with the ancestral homeland in imagining the Dominican community globally. Additionally, the event will feature an exhibit of visual arts inspired by the immigrant experience of Dominicans; a display of the collected works published by Dominican authors and Dominicanists over the last quarter century; and a tribute to the legacy of Don Pedro Mir. Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos, President Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos, Vice President Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Ph.D. Ramona Hernández, Ph.D. 20

21 ABOUT THE CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS DANIEL ABREU, was born in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic. In 1966, he came to the United States to join his family who had immigrated two years earlier. After high school, he attended CCNY where he completed both his undergraduate and graduate degrees. During his 3-year tenure in public education, Daniel has taught advanced Spanish at Queens College, Bilingual/Bicultural Education at the CCNY Graduate School and GED/ESL for the Office of Adult and Continuing Education Program in Queens. For the past years Daniel Abreu has been serving the newly-arrived Latino student population as teacher and Spanish Department Coordinator at Gregorio Luperón High School in Washington Heights. LUIS ÁLVAREZ-LÓPEZ, Ph.D. in Latin American History, New York University. M.A. in History, University of Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. Assistant Professor at John Jay College. Publications: Dominación Colonial y Guerra Popular (La Anexión y la Restauración en la Historia Dominicana). Santo Domingo: República Dominicana, 1986. Estado y Sociedad durante la Dictadura de Trujillo. Santo Domingo, Editora Cole, 2001. Secuestro de Bienes de Rebeldes: Estado Y Sociedad en la Ultima Dominación Espaňola, 1863-1865. Santo Domingo: Editora Argos, 2006. Dieciséis razones Fundamentales sobre la Anexión y la Guerra de la Restauración: Editora Letras Graficas, 2006. He published several peer review articles as well as book reviews in Dominican and Caribbean journals. He is also researching the history of the merengue music during the Trujillo dictatorship. ANNECY BÁEZ, is poet and fiction writer. Her most recent literary work has appeared in Callaloo, an African American literary journal from John Hopkins University; Vinyl Donuts, an anthology from the National Book Foundation; Brujula; and Tertuliando/Hanging Out, a bilingual literary anthology published by Hunter Caribbean Studies. She is the member of Daisy Cocco De Filippis Latina writers group. LEÓN FÉLIX BATISTA, nació en Santo Domingo, República Dominicana, en 1964, pero vive en New York desde 1986. Ha publicado: El Oscuro Semejante (1989), Negro Eterno (1997) y Vicio (1999), Todos Reunidos en Se Borra Si es Leído-Poesía 1989/1999 (2000), que también incluye un libro de traducciones: Los Rombos de la Red. Vicio fue publicado en Argentina por editorial Tsé-Tsé con el título de Crónico (2000). Estos textos proceden del inédito Torsos Tórridos, que obtuvo una mención especial en el Concurso de Poesía Diario de Poesía/Vox 2000. JOSÉ BELLO, B. A. Philosophy. Dominican Republic. M. A. Cornell University-Public Administration. A formal Executive Director of the Dominican American National Roundtable. Vice-President of BPD, a North American Bank owned by Grupo Popular Dominicano. He has been also instructor at Boston College, George Mason University and Cornell University. ALDRIN RAFAEL BONILLA, received his B.A. degree from Colgate University in International Relations and Latin-American Studies. He obtained his M.P.A. in Performance Management and Policy Analysis, as well as an M.A. in Political Science from Binghamton University, SUNY. He has served as the Director of the U.S. Census 2000 operations for northern Manhattan, Office Manager to the African National Congress Observer Mission to the United Nations, Director of Community Technology at the Fund for the City of New York, and Albert Schweitzer Research Fellow at the Institute for Global-Cultural Studies. Currently, Mr. Bonilla is the Site Administrator of CUNY in the Heights, a continuing education & professional studies program sponsored by Hostos Community College in the Washington Heights & Inwood neighborhoods of Manhattan. SARAH BRENNAN joined Hostos in 2004 as the Coordinator of the newly established Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). Ms. Brennan earned a B.A. in Literature from the University at Buffalo and an M.S. in Student Personnel Administration from Buffalo State College. As Coordinator, she assists with planning, organizing and executing CTL activities, OAA semester conferences, Professional Development Institute activities, and supports events arising from the Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. 21

22 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED GINETTA CANDELARÍO is Associate Professor in Sociology and Latin American and Latina/o Studies and a member of the Study of Women and Gender Program Committee at Smith College. Her research interests include Dominican communities and identity formations, race and ethnicity in the Americas, beauty culture, Latina/o communities and identity formations, museum studies, Latin American and Latina feminisms. She has received research and dissertation fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, Five Colleges, Inc., The City University of New York Graduate Center, Smith College Mellon Fellowships and a Rappaport Foundation Fellowship. She was a Fulbright Scholar in the Dominican Republic at FLACSO and INTEC during the spring and summer of 2003, during which she furthered her current project on feminism and anti-haitianism in the Dominican Republic. She is the Latina/o Studies Program Track Chair of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) for 2004-2006 and the Sociology of Culture Program Track Chair for the American Sociological Association Meeting 2006. Finally, she is a member of the editorial boards of various journals including: Meridians: Race, Feminism, Transnationalism, Ethnic Studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Ethnicities. FRANCISCO CHAPMAN-VELOZ, Ph.D. in History and Anthropology at New York University. Master s degree in History at the same University. Ph.D. from the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is Associate Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is associate of research at the University of Massachusetts, Trotter Institute. Publications include: Illiteracy in the Development of Dominican Republic, Bilingual education: Guidance for fathers, teachers and students, Bilingual Education: A history of Community in transition; Cultural Migration of the Caribbean: Essays y Ensayos sobre cultura, educación y migración: Latinoamericanos en los Estados Unidos. Ha has published peer reviewed articles and book reviews in several journals. SOO CHON, J.D., is Executive Assistant to the Provost & Director of Academic Planning and Program Development at Hostos Community College. Born in South Korea, she was raised and educated in the U.S. She earned a B.A. in Literature and Rhetoric from Binghamton University and a J.D. from Fordham Law School. In 2002, she joined the Office of Academic Affairs where she serves as coordinator of the Serrano Scholars Program and the Professional Development Institute, and manages special projects arising from the Office of the Provost. She also sits on the Advisory Council of the Center for Teaching and Learning. DAISY COCCO DE FILIPPIS, a native of the Dominican Republic, has been living in New York City for the past four decades. A literary scholar, editor, translator and cultural activist, she is Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College. She has been a pioneer in Dominican Studies and in the study of women authors of the Spanish Caribbean. She has lectured widely and has an extensive bibliography which includes seminal anthologies on the work of Dominican women authors and on the work of Dominicans writing in the United States. Her most recent publications include: Documents of Dissidence, Selected Writings by Dominican Women (New York: A Publication of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, 2000), Conversación entre escritoras del Caribe hispano [with Sonia Rivera-Valdés] (New York: Centro for Puerto Rican Studies, 2000, 2003) and Madres, maestras y militantes dominicanas [fundadoras] (Santo Domingo: Búho, 2001). She is a founding member and a member of the Board of Directors of La Unión de Mujeres Escritoras de las Antillas and La tertulia de escritoras dominicanas en los Estados Unidos. Since 1997, she has been the President of the Dominican Studies Association/Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos. She completed an anthology of early Dominican writings in the United States [with Franklin Gutiérrez, 2002], and is working on an English language book on Camila Henríquez Ureña [with Mirtha Yáñez] and a monographic revisionist history of Dominican women authors. Desde la diáspora/a Diaspora Position was most recently published in Santo Domingo and New York in 2004. 22

23 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED HÉCTOR R. CORDERO-GUZMÁN, is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Black and Hispanic Studies Department at Baruch College of The City University of New York and a member of the faculty in the Ph.D. Programs in Sociology and Urban Education at the CUNY Graduate Center. Dr. Cordero-Guzmán received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from The University of Chicago and is on the Board of Directors of ACCION-New York, the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ). DINORAH CORONADO, is a Dominican writer who writes theater plays, poetry, narrative and essay. She has published eight books, two of them for children, a bilingual poetry book "Interioridades," "Entre dos mundos" (a novel), and several theater books. Her plays have been presented in USA, PR, Dominican Republic, and Canada. She is an actress and a member of La Tertulia de Escritoras Dominicanas en los Estados Unidos led by Dr. Daisy Cocco De Filippis. CARLOS ULISES DECENA obtained his Ph.D. in American Studies from New York University and currently teaches in the Departments of Women's and Gender Studies and Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University. His areas of specialization are immigration studies, science and technology, and gender and sexuality. His book, Tacit Subjects: Dominican Transnational Identities and Male Homosexuality in New York City, is under contract with Duke University Press. Forthcoming publications include the co-edited special issue of the journal Social Text titled "The Border Next Door: New York Migraciones." JAMES DE FILIPPIS is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Black and Hispanic Studies at Baruch College, CUNY. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from Rutgers University in 2000, and his B.A. in Political Science and Geography from the University of Vermont in 1993. He is the author of Unmaking Goliath: Community Control in the Face of Global Capital (Routledge Press, 2004), which was named the best book on urban politics in 2004 by the American Political Science Association. He has also published many articles and reports on housing, community development, urban politics, and local economic development. RITA DE MAESENEER is Associate Professor at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) specialized in Caribbean hispanic literature. She has published articles on Luis Rafael Sánchez, Pedro Vergés, Alejo Carpentier, Ana Lydia Vega, and Mayra Santos-Febres. She has presented at conferences in Europe (France, Spain, Netherlands), in the United States (Yale, Washington University at Saint Louis, CUNY, Syracuse), and in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Her research is focused on popular culture, intertextuality, and history and fiction. She published in 2003 El festín de Alejo Carpentier, Una lectura culinario-intertexual, and her most recent book is Encuentro con la narrativa dominicana contemporánea. Her most recent co-edition with Efraín Barradas is on Puerto Rican l;iterature. She is currently preparing a new book on culinary contexts in Cuban literature, a diachronic approach. EDGARDO DÍAZ-DÍAZ, Adjunct Professor at John Jay College and Rutgers University. Doctoral candidate at the Graduate School and University Center. Master s degree in Music from University of Texas at Austin. Forthcoming books include: Con Ton y Son: Ensayos sobre Música, Cultura y Sociedad Puertorriqueňa, edition of Edgardo Díaz- Díaz and Xavier Tutti; Music and Religion in Hispanic Communities. New York: Simon & Schuster (in Preparation). The Specter of Merengue: essays on Common sense and identity in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, (early stage of preparation). He has published peer review articles, book reviews and newspaper articles. He is researching now about the merengue music in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo. 23

24 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED GRACE DÍAZ, from the Rhode Island House of Representatives was born on February 21, 1957 and has five children. She represents District 11 and was elected on November 2004. She serves on both the House Rules Committee as well as the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee. LUIS M. DÍAZ, New York State Assemblyman, was born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and raised in the South Bronx with three brothers and a sister. He is a graduate of the New York City public school system and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the State University of New York at Old Westbury. Luis involvement in community empowerment began when he joined the board of directors of the National Hispanic Voter Registration Drive. He participated in both local and national voter registration projects. Through this effort, 10,000 Hispanics were registered to vote. Through the years, Luis established himself as a committed community activist who made political institutions understand the changes in the urban mosaic. Luis joined the Board of Community Planning Board #5 to further solidify his commitment to community empowerment on a grass roots level. He also served as a board member of the League of United Latino American Citizens (LULAC), and the Bronx Council on the Arts, as well as the Botanical Gardens Community Advisory Board. He is also a founder of the Community Democratic Club in Bronx County. Prior to his election to the Assembly, Luis was the district leader for the 76th Assembly District. NANCY DÍAZ is a Dominican American who graduated from Columbia University s Teachers College and currently serves as Assistant Principal at Rafael Hernández Dual Language Magnet School (PS/MS 218) in the Bronx. She has expertise on dual language, extensive experience in staff development and provides ad hoc training to teachers, supervisors and school administrators. On October 8, 2006, she participated as a panelist of the DANR 8 th Annual Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Ms. Díaz is tireless in her efforts to improve the quality of education in our schools and communities. Some of her most recent contributions include providing staff development training to teachers and high ranking education experts in both the Dominican Republic and New York City. This past summer Ms. Díaz received at the Dominican National Palace the Salome Ureña de Enriquez Award, a highly praised distinction of honor only granted to educators with proven record of life commitment to excellence in education. MARGARITA DRAGO es argentina radicada en Estados Unidos desde que salió de la cárcel en 1980. Se graduó de Hostos Community College y fue valedictorian de la clase 1986. Obtuvo una Maestría en Español y un doctorado en literaturas hispánicas de la Universidad de la Ciudad de Nueva York. Como ex-prisionera política ha representado a su país en congresos realizados en los Estados Unidos, México, Perú y Francia. Ha publicado en periódicos y revistas literarias, educativas y de derechos humanos. Desde 1986 trabaja en educación y ha dado clases en los niveles preescolar, primario, secundario, educación del adulto y, desde 1995 es profesora de lengua española, literatura y educación bilingüe en York College, de la Universidad de la Ciudad de Nueva York (CUNY). Es autora de Sor María de Jesús Tomelín (1579-1637), concepcionista poblana: la construcción fallida de una santa (su tesis doctoral), obra inédita de la que se publicarán capítulos, en breve, y de un relato testimonial en prensa, Fragmentos de la memoria. Recuerdos de una experiencia carcelaria (1975-1980), del que se han publicado extractos en revistas literarias y antologías. ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, NY State Assemblymember. In 1996, Adriano Espaillat became the first Dominican- American elected to a State House in the United States. He represents the 72nd Assembly District, which encompasses Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill in Upper Manhattan. He is a member of the following Committees: Alcoholism and Drug Abuse; Children & Families; Corporations, Authorities & Commissions; Insurance; and Real Property Taxation. He is also first Vice-Chair of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus and a member of the Puerto Rican & Hispanic Task Force. He was recently appointed by New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to Chair of the New York State Task Force on New Americans. During his first term in office, Assemblyman Espaillat introduced and voted on numerous legislative initiatives on education, public safety, tenants' rights and the environment. He supported successful passage of legislation that extended the J-51 Housing Program, which prevents landlords from hiking tenants' 24

25 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED rents for major capital improvements to their buildings. Assemblyman Espaillat's voting record on environmental issues has been rated as excellent by the group Environmental Advocates in New York State. WALLACE EDGECOMBE has been the Director of the Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture since its inception in 1982. During this period, the Hostos Center has presented visual and performing artists of international renown to capacity audiences from throughout the New York metropolitan area. In 2003-04, the Hostos Center served 83,000 patrons during 300 events. Born and raised in Havana, Cuba, Wallace Edgecombe holds Bachelor s (history) and Master s (journalism) degrees from Columbia University. He has served as a panelist and site evaluator for the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Arts Partners Program, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Mr. Edgecombe has also served on the boards of the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Bronx Arts Ensemble, and the South Bronx Community Action Theatre. He is an honorary member of Rincón Criollo Cultural Center, and the recipient of a special recognition award from the International Latin Music Hall of Fame. This year the Hostos Center was the recipient of a special merit award from the Municipal Art Society of New York. DOLORES M. FERNÁNDEZ, a nationally recognized professional in bilingual education, teacher training, and curriculum development, was named Interim President of Eugenio María de Hostos Community College of the City University of New York (CUNY) on March 1, 1998. She was appointed to the position of President effective July 1, 1999. A professor of Curriculum and Teaching at Hunter College/CUNY since 1990, Dr. Fernández was previously a Deputy Chancellor of Instruction and Development for the New York City Board of Education, as well as a Deputy Director for Program Services and a Director of Education with the New York State Division for Youth. At Hunter College, which together with Brown University was a partner in the U.S. Department of Education Northeast and Islands Regional Education Laboratory, Dr. Fernández co-directed the Hunter Consortium Site. Also, at Hunter, she served as Co-Director of the New Urban Educators Program and Coordinator of the post-graduate Administration and Supervision Program in the Division of Programs in Education. After graduating cum laude from Nassau Community College, Dolores M. Fernández earned a B.S. in Education from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Old Westbury, and an M.S. in Education as well as a Professional Diploma in Educational Administration from Long Island University (LIU) - C.W. Post College. She then earned her Professional Diploma in Reading, and her Ph.D. in Language and Cognition from Hofstra University. Among her academic honors have been Title VII fellowships for both her M.S. and Ph.D. studies. VICTOR FIGUEROA was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he obtained a B.A. in Comparative Literature at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, in 1992. Victor completed his Ph.D., also in Comparative Literature, at Harvard University, in the year 2000. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. His main area of interest is the study of Caribbean literatures and cultures from a pan-caribbean, multi-lingual perspective. He has completed a book manuscript on the poetry of Luis Palés Matos, Aimé Césaire, and Derek Walcott, as well as articles on Alejo Carpentier, C.L.R. James, and Pedro Pietri. DANILO FIGUEREDO is the author and editor of the recently published Encyclopedia of Caribbean Literature and the award winning Encyclopedia of Cuba. A writer of children s books, he has also written several non-fiction works for popular audiences on Latinos and Latin America, including The Complete Idiot s Guide to Latino History and Culture. He is an editor for The Multicultural Review and was contributor, for over 20 years, to Booklist. He worked with artist Enrique O. Sanchez, from the Dominican Republic, for his children s book When This World Was New. A graduate of New York University, Rutgers State University, and Montclair State University, he has a M.A. in Comparative Literature and an M.L.S.. He is currently at work on a history of the Caribbean. 25

26 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED ANA GARCÍA REYES has been with Eugenio María de Hostos Community College since March 1996 as Special Assistant to the President. Beginning in March 1998, Ms. García Reyes assumed additional duties and responsibilities under the new title of Special Assistant to the President for Community Relations and Director of International Programs. Ms. García Reyes serves as Principal Investigator of research projects linked with international academic exchanges. For more than twelve years, she has received grant awards for academic exchange/study abroad programs, including: The State Department of Education, CUNY Caribbean Exchange, and the CUNY Study/Travel Opportunities for CUNY Students Grants. She has experience in evaluating and training personnel, and has established procedures for the development, progress, evaluation and reporting mechanism of grant funded projects. Ms. García Reyes has served on numerous boards at the city, state, and national level. From September 2001-September 2002, she served as President of the Dominican American National Roundtable (DANR), the first and only national Dominican American organization in the U.S. Her active membership in external and professional organizations also includes: The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute as founding and advisory board member; Hunts Point Economic Development Corporation as board member; New York City Youth Board as board member appointed by the Mayor of the City in 1995; and the New York State Committee on Dominican Heritage Celebrations, among others. JOSÉ R. GARCÍA enrolled at Hostos Community College in 2001. Mr. García has advocated for student rights and has provided community service for CUNY and public schools in general. He is also the former president of the Student Government Association, and current President of the Dominican Students Association. KENNY GARCÍA, is a graduate student in the Masters in Liberal Studies program at University of Michigan- Dearborn (UM-D). He earned a B.A. in History and English-Creative Writing from State University of New York- Binghamton in 2001. He is currently a graduate student intern for the Center for Arab American Studies (CAAS) at UM- D. His research interests include Dominican diasporas, Pan-Asian migration to the Dominican Republic, Dominican American literature, and creative applications of resistance in social movements. ANABEL GONZALEZ is a senior at John Jay College of Criminal Justice majoring in Forensic Psychology. She is a researcher about Dominican music, especially the Bachata and the history of the Bachata in Dominican Republic and New York. CAROLINA GONZÁLEZ is a New York-born Dominican writer and journalist who covers education, immigration, politics, music and Latino culture. She was a reporter and editorial writer at the New York Daily News. A frequent contributor to the Newark Star Ledger and Viva magazine, she is co-author of the upcoming Nueva York: the Complete Guide to Latino Life in the Five Boroughs. Carolina, a graduate of Columbia University s Columbia College and the University of California at Berkeley, also teaches literature and history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She lives in Brooklyn. SHERRI GRASMUCK, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia. After doctoral research on the new forms of Scottish nationalism in the 1970s in Great Britain, she focused on international immigration, concentrating on the Dominican case. Her co-authored book with Patricia Pessar, Between Two Islands: Dominican International Migration, contributed to the contemporary increased scholarly attention paid to the role of women in transnational population movements and the transformation of gender relations of host and sending societies in the process. Her research has also examined gender transformations associated with small scale development in the 1980s with neo-liberalism in Latin America. With Rosario Espinal, she conducted research on micro-entrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic, and developed the notion of gender thresholds to identify the critical points where the income contributions of men or women begin to alter familial relations of power. Dr. Grasmuck has also made important contributions to the sociology of sports. In 2005 she published Protecting Home: Class, Race, and 26

27 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED Masculinity in Boy s Baseball (Rutgers University Press, 2005), the result of several years of fieldwork, where she examines the way gentrification and ethnic change transformed neighborhood youth baseball and the way parents, coaches and boys negotiate different meanings of masculinity, community loyalty and competition. LYNNE GUITAR graduated from Michigan State University (B.A. in History and Anthropology, Certificate in Latin American & Caribbean Studies), then received a 4-year fellowship to Vanderbilt University, where she graduated cum laude with an M.A. and Ph.D. in History and Anthropology. She jokes that she is American by birth but Dominican in her heart because she has visited the Dominican Republic three times: the first for ten days, the second for four months, and the third forever. The third time was August 1997, as a Fulbright Fellow, to finish the research and writing of her dissertation, Cultural Genesis: Relationships among Africans, Indians, and Spaniards in rural Hispaniola, first half of the sixteenth century. A prolific promoter of the Dominican Republic in academic journals, books, documentaries, and presentations, her specialty areas include the history and culture of the Taíno, the island s colonial history, and Dominican popular culture, particularly food ways, child raising, music and dance, religion, healing, art and artisanry, and issues of race and gender. Dr. Guitar is Resident Director of the CIEE s (Council on International Educational Exchange) study-abroad program in Spanish Language & Caribbean Studies at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra, in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. FRANKLIN GUTIERREZ, Ph.D., is Professor of Spanish Language and Latin American literature, as well as the Coordinator of the Spanish Program, at the Department of Foreign Languages of York College-City University of New York. Dr. Gutiérrez work is composed of literary research monographs, essays, narratives and poems. He has a B.A. in Education and Letters from Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. from The City University of New York. His research on literature, critical essays, short stories, and poems have appeared in literary supplements, academic journals, and anthologies in the Dominican Republic and other countries. In 2000 Dr. Gutiérrez s book Enriquillo: radio-grafía de un héroe galvaniano, based on his doctoral dissertation, received the National Essay Award bestowed by the Secretariat of State for Education and Culture of the Dominican Republic. He is also the author of Diccionario de la Literatura Dominicana, Bibliográfico y Terminológico, Antología Histórica de la poesía dominicana del s. XX (1912-1995), Literatura Dominicana en los Estados Unidos. Presencia Temprana 1900-1950 (in collaboration with Dr. Daisy Cocco De Filippis), Evas Terrenales. Bio-bibliografías de 150 autoras dominicanas, and Palabras de Ida y Vuelta. Ensayos Literarios, among others. RAMONA HERNÁNDEZ, Ph.D., is currently the Director of the CUNY-Dominican Studies Institute and a Professor of Sociology at The City College of New York. Dr. Hernández is the author of several seminal works including The Mobility of Workers Under Advanced Capitalism: Dominican Migration to the United States (Columbia University Press, 2002), which received the title of Outstanding Academic Title from Choice in 2003. Her research and publication interests include the socioeconomic conditions of Dominicans in the diaspora, particularly in the United States and the restructuring of the world economy and its effects on the working poor. A native of the Dominican Republic, Dr. Ramona Hernández attended Lehman College until 1979, obtaining a B.A. with honors in Latin American History, with a minor in Puerto Rican Studies. She then pursued graduate work at New York University, earning an M.A. in 1982 in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, an M.Phil. in 1995 and a Ph.D. in 1997, both in the Department of Sociology at the Graduate School of The City University of New York. JACQUELINE HERRANZ-BROOKS was born in Havana, Cuba in 1968. She graduated from the Escuela Provincial de Fotografía in 1990 and is a member of the Asociación Hermanis Saíz. She is the author of Yo fuí a la guerra, a play, and several books of poetry: A quien dar mi maldad con humildad, Corrección del paisaje, El calificador de turno, El dragón se enrolla, Cuestiones Metaclínicas, and Liquid. 27

28 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED MAJA HORN is currently a Research Associate in the Politics, Gender and Society Program at FLACSO, Santo Domingo. She finished her Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature at Cornell University in May of 2005; she also completed an M.A. in Performance Studies at New York University in 2003. This coming fall she will be an Assistant Professor at Barnard College in the Department of Spanish and Latin American Cultures. CHRISTINA VIOLETA JONES is a third year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Howard University. In 1995 she graduated from George Mason University with a double major in History and Anthropology. In 2002, she received her Master s from Howard University where she wrote her thesis on race and gender in the Dominican Republic during the Trujillo Regime. She is currently in the process of researching and writing her dissertation which is examing the impact the Haitian Revolution and Unification period had in the Dominican Republic. JULEYKA LANTIGUA currently the managing editor of XXL magazine, is the former managing editor of Urban Latino and Honey magazines. She earned a Master of Science in Journalism from Boston University and a B.A. from Skidmore College. While researching immigration policy as a Fulbright Scholar in Spain, she helped launch a monthly newspaper (Prensa del Caribe) and a quarterly magazine (En Dialógo). She has been a nationally syndicated columnist with The Progressive magazine's Media Project for seven years. A graduate of the Radcliffe Publishing Course (now the Columbia Publishing Course), Lantigua guest edited, and contributed an essay to, the summer 2001 and an abridged Spanish edition of the Nieman Reports for Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism. "Man of the House," a personal essay appears in Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism, an anthology published in August 2002 by Seal Press. "My Ciguapa," one of her short stories, is included in the young adult anthology Once Upon a Cuento (Seal Press, 2003). "That Latino Show," a critical essay published in The Progressive magazine has been anthologized in The Simon and Schuster Short Prose Reader, 4th Edition (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Lantigua has served on the faculty of the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, where she taught freelance writing for magazines and newspapers. She lives in New York City. MELISSA MADERA is a Clifford D. Clark fellow in the History Department at Binghamton University, SUNY pursuing a Ph.D. in Latin American and Caribbean history with minor fields in Gender and Sexuality, and Race and Ethnicity. She graduated from Baruch College (CUNY) in 2001 with a B.A. in History. Before continuing her graduate studies at Binghamton University, she taught high school within the New York City public school system while pursuing a Master s degree in Education at Pace University (2003). Presently, Melissa is researching and organizing her dissertation which is currently titled, It is Better to Prevent Than Remedy : Gender, Sexuality and Previsión Social in the Dominican Republic during the Trujillato (1930-61). ELIZABETH MANLEY is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at Tulane University. She received her B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania and her M.A. at Tulane University in Latin American History. Her dissertation addresses the political participation of women - official and unofficial - between the years 1930 and 1978 in the Dominican Republic. While it details the activities of women involved in national-level politics during the Trujillo and Balaguer eras, it also seeks to understand the diversity of female politicization and political involvement during periods of dictatorial and authoritarian rule, political transition, tentative democracy and national crisis. MIGUEL MARTÍNEZ, NYC Council Member, has represented the 10th Council District since January 1, 2002. He is the Chair of the Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions and Concessions, which deals with important land use issues impacting the entire city. Before entering the Council, Martinez was a member of the local Community Planning Board. He served on the Board's Executive Committee and as Chairman of the Parks & Environmental Committee, in which he presented several resolutions addressing the environmental health conditions affecting the Northern Manhattan 28

29 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED Community. He served as an appointee of the Honorable Eliot Spitzer on the Attorney General's Crime Victim Advisory Board. He has published several articles addressing the high asthma rates in the Northern Manhattan Community and the environmental conditions affecting its residents. Martinez was elected Democratic District Leader in the Inwood Community. In that role, he became a firm voice on environmental and quality-of-life issues in his neighborhood. He helped organize block associations, tenants associations, street clean-up campaigns, and community forums. He has been a strong advocate for increased participation in the local community Police Council, so that the police, working along with civic leaders, can better address the quality-of-life and public safety issues throughout Washington Heights and Inwood. Martinez was the President of the Northern Manhattan Democrats for Change. As President, he organized voter registration drives and voter education workshops. He was instrumental in organizing the membership and local community groups during the rent-control battle in 1997. MARIANELA MEDRANO (República Dominicana). Escritora radicada en Connecticut desde 1990. Además de la escritura trabaja en el campo del servicio social con ancianos y madres solteras. Ha publicado los poemarios Oficio de vivir, Los alegres ojos de la tristeza, Regando esencias/the Scent of Waiting y Curada de Espantos/One Who Has Seen It All. ROBERT W. MERCEDES nació en la ciudad de Santo Domingo, República Dominicana. Emigró a los Estados Unidos de América en 1974 y se estableció en la ciudad de Nueva York. En el 1987 se graduó de Hobar College con una licenciatura en sociología. Desde el año 1988 hasta el 1990 desempeñó la función de Director Asociado del programa Student Enrichment en el colegio John Jay. En el 1990 recivió una maestría en Educación Adulta y Desarrollo de Recursos Humanos de la Universidad Fordham. Durante el mismo año (1990) fué promovido a Director del Programa Liberty Partnership función que desempeñó hasta el año 1992. Del año 1992 hasta 1996 ejerció como maestro bilíngüe de Segundo grado en la escuela Marble Hill, también conocida como la Escuela Pública 122x en el distrito 10 de la Ciudad del Bronx, Nueva York. En el año 1996 obtuvo una segunda maestría en Educación Temprana en el colegio Herbert H. Lehman de la ciudad de Nueva York. En el mismo año (1996) fué promovido a asistente de Director de la Escuela Pública 86 de la misma ciudad. En el 1998 recibió un diploma en Administración y Supervisión escolar de la Universidad Fordham. En el 1999 es promovido a Director de la Escuela Intermedia 390 localizada en el Bronx, función que sigue ejerciendo hasta el presente. NÉSTOR H. MONTILLA is an educator with a multidisciplinary background encompassing a variety of fields, including political science, cinematography, broadcast journalism, television, academia, management, and community leadership. He has devoted much of his research studies to issues related to the Dominican experience in both the Dominican Diaspora and the Dominican Republic (DR). After working in broadcast journalism since the late 1970s, teaching in public schools, earning credentials in cinematography and a Dominican Republic license in 1978 as radio and television pundit, he pursued law studies at Universidad Central del Este in San Pedro de Macoris, DR. Néstor moved with his family to the United States of America looking for a better future; he found it at The City University of New York (CUNY), where he has earned professional academic credentials, including an Associate in Applied Science degree from Hostos Community College; and both a Bachelor s degree and a Master s degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Currently, he pursues a Ph.D. in Political Science at the Graduate School and University Center, the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York. PEDRO MORILLO is an Adjunct Professor at Hostos Community College in the Humanities Department, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Unit. He is completing a Doctoral degree in Historia de América Latina y el Caribe in Madrid, Spain. Published books include: Balaguer su última gran jugada política (2002); Crisis de los partidos políticos y elecciones en la República Dominicana (2004); Las relaciones domínico-norteamericanas desde Báez a Leonel (2006). 29

30 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED BELKIS NECOS is an Adjunct Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at LaGuardia Community College. She is a specialist in Caribbean migration and issues of gender asymmetry. Currently, she is working on chronicling several transnational Caribbean families. IRMA NICACIO es Licenciada en Sociología de la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo; posee una maestría en Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad Autónoma de México y de la UASD. Además es doctora en Metodología de Investigación Social de la Universidad de MUNTER, de la República Federal de Alemania. Se ha desempeñado como: Directora del Departamento de Sociología de la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, (1984-1990). Profesora en Metodología de Investigación Social, Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, 1968-1998. Consultora de la GTZ Alemana: Estudio Mejoramiento Urbano del Caliche. Consultora OEA Estudios de Mejoramiento Urbano de Maquiteria y Sabana Perdida. Consultora PNUD - Agricultura: Evaluación componente mujer FIDAIII. Consultora del VII Censo de Población y Vivienda, 1993, UASD-ONE. Productora de análisis Preliminar del Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda, 1993 y la Dirección Territorial Actualizada, 1995, Organización Nacional de Estadística (ONE). Consultora del IICA, Estudios Hábitos Alimenticios, Santo Domingo, 1982. Consultora del IAD, Evaluación Caminos Vecinales del Sur. FRANCESCA PEÑA was born in the farming village of Jaya, near San Francisco de Macoris (Dominican Republic). She moved to the United States at the age of 15. Francesca began her pedagogical career in 1992 as a Mathematics teacher. In 1999, she was part of the team responsible for re-designing and restructuring the George Washington High School campus. In 2001 she was appointed Principal for the High School of International Business and Finance. Under her leadership, this school received two major recognitions: In 2002, the Chancellor recognized the school as one of the top 200 best performing schools in the city, thus exempting the school from implementing the mandated curriculum. The second award came when the State Commissioner of Education recognized the school for being one of 574, out of a total of 2,041 schools statewide that accomplished the dual goal of increasing student achievement while closing the gap in student performance for the school year 2003-2004. In 2004 Ms. Peña was promoted to Local Instructional Superintendent for Region 10 in Manhattan. In 2005 Francesca was appointed Community Superintendent for School District 6 in Manhattan. JOSÉ PERALTA is a first-generation Dominican-American who was first elected to the New York State Assembly at the age of 30. Like so many before them, Peralta s parents came to the United States in search of the American dream and a better life for their children. His parents worked hard to sustain their family on the wages of entry-level positions: his father a bank teller and his mother a seamstress at a sweatshop. They struggled to ensure that their children received a quality education that would provide them with opportunities and would teach them the importance of public service. Peralta has lived in Queens for a total of 25 years, living in the Corona area for the past 23 years. Peralta is a product of the public school system in Queens having attended elementary school PS 14, Intermediate School 61: Leonardo Da Vinci, Flushing High School, and finally Queens College. Peralta s interest in representing issues of concern to his community was demonstrated by his active participation in student government at Queens College, where he became the first Latino Student-Body Vice President and subsequently the first Latino Student-Body President. He also represented over 200,000 students within the CUNY system as a member of the University Student Senate in which he held the positions of Vice Chair of Legislative Affairs and Vice Chair of Fiscal Affairs. In all of these positions, he focused on bringing student concerns to the forefront, often lobbying state officials on the importance of issues such as: state tuition hikes; student healthcare; the reduction of childcare funding and the lack of services available to students with disabilities. Peralta has also become involved in local school boards and worked on various political campaigns. 30

31 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED MIGUEL ANÍBAL PERDOMO, Santo Domingo. Licenciado en letras, Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, (UASD); Diplome de Langue, Alianza Francesa, Santo Domingo; Diplomas de Inglés y Diploma de Italiano, APEC; Maestría en Estudios Hispánicos, University of Illinois at Chicago; Maestría en Filosofía y Letras, City University of New York; Ph. D. (Doctor en Filosofía y Letras). El poeta Miguel Aníbal Perdomo, a lo largo de su vida ha sido: Profesor y Coordinador de Cátedra, 1980-90, UASD; Fulbright Scholar, 1984-85, Paramus Community College, N. J.; -- Columnista de La Noticia, <1986>; Asesor Cultural, Isla Abierta, Hoy, 1989-90; Profesor, Universidad de Illinois, 1990-92; Profesor de la City University of New York, 1992-presente; Profesor Invitado, Sarah Lawrence College (considerado el mejor de los E. U.), Bronxville N. Y., 1998-presente el mejor de los E. U.), Bronxville N Ha publicado: La poesía joven dominicana a través de sus textos [1978]; Cuatro esquinas tiene el viento, 1982; Los pasos en la esfera, 1984; El inquilino y sus fantasmas, 1997; La colina del gato 2004, Premio Nacional de Poesía, 2003. Además, Habla español e inglés con fluidez. Maneja el francés bastante bien; lee y entiende italiano y lee portugués; Artículos, cuentos, entrevistas, reseñas, poemas, ensayos, han sido Publicados en antologías, periódicos y revistas de Estados Unidos, España, la República Dominicana. Puerto Rico y México. Asimismo, ha dictado conferencias, realizado lecturas y seminarios en República Dominicana, Estados Unidos, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela y Francia. ODALIS PEREZ es un reconocido investigador y educador en el área de las Humanidades, nacido en San Cristóbal el 11 de agosto del año 1952. Como promotor y animador cultural, Pérez se ha ocupado de conformar equipos de estudio, investigación y difusión de la Literatura, Filosofía, Lingüística e Historia en la República Dominicana y los Estados Unidos. Sus publicaciones en el ámbito de las ideas constituyen un valioso aporte al desarrollo cultural de los últimos veinte años: Las ideas literarias en la Republica Dominicana (1993), Semiótica de la Prensa (1999); La Ideología Rota (2002); Nacionalismo y Cultura en República Dominicana (2003); La Identidad Negada (2003); República Dominicana El Mito de las Palabras (2004); Principio de Estética y Educación Artística (2005); Literatura Dominicana y Memoria Cultural (2005). Como poeta ha publicado: Habitácula (1997); La pirámide en el hombro de Dios (1998) y Papeles del Eterno (1999). Universidad de Bucarest, Rumanía, ha contribuido con publicaciones especializadas sobre semiótica de la cultura y del arte, particularmente oralidad poética y narrativa, oralidades culturales, cultura alternativa del Caribe; arte, literatura y Pensamiento. JUAN M. PICHARDO, Rhode Island State Senator. On January 7, 2003, Juan M. Pichardo was sworn in as a State Senator representing the 2nd Senatorial district in the State of Rhode Island. In the General Assembly, he serves as Senate Deputy Majority Leader and as a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, where he serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Services and Transportation. In addition, Sen. Pichardo also serves as Secretary of the Health and Human Services Committee. Senator Pichardo has the distinction of being named the first Latino elected to a R.I. Senate seat and the first Dominican American elected to a State Senate seat in the United States. During his first weeks in office, Senator Pichardo introduced and helped pass the nolo-contendere bill, which requires judges to inform immigrants of all their rights under the law. In his first session, he was the prime sponsor of 23 other bills and supported the successful passage of a Senate resolution memorializing the U.S. Congress regarding federal pre-emption of predatory lending legislation. Predatory lending practices are issues that Senator Pichardo continues to champion as the Chairman of the Commission to Study Predatory Mortgage Lending Practices. NELIDA POLANCO, coordinadora de padres de la escuela secundaria de Leyes y Servicios Públicos, egresada de la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, con el título de Licenciada en Física y Matemáticas, con 25 años ejerciendo la profesión de maestra y directora de la escuela "Jaya " San Francisco de Macorís, República Dominicana.. Estudios realizados en Supervisión y Administración Escolar, Metodología de la enseñanza de las Matemáticas, actualización curricular, relaciones humanas entre otros cursos fueron los que enriquecieron su experiencia en educación. Llegó a los Estados Unidos en el año 1996, integrándose de inmediato a la comunidad de Washington Hights, prestando servicios de voluntaria en la escuela intermedia "Salomé Ureña de Henríquez" (PS 218), Como guía en tutoría de matemática en las escuelas secundarias del recinto educacional George Washington ; también como miembro de la pastoral familiar en la 31

32 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED comunidad de la iglesia "Nuestra Señora Reina de los Martires" y siempre abierta a colaborar con las diferentes organizaciones que trabajan en favor de la comunidad. Tiene trabajando cinco años en el departamento de Educación, de los cuales los dos primeros fueron como School AID y los restantes en la posición que actualmente desempeño como coordinadora de padres. MILAGROS RICOURT is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American Studies at Lehman College, City University of New York. A native of the Dominican Republic, Dr. Ricourt completed her B.A. at the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, her M.A. at the University of Florida, and her Ph.D. at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Dr. Ricourt is the author of "Hispanas de Queens" published by Cornell University Press, 2003, and "Power from the Margins: Dominicans in New York City" published by Routledge 2002. SONIA RIVERA-VALDÉS (Cuba).Profesora de York College (CUNY). Sus cuentos y artículos han sido publicados nacional e internacionalmente. Las historias prohibidas de Marta Veneranda obtuvo el premio de Casa de las Américas (La Habana), en 1997. Ha sido publicado en Cuba, España y en los Estados Unidos, en español y en inglés, The Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda (Seven Stories Press). Su último libro es Historias de mujeres grandes y chiquitas (Editorial Campana), y la versión en inglés del mismo aparecerá en breve publicado por editorial Campana. FREDDY RODRÍGUEZ was born in Santiago, Dominican Republic in 1945 and moved to New York City in 1963. Studied painting at the Art Student League, and New School for Social Research, and textile design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Has served as a panelist for the New York State Council on the Special Arts Program, and Percent for the Arts. Named "Gregory Millard Fellow in Painting" in 1991 by the New York Foundation for the Arts, and a NYSCA Artist in Residence at El Museo del Barrio in 1992. Represented the U.S.A. in "Currents Identities" Recent Painting in the United States, the IV Cuenca Biennial of Painting, Cuenca, Ecuador. Received a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 1997. In 2000 awarded a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation s Artist as Catalyst 2000 program at Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper. Rodríguez will be profiled in the upcoming UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center s Monograph A Ver: Revisioning Art History, a project devoted to the cultural, aesthetic, and historical contributions of Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other U.S Latino artists. Freddy Rodríguez most recent solo exhibition was at the Newark Museum in 2005/06. He is working on a commission by New York City for the Flight 587 Memorial. GEORGE ROSA is a native New Yorker who works as a media specialist for the Office of Instructional Technology as well as an Adjunct Lecturer. He holds an M.A. degree from the College of William and Mary and an M.Ed. from Boston University. Besides his usual duties, he has worked as a writer, illustrator and new media designer, and his work has been used by such organizations as the Nature and Innovation series on PBS.org, John Wiley publishers, The New York Times, Merck, Prudential Insurance, MOMA, the Society of Illustrators, and Human Relations Media. CARLOS SANABRIA. Place of Birth: San Juan, Puerto Rico. Educational History: B.A. 1980 from Columbia College in New York with a major in American History; M.A. 1985 from Hunter College, CUNY with a major in British History; Ph.D. 2000 from the Graduate Center, CUNY with a major in American History. Current position: Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Unit in the Humanities Department at Hostos Community College, CUNY. Research project: history and influence of the American Federation of Labor on the organized labor movement in Puerto Rico between 1900 and the early 1930s. Recent Publications: "Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor in Puerto Rico" in CENTRO, the Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Volume XVII Number 1, Spring 2005; two entries in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005; and six entries in Latinas in the United States, A Historical Encyclopedia, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006; scholarly interests: Puerto Rican labor history and Hispanic migrations to the United States. 32

33 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED JOCELYN SANTANA received her Ph.D. in English Education from New York University. Her dissertation was titled, Americanization: A Dominican Immigrant s Autobiographical Study of Cultural and Linguistic Learning. Since 2004, she has been the Instructional & Compliance Specialist for English Language Learners in District 79 which is comprised of transfer high schools, GED preparation programs, correctional, suspension, and detention facilities all over New York City Dr. Santana is also a Writing Consultant for Nyack College, providing differentiated writing instruction to immigrant first-year college students. Additionally, in her sixteen years as an educator, Dr. Santana has been a Spanish, English, and ESL teacher at the junior high, high school levels, a Curriculum/ Staff developer, high school Assistant Principal, Assistant English Professor, and Associate Coordinator of English Education. Caribbean Connections: The Dominican Republic (Teaching for Change, 2005) is Dr. Santana s latest publication. Her forthcoming memoir of her Americanization and English learning, Dominican Dream, American Reality, (Book Surge) will be published in April of 2006. YRENE SANTOS nació en Villa Tapia, República Dominicana. Estudió Arte Escénico en el Palacio de Bellas Artes e hizo una Licenciatura en Educación mención Filosofía y Letras en la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. Tiene una maestría en literatura hispanoamericana en El City College en la ciudad de Nueva York; donde reside desde 1992. Lleva varios años impartiendo talleres de poesía coordinados por las escuelas públicas de Boston y la Universidad de Massachusetts. Es maestra de Lengua Española en una escuela secundaria llamada Bread and Roses Integrated Arts. Es miembra fundadora de la Tertulia de Escritoras Dominicanas en Nueva York; que dirige la Dra. Daisy Cocco de Filippis. Obras: El incansable juego. Santo Domingo: Letra gráfica, 2002. Desnudez del silencio. Santo Domingo: Editora Buho, 1988 ANTHONY STEVENS-ACEVEDO is Assistant Director at the CUNY-Dominican Studies Institute at The City College. He holds an M.A. in History from The City College of New York-CUNY. He is a specialist in early colonial history of the Dominican Republic, and has written on life in sugar-plantations in sixteenth-century La Española-Santo Domingo. MARITZA STRAUGHN-WILLIAMS is Assistant Professor of Anthropology/AFM, Latin American and Women's Studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She wrote articles on religious beliefs in the Caribbean and the condition of the homeless in New York. Presently, she is working on developing a culture-sensitive educational program for transnational populations for the prevention of HIV/AIDS. DARIO TEJEDA, Bachelor s in Political Science, Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. Post-Graduate studies in History and Geography of the Caribbean at the Catholic University of Santo Domingo. Master s degree in Antilleans Studies at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe. Publications: Historia Escondida de Juan Luis Guerra & 4:40, 1993. La Pasión Danzaria Música y Baile en el Caribe a través del Merengue y la Bachata, 2002. (Mencion especial, premio de Musicología, Casa de las Americas, 2001). He has published: peer review articles in magazines, journals and in newspapers; and book reviews about music and culture. He is currently Director of the Instituto de Estudios Caribeños. RAYMOND TORRES, an Associate Professor at Hostos Community College, is a composer, conductor, pianist, and scholar of classical and popular music. His compositions include orchestral, electronic and vocal music for concert halls, ballet, film, theater, television and radio. They have been performed or commissioned by Plácido Domingo, National Chinese Orchestra, Warsaw Academy of Music Orchestra and Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, and orchestras of London, Taipei, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, among many others. His works are full of imagery, dramatic gestures and programmatic intentions inspired by: Taíno Indians' mythology (Areytos: a symphonic picture); literature (La guaracha del macho Camacho, El País de los cuatro pisos: a symphonic overture); historic events (Monchín del alma: a ballet, 33

34 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED Un jibarito en Nueva York, 1898 Overture); religious text (Requiem); descriptive subjects (Conversation with Silence, Millennium Symphony); and nature (Cordillera central: five shades of green, Tropical Nights Divertimento, Fantasía caribeña). SILVIO TORRES-SAILLANT, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Latino-Latin American Studies Program at Syracuse University, has published An Intellectual History of the Caribbean (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), The Challenges of Public Higher Education in the Hispanic Caribbean (Markus Wiener, 2004 [co-edited]), Desde la Orilla: hacia una nacionalidad sin desalojos (Editora Manati & Ediciones Libreria La Trinitaria, 2004 [co-edited]), Caribbean Poetics (Cambridge University Press, 1997), The Dominican Americans (Greenwood Press, 1998 [coauthored]), El retorno de las yolas (Manati & La Trinitaria, 1999), and Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, Vol. 4 (Arte Publico Press, 2002 [co-edited]). A Senior Editor for The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States and Associate Editor of Latino Studies, Torres-Saillant sits on the Board of Directors of the New York Council for the Humanities and the University of Houston s Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project. Torres-Saillant is the 2005-2006 Wilbur Marvin Visiting Scholar in the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University AMERICA TRINIDAD joined the Hostos Community College family in 1979. She serves in the Health and Human Services Department where she is currently the Coordinator of the Physical Education Unit. Born in the Dominican Republic, she came to New York after the 1965 civil revolt. She attended high school in New York, B.S. degree from Brooklyn College and Master s degree in Applied Physiology from Columbia University. She has obtained advanced Certificates in the areas of Gerontology, Yoga and Physical Fitness. MAGDA VASILLOV, Professor of Art History and Photography, is Chair of the Humanities Department. Her career at Hostos began with the opening of the college in 1970. She designed and is teaching two online asynchronous Art History courses: Arts and Civilization, and Modern Art in the City. BALBINA VÁSQUEZ-LUCIANO was born in the Dominican Republic and came to New York in 1962. She joined the Hostos family in 1975 and graduated with an Associates in Arts degree in 1978; she continued her education at Herbert H. Lehman where she obtained a Bachelor s degree in Spanish with a minor in Education. In the spring of 2005, she graduated from Boricua College with a Master s degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Her thesis Trujillo: Objeto literario is soon to be published. For over 25 years, she has been working at Hostos Community College. CHARLES ROBERT VENATOR SANTIAGO, currently teaching in the Department of Politics at Ithaca College, completed an M.A. in Political Science with a specialization in International Relations at UMass Amherst, and a Ph.D. with a specialization in Public Law and Political Theory from the same institution. He teaches courses in political theory, Latin American politics and Latino/a Latina politics, and recent research projects include archival research on Dominican-Haitian relations and legal transculturation in the Caribbean. Currently completing a research monograph on the deportation of Dominicans from the U.S. to the D.R. for the Dominican Studies Institute, other relevant projects include work with LatCrit (Latina/o Critical Legal Theory) and the MLK Scholars Program (Ithaca College) to develop academic research programs in the Dominican Republic. SHEREZADA (CHIQUI) VICIOSO, una de las escritoras dominicanas más conocidas internacionalmente, ha trabajado en la ONU por 22 años y es autora de 5 poemarios y de 5 obras de teatro. Ha obtenido prestigiosos premios y galardones y ha publicado también un libro de ensayos, Algo que decir: ensayos sobre literatura femenina (I and II) y las biografías: Julia de Burgos la nuestra; Le decían Lolo y Volver a vivir: Imágenes de Nicaragua. 34

35 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED RAMÓN ANT. VICTORIANO-MARTÍNEZ has a Law degree from Universidad Católica Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He is finishing his Master of Arts in Spanish at the University of Toronto and he will start his Doctoral studies next September at the same university. His research interests are: power and the individual, representations of power asymmetries in literature, cinema and music, Spanish Caribbean diaspora, 20th century Spanish Caribbean urban narrative. ANGEL R. VILLARINI JUSINO got his B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Puerto Rico, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston College in Massachusetts. He is Full Professor at the University of Puerto Rico and Honorary Professor at the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He is President of the International Organization for the Development of Thinking, Vice President for Latin America of the International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology and founder and organizer of the International Conference on Education and Thinking. He have published extensively on Educational Philosophy and Pedagogy and is well known in Latin America for his theoretical and practical work on designing and implementing innovative educative institutions, programs and teaching practices grounded in a humanistic, historic-cultural and liberatory perspective. He views his work as part of the agenda that was initiated by Eugenio Maria de Hostos in the 19th century and has his culminating point in the 20th century with the work of Pablo Freire: transforming education at all levels as a way of contributing to the construction of a solidarious society in which all human being can develop fully. CID WILSON. In 1997, Cid Wilson was among the co-founders of Dominicans On Wall Street (DOWS) which is an organization that inspires Dominicans and Latinos to defy the odds and reach for their dreams in terms of executive careers at Wall Street financial service firms. Mr. Wilson is still on the board of directors today (http://www.dows.ws). Through DOWS, Cid Wilson launched the first ever Career Day initiative at George Washington High School and Gregorio Luperón High School in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. The program has been so successful that it has gotten media attention and Cid Wilson has been tapped to be the 2006 Commencement Speaker for the G.W. High School Graduation Ceremony in June 2006. In 2003, Cid Wilson was elected by a national board of directors to be President of the Dominican American National Roundtable (DANR), which is America's only Dominican organization that advocates for Dominicans at the national level. Cid Wilson is the first U.S.-born President as well as one of the youngest President's in the history of the DANR. He is still President of the DANR today (http://www.danr.org). 35

36 NOTES Additional Conference Participants Alejandra Castillo Yoseli Castillo Dennis J. Hidalgo Angélica Infante Thelma Ithier-Sterling Ana Lidia Idelsa Méndez Lilliam Perez Luis Vargas *No biographical information received for the above listed conference participants. 36

37 NOTES 37

38 NOTES 38

39 Asociación de Estudios Dominicanos / Dominican Studies Association Board of Directors Daisy Cocco De Filippis President Ramona Hernández Vice-President Franklin Gutierrez Secretary-Treasurer Ana García Reyes Public Relations Members at Large Maritelma Costa Aida Heredia Sonia Rivera-Valdés Silvio Torres-Saillant Conference Planning Committee Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Chair Hostos Community College Ramona Hernández, Co-Chair The City College of New York Luis Alvarez John Jay College Sarah Brennan Hostos Community College Ginetta Candelarío Smith College Ana García Reyes Hostos Community College Franklin Gutierrez York College Nestor Montilla Hostos Community College Anthony Stevens-Acevedo The City College of New York Silvio Torres-Saillant Syracuse University America Trinidad Hostos Community College Magda Vasillov Hostos Community College Balbina Vásquez Hostos Community College Special Thanks Adult and Continuing Education Distance Learning/Conference Center Staff Division of Academic Affairs Division of Administration and Finance Office of Alumni Affairs Mailroom Staff SAVE THE DATES The African Presence and Influence on the Cultures of the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Conference and CUNY Research Project November 6-9, 2006 Visit the conference homepage: http://www.hostos.cuny.edu/oaa/african-conference.htm HOSTED BY Borough of Manhattan Community College, Eugenio María de Hostos Community College, Kingsborough Community College, LaGuardia Community College, Medgar Evers College, The City University of New York 39

40 Yo, un hijo del Caribe, precisamente antillano. Producto primitivo de una ingenua criatura borinqueña y un obrero cubano, nacido justamente, y pobremente, en suelo quisqueyano. Recorrido de voces, lleno de pupilas que a través de las islas se dilatan, vengo a hablarle a Walt Whitman, un cosmos, un hijo de Manhattan. Pedro Mir, "Contracanto a Walt Whitman (Canto a nosotros mismos)" Hay un país en el mundo colocado en el mismo trayecto del sol. Oriundo de la noche. Colocado en un inverosímil archipiélago de azúcar y de alcohol. Sencillamente liviano, como un ala de murciélago apoyado en la brisa. Sencillamente claro, como el rastro del beso en las solteras antiguas o el día en los tejados. Pedro Mir "Hay un país en el mundo" FROM WORKS OF PEDRO MIR Nadie pregunte por la patria de nadie. Por encima de nuestras cordilleras y las líneas fronterizas, más rejas y alambradas que carácter, o diferencia o rumbo del perfil, el mismo drama grande, el mismo cerco impuro el ojo vigilante. Veinte patrias para un solo tormento. Un solo corazón para veinte fatigas nacionales. Un mismo amor, un mismo beso para nuestras tierras y un mismo desgarramiento en nuestra carne. No, no pregunte nadie por la patria de nadie. Tendría que mudar de pensamiento y llorar solamente por la sangre..." "Cuando supe que había caído las tres hermanas Mirabal me dije: la sociedad establecida ha muerto. Es que hay columnas de mármol impetuoso no rendidas al tiempo y pirámides absolutas erigidas sobre las civilizaciones que no puede resistir la muerte de ciertas mariposas." Pedro Mir "Amén de mariposas" Pedro Mir "Si alguien quiere saber cuál es mi patria" EUGENIO MARÍA DE HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE 500 GRAND CONCOURSE BRONX, NY 10451

DSA DSA

2006 Dominican Studies Association Conference

On the Future of Dominican Studies: Charting the Course ¿Dónde estamos y adónde vamos? In Memoriam of Pedro Mir Poet Laureate of the Dominican Republic May 12 & 13, 2006

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CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW THE PROGRAM

2016 Dominican Studies Association Conference

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