Bourgeois women in the early twentieth-century Dominican national discourse

Abstract

A resolute desire to "modernize" characterized the last decades of the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth century in most of Latin America. In tandem with this pattern, a bourgeois intelligentsia of recent vintage dedicated its efforts to redefining the polity in the Dominican Republic. With unrealized economie potential, a history of corrupt politics, and enduring social dissension as backdrop, the formulators of the national project faced a daunting task. They nevertheless embraced the opportunities offered by the sugar boom of the 188Os and 1890s, the assassination of the dictator Ulises Heureaux in 1899, and the influx of progressive ideas regarding education and civic participation at the turn of the century. With all of the aplomb they could muster, Dominican intellectuals examined the national character and ventured predictions for the future. The outcome of their musings was the now much dissected "discourse of progress," which -in defining the national -promptly placed immigrants from the British West Indies and Haiti, foreign and local cane workers, and titleless peasants on the margins of economie production, social intercourse, and political participation.Newspaper and magazine representations of bourgeois women, one of the offshoots of this exercise in identity politics, similarly located citizenship beyond the reach of women. Upper-and middle-class women, I will argue in this article, invariably appeared in short stories, advertisements, or anecdotal columns as objects of men's political schemes or as irrelevant players in the formation of the nation. The male elite who put out these publications projected onto bourgeois women formulaic roles in the pre-conceived social order they controlled. I shall show here that, as they set the limits of national difference, they also effectively forestalled working-class women from joining the polity.The blueprint for change in the Dominican Republic, as in the rest of Latin America, rested on the notion that citizens could coalesce around a universal definition of progress. Agreement was imperative (and assumed) over the pivotal role of private property, the necessity of participatory democracy, and the capacity of individuals to contribute to the welfare of the country. 1 The writings of José Ramón Abad, Eugenio Maria de Hostos, José Ramón López, and Pedro Francisco Bonó, all men of stature politically and socially, duly recognized the tension caused by the co-existence of terrenos comuneros (communal lands) and a capitalistic sugar industry. Newspaper editors, political essayists, and educators -such as Hostos, Francisco Henrfquez y Carvajal, and Américo Lugo -clamored for responsible govemment, for one attentive to popular needs and open to more than the dominant interest. In the social sphere, Bonó, Hostos, and Alejandro Angulo Guridi saw respect for the common folk, state-sponsored education, and immigration, respectively, as the building blocks of a cohesive Dominican nation. Though for the most part pessimistic regarding their country's en...