Author’s Note
I won’t ever forget the day in 1960 when my parents announced that we were leaving our native country of the Dominican Republic for the United States of America. I kept asking my mother why we had to go. All she would say, in a quiet, tense voice, was “Because we’re lucky.”
Soon after our arrival in New York City, my parents explained why we had left our homeland in such a hurry. Many of the questions in my head began to be answered.
For over thirty years, our country had been under the bloody rule of General Trujillo. The secret police (SIM) kept tabs on everybody’s doings. Public gatherings were forbidden. The least breath of resistance could bring arrest, torture, and death to you as well as your family. No one dared to disobey.
An underground movement against the dictatorship began to grow and spread throughout the country. Members met in each other’s houses, trying to figure out the best way to bring down the dictatorship. My father and some of his friends and my uncle next door became involved in this movement.
Early in 1960, the SIM caught some members of the underground. Under extreme torture, they began to reveal names. My father knew that it was just a matter of time before he and his family were hauled away. Through the help of a friend, he managed to secure a fellowship for a surgery specialty in New York City. After much petitioning, the regime granted us visas to leave for the United States.
My mother was right. We were lucky to have escaped. That last year of the dictatorship was one of the bloodiest. After El Jefe was assassinated on May 30, 1961, his oldest son, who became the new dictator, took revenge on the whole country. My next-door uncle was hauled off by the SIM because of his involvement with members of the plot. For months, my cousins lived under house arrest, not knowing if their father was alive, praying and hoping for him to come home.
Even though it has been many years since those sad times, I still have moments when I wonder what life must have been like for them.
And so I decided to write a novel, imagining the life of those who stay behind, fighting for freedom. I chose to base the story on the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic because it was the one under which I myself had lived. But this story could have taken place in any of the many dictatorships in Nicaragua, Cuba, Chile, Haiti, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras—a sad but not uncommon occurrence in the southern half of our America not too long ago.
There is a tradition in Latin American countries known as testimonio. It is the responsibility of those who survive the struggle for freedom to give testimony. To tell the story in order to keep alive the memory of those who died.
Many of the most moving testimonies of the Dominican dictatorship have not been written down. I want to thank all those who offered me their stories of those painful times. I especially want to thank my cousins, Ique and Lyn and Julia María, and my Tía Rosa, for sharing their memories with me. My uncle, Tío Memé, who survived his prison experiences, often asked me if someday we couldn’t write a book together. This is not the memoir he envisioned, but it is a fictional way to keep my promise. To give testimony.
In the Dominican Republic, there is also the tradition of saying thanks, gracias, to our patron saint, La Virgencita de la Altagracia. Gracias to Altagracia for helping me write down this story. And thanks for the helpers she put in my path: my editors, Andrea Cascardi and Erin Clarke; my agent, Susan Bergholz; my compañero, Bill Eichner.
Finally, I want to thank my next-door neighbor and friend here in Vermont, Liza Spears, who read an early version of this manuscript and offered helpful suggestions and encouragement. Gracias, Liza!