When a Dictator Becomes Office of Your Family, Cont'd
Editor's Note: This article previously appeared in a different format as part of The Atlantic'south Notes section, retired in 2021.
Iii generations of Reynoso men (starting with the black-and-white photo, going clockwise): Luis'due south father serving under Trujillo, Luis as U.South. Marine, older Luis as U.Southward. Army soldier, and Luis's two sons in their U.S. Army uniforms
Reader Luis's father—like my grandfather—worked for Trujillo:
Honey Ms. Juleyka Lantigua-Williams,
I read your family story in The Atlantic about Rafael Trujillo and his influence in the Dominican culture. I want to share my own story with you.
I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic. My father was also one of many Dominican men who served under the dictatorship of Trujillo. My father was a man of his time. He arrived in the early on '50s to the capital of Santo Domingo from the province of Puerto Plata. Back then he was a young man with dreams of condign a high-ranking individual in La Guardia de Trujillo. He could barely read and write but he e'er had the ambitions of beingness most El Generalissimo. Trujillo was his idol and he intended to emulate him at all costs.
In those days, the Dominican military was a way to upper mobility for men like my father—men of apprehensive backgrounds and piddling didactics who aspired to rising up in the ranks and become a general or role of the military mystique that was well-respected and adored past many Dominicans of his generation. My male parent would eventually become the chauffeur for one of Trujillo's senior ranking officers. This was a duty that he was very proud of because it was a highly coveted task.
"Trujillo took pride in the military," my father would say "and if yous were i of his soldiers, yous were respected by all," he would conclude. "Guardias were respected and nobody would dare commit a criminal offence against a guardia," my mother would add.
All photos courtesy of Luis Reynoso
I think listening to my parents chronicle stories after stories about how proficient things were when Trujillo was in power. Co-ordinate to them, life was a lot simpler and the country enjoyed a much more prosperous economic system. The law-breaking rate was besides low because anyone who was caught committing a crime would face a quick justice. "You could sleep with the door open up and nobody would dare steal anything from you lot," my female parent always commented.
Trujillo did not bother with the small-scale trivialities and bureaucracies of the justice system. And as in whatever society ruled by an oppressive dictator, Trujillo had a secret police that terrorized the population and instilled fears, creating suspicions amid many.
El Generalissimo was assassinated in May 1961, the twelvemonth I was born, and so by the time I was a teenager in the tardily '70s, many of those who served under him were withal around my neighborhood. Some of the men were still in the military. The mystique of Trujillo was very much palpable among the people.
Joaquin Balaguer, at one point Trujillo's correct-mitt human being, became president. Many people viewed his presidency as an extension of Trujillo'due south reign simply without the mass appeal and adulation from the masses. Balaguer was a hardliner, a well-educated man who despised university students and showered the poor with food baskets and toys. He was also a quiet and calculating operator who used his political shrewdness for political gain.
In short, Balaguer was a typical Latin American strongman. Unlike many men who were by Trujillo's side and had climbed to the superlative past beast force, Balaguer did it by existence his scribe and the architect of his policies. Balaguer did not take care of the war machine simply rather used it as a tool of government. This and the fact that he was a lifelong bachelor and wifeless created rumors about his manhood—a dangerous affair for a leader in a country that values adulthood. Still, Balaguer was able to maintain a cozy relationship with the military.
And so in the late '70s, right around the time of my adolescence, many people felt that the good times had already gone by. The Era of Trujillo had maintained a stable economy and even paid off the national debts. The '70s, during which Balaguer was mostly president, were mired past oppression, political soapbox, student protests, workers' strikes, killings and disappearance of anyone labeled past the government radical or communist. There was as well a stagnant economy and a public distrust of the uncontrollable private sector that raised the price of basic necessities at their own leisure. More than xv years after the demise of Trujillo's regime, the land was still trying to find itself.
Rafael Trujillo
Many had forgotten Trujillo'due south crimes and his reign of brutality against the land. At that place was a sense of nostalgia, yet commonage amnesia. They longed for the stability, prosperity, and a sense of national security that was common in the '50s, fifty-fifty if it was at a price: the nonexistence of ceremonious liberties and prevalent homo rights violations. Trujillo's regime had a paternal appeal for many Dominicans and information technology'south non a surprise that one of his many titles was Benefactor of the Nation.
By the late '70s, my male parent had long left the military and emigrated to New York. "The military was never the aforementioned later on Trujillo was killed," my male parent lamented.
I was mostly raised by my mother, while my male parent left the country to expect for a ameliorate future in Nueva York. Many times, I institute myself going through my father's old belongings. I admired his collections of war machine metals, photos, and a mag of Trujillo that he so zealously kept private.
There is a photo of my father wearing the Dominican Air Forcefulness compatible with a ribbon on his chest and a picturesque groundwork of palm trees and the ocean [seen in the collage in a higher place]. His dream was finally realized in this photo. At that place is another picture of my begetter with my mother and my grandmother [seen above]. They all expect proud. My mother, next to her husband, who could count on him to provide for the family equally long equally he was in the armed services. My grandmother, who could also count on my father to assist her economically and send her coin to the countryside.
It was probably around the time these pictures were taken that my male parent was carrying out El Jefe'southward crimes.
He was a small-scale still necessary slice of Trujillo'southward gargantuan crushing and killing car. Sometimes, I would get bits and pieces of his stories when he did not realize that I was around. Among friends, after a few cervezas and once the stupor of alcohol had dismantled abroad all his inhibitions, he would confess about being on patrol roaming the city for those deemed undesirables by the regime, "rompiendo cabezas," or fracturing skulls, as he used to put it and "pedagogy them a lesson."
There were many pictures of Trujillo. In those times, the '50s, families were required to maintain pictures of El Jefe as a sign of loyalty toward the dictatorship. At that place was too that glossy magazine, probably commissioned by Trujillo. It had a biography of him and described his military triumphs and training. Trujillo had been trained and molded by the U.S. Marine Corps during the American occupation in 1918. The magazine too depicted the different types of armaments of the Dominican Armed Forces, planes, and troop marching. There were besides ribbon-cutting ceremonies illustrating new facilities built past the dictator.
I grew up among all of these things. My parents longed for a past that would never render. Although my father had lived in the U.Due south. for more than five years by the belatedly '70s, he was reluctant to bring us here. He was hoping that his Santo Domingo would get amend someday and he would be able to return. Equally such, he delayed his conclusion to bring us to the Usa. I finally arrived in the winter of 1980 along with my female parent and sister. My sister and I enrolled in community higher and began English classes.
One mean solar day, my father saturday me downward and told me that I must either join the military or get a higher education. He added that if I did not want to stop upward similar him working in a mill, I had to learn English language quickly. So information technology was that in the fall of 1982, with a basic knowledge of the English language language, I joined the U.S. Marines Corps. My father could not have been more proud of me when I return from basic grooming wearing the dress bluish compatible. He carried a pic of me in that uniform in his wallet and he would evidence it to everyone.
I left the Marine Corps later three years to complete my available's degree. In 1990, after obtaining my caste, I started my civil service career working for the land of New Jersey. Subsequently that, I was my father's favorite son. He always respected me for taking his advice. He did not have the same feelings for my sister because she never listened to him.
I eventually returned to military service in 1995. I joined the Army Reserve because I somehow missed the comradeship of the service and felt a sense of duty.
My father would go back to the Dominican Republic and visit his former friends from his war machine days. After all those years, he still kept in contact with them. My male parent would refer to this group of friends as "La Guardia Vieja," or the sometime guard. Even after many years, he trusted his sometime military friends more he trusted his brothers and other relatives.
My father passed away in 2004. When my sis was cleaning the firm and giving abroad his belongings, I managed to go on the magazine and his old photos. I could not observe his medals.
A few years after, one of his old friends from the military machine, who also happened to exist my godfather, also passed away. Eventually, they all died off. In May of this yr, Antonio Imbert Barrerra, one of the principal plotters of Trujillo's assassination, passed abroad at the age of 96.
The sense of armed forces duty, derived from my father, has stayed in my family. In the leap of 2009, I was called to active duty and deployed to Iraq. One day during my deployment I called my wife, and she sounded very upset and frustrated. She told me that our youngest son, who had been born in New Jersey xix years before, decided to join the U.S. Ground forces and did not bother to tell anyone.
"If anything happens to him, you are responsible. You guys with all this armed forces affair," my wife exclaimed.
She knew i or two things because her father had also served in the Dominican military during the Era of Trujillo. She was likewise raised a few blocks away from the Dominican Air Force Academy. (The history of its building and structure had also been featured in the magazine I kept of Trujillo.)
In the winter of 2010, my oldest son, built-in in New Jersey in 1987, also joined the U.S. Army, and a few years later he served in Afghanistan.
Dear Luis,
Thank you for sharing your family'due south story with our readers and me. I recognized your ambivalence over your male parent'southward part, and I as well saw you redeem him partially through your own choices and the example you fix for your sons. That is equally much equally we can practice as individuals: ascent and continue to rise.
I also want to cheers for illustrating and then candidly the complexities of Dominican masculinity, which is the most strong—peradventure toxic?—element of our civilisation to this twenty-four hour period. Equally a woman, I have experienced it second-hand, as expectations for me are far different, but I have long recognized the limiting means men are expected to define themselves in our country. Your father's "dreams of condign a high-ranking individual" adjure to the lure of power and authority that compels many men—Trujillo existence the ultimate example—to bend others' lives to their will. That dynamic is yet steeped in the structures of families, churches, schools, and other significant institutions that collectively ascertain Dominican identity. In the terminate, information technology is a trap for the men, and an extended sentence for the rest of usa.
I'm sure you and I could speak at length about your experiences, merely I'll draw this annotation to a close by thanking you again for your candor and honesty, both of which are so necessary to achieve true understanding and accomplish meaningful change.
***
Update from another reader with a like experience as Luis'southward and mine:
My parents were both born and raised in the Dominican Republic and experienced kickoff-hand the nefarious dictatorship of Trujillo. That trauma informed my upbringing as a Dominican American in New York Urban center. As a issue I have written a book Dividing Hispaniola: the Dominican Republic'due south Border Entrada confronting Haiti, 1930-1961 and wrote and perform a 1-homo evidence called Eddie'south Perejil (which you tin acquire more about on my website). Coming to grips with the legacy of dictatorships and mass murder is critically important, peculiarly in the diaspora. I applaud your important contributions to our agreement of post-trauma, retentivity, and identity.
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