The sources for this theme all pertain to the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, who reigned in the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961.
Trujillo is a complicated historical figure. He initially came to power democratically, vowing to restore the nation’s sovereignty after US occupation in the 1910s and 1920s, and to transform the DR from a sugar-exporting backwater into a modern, prosperous, and respected country. As is so common around the globe, he declared that such urgent ambitions required a strong, virtuous, heroic, visionary man to push through reforms that may be painful at first, but would lead to greatness. In such vein, he built around himself a cult of personality — that is, a robust propaganda machine that propounded the idea that Trujillo alone was the only man who could guide the Dominican Republic to its God-given and glorious destiny.
But Trujillo also ruled with an iron fist, using the national police and the army to intimidate, jail, and murder his political enemies, censoring (and simply shutting down) the press, disbanding opposition political parties and labor unions, and creating a general atmosphere of fear amongst the population. The United States supported Trujillo (albeit with some reservations), because he violently suppressed socialist and communist political activism. This was in keeping with US policy across the hemisphere during the Cold War (1945-1991): the US supported dictators from Guatemala to Chile as they were seen as reliable allies against the spread of communism.
Central to Trujillo’s cult of personality and his designs for the nation were both traditional and modern ideas about race, gender, and national identity. Trujillo understood the nation’s problems and their solutions in terms of racial stereotypes and proper and improper gender roles; and he fashioned himself as the “Savior of the Nation” by carefully manipulating contemporary Dominican cultural norms regarding race and gender. Through the readings and sources below, you’ll explore how and why this was so.
