This interview is a continuation of my Soy/Somos conversations with Latinos in the US and others living in a hybrid world. This is who I am/This is who we are. If you’d like to receive future Soy/Somos posts, please contact me here.
How did Liz and I meet? It was on Facebook before our current purgatory. In a freewheeling writers group. We’ve had many talks since. About living in English and Spanish. About writing, about poetry. Elizabeth is an accomplished poet. We meet on Zoom. No kitchen table, no ginger candies.
I am fascinated by what Liz had to say. How a marriage of seemingly dramatic opposites did succeed. How she managed to bring Dominican culture into her American soul. Liz is the flip side of my story in some ways.
Liz, how did you meet your future husband?
I was struck by a coup de foudre—that’s lightning blow in French—when I saw Erasmo across the room at a party. He was completing a Masters in Educational Psychology in DC. I was working at a non-profit.
Two years later I moved to the Dominican Republic to marry him.
I had traveled in Europe by myself after college, unfazed by what might make others hesitate. A summer in France introduced me to being a foreigner, how to sink or swim in a society that was not mine. I had no reservations about moving to another country, but I was afraid of marriage. Erasmo talked me into it.
Erasmo and I had three major differences: He was raised in Spanish; I, in English. He is Afro-Caribbean; I am white with ancestors from northern Europe. He was raised Catholic; I was raised Protestant. I blithely put these hurdles out of my mind.
How did his family feel about you, a foreign woman, joining their ranks?
His family was always warm and welcoming. They may have worried, but they didn’t show it to me. Erasmo was the head of the family, the oldest male and a super high achiever. He had a wellspring of respeto.
We were moving in an unusual group, mostly professionals. I was teaching English at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. Erasmo, Educational Psychology. Some of our friends started their own businesses; a Belgian woman was a translator; many of us were teachers. It was a dynamic group and a circle full of mixed couples. Dominicans would call the foreign wives—we were all blue-eyed blondes—“rubias” and “americanas,” Though I was the only one of the foreign women who was American.
Dominicans are very warm. On a personal level there was a willingness to offer friendship to an American even though in the mid-70s wounds from the 1965 American invasion were still raw.
Liz, I know something about the invasion. Would you give me some background?
Trujillo had been assassinated in 1961. After the democratically elected president Juan Bosch was overthrown in ‘63, the country became politically unstable. In 1965, the Constitutionalists, who wanted to reinstate Juan Bosch, ousted the military-backed president. Civil war broke out.
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson sent thousands of marines to stop the “communist danger.” This was in the time of Vietnam. Americans were distracted, and the Dominican intervention took place mostly under the radar. After the marines withdrew, the international community looked the other way while Joaquin Balaguer, elected President in ‘66, carried out a “dirty war” against the political opposition.
Eventually I realized that I had some kind of status because of American power. A hostess would get a chair especially for me. I understand this was a courtesy native to Dominicans, but sometimes I felt I was given deferential treatment that I did not deserve.
I kept a diary for the first two years. At first everything was new and exciting. I got pregnant with our first child. But no one from my family was there. My husband was very supportive and understanding, but I needed to learn how to be in the Dominican family. How to be a wife. How to be a mother.
One small example. After giving birth, Dominican women were expected to stay home with the baby for 42 days, to protect the health of the baby and mother. But Erasmo and I walked over to the grandparents’ house when our daughter was just two weeks old. He warned me that they would be surprised.
There are some terms in Linguistics—monochromatic and polychromatic—that are useful in explaining certain cultural behaviors. Dominicans when walking are interacting with everyone on the street. I had to learn this polychromatic way of existing, not “eyes straight ahead.”
I felt that this society I didn’t fully know was encroaching on my sense of self. I felt tamped down, submerged. Different emotions—frustration…loss…grief.
Why couldn’t they do things like we did at home? Was I going to allow myself to be overtaken, obliterated? I had to find a way to hold on to the original me. Create something new but keep the integrity of me. I was 29 then.. I resolved not to give up. I was committed to our marriage.
Elizabeth, you were suffering classic “culture shock!”
What I did was learn to flow with Dominican society: the social manners, learn to listen, to the phrasing, not being my blunt American self, backing off from conflict without addressing things directly. All of this to permit me to survive.
I had to deal with the physical environment. For blackouts, buy candles and figure out how to keep our groceries from spoiling. For the unreliable water supply, keep water in tanks, heat it for our baths. Build a kind of shell against this unfamiliar disorder.
Over time I totally integrated. It helped that I maintained a friendship with people of similar cultural backgrounds, some Americans and Canadians. The Instituto Cultural Dominico-Americano—the American cultural center—had a library, and I continued to read in English.
Seven years later we moved to the United States. Erasmo was offered a job at the United Nations. I was ready to come back but did not pressure him. I wanted him to make the decision for himself.
This conversation with Elizabeth startled me. I’d forgotten the years of acculturation in my own life, arriving in the United States from Panama at 15 with some English but not fully fluent. The exciting first year. The lows of the next four. All the while trial and error, trying to find my footing. Who was I?
Have you—reader—experienced similar difficulties and adventures in a “new” culture of any sort? I would love to hear from you.
Elizabeth has given me permission to share this poem with you. I chose a short poem so you could follow in both languages. Elizabeth writes her poems in English. “That’s the ‘I’ of me,” she says. Then she translates them into Spanish.
Deep pink water lilies and round leaves in dark pond. Photo by Juan Nguyen on Unsplash.
Queen of the Night
For Ana Selman
not like
other flowers
she
rises from
her bed
as the sky
fades to black
attaches her
roots below
the pond’s
dark surface
unfolds
pink petals
in slow
vibrato"
around her
wine-red
heart
until her head
stands high"
and she
blesses
the night
her brief "
life on earth
sings
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!"
Praise the Lord!
Reina de la Noche
A Ana Selman
a diferencia de
las otras flores
se levanta de su lecho
mientras
el cielo
gira hacia la noche
ata sus raíces
al fondo oscuro
del estanque
despliega
sus pétalos rosados
en un lento
vibrato
alrededor
de su corazón
de vino tinto
hasta que su cabeza
se yergue alta
y ella
bendice
la noche
su breve vida
en la tierra
canta
¡Aleluya!
¡Aleluya!
¡Alabado sea el Señor!