R.Dove on Dominican Republic

[Kathryn Woolard]

In a footnote to her poem "Parsley", Rita Dove writes:
"On October 2, 1957, Rafael Trujillo, dictoator of the Dominican Republic,
ordered 20,000 blacks to be killed because they could not pornounce the
letter 'r' in 'perejil', the Spanish word for parsley."  The poem makes it
clear that by 'blacks' she refers to Haitians.

Can anyone provide information on the historical event and the role of
language in it?  Many thanks.
Kit Woolard
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 Kathryn A. Woolard 	  	kwoolard at ucsd.edu
 Professor of Anthropology, UCSD
mailing address, September 1999- June 2000:
 Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences
75 Alta Road
Stanford, CA 94305

Phone: 650/321-2052
Fax:  650/ 321-1192
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