R.Dove on Dominican Republic

[M. J. Hardman]

I cannot give you the full reference but I remember the incident as
having been over the j, which in Spanish is an aspirate and in Haitian is
peregil where the g is sort of like 'zh'.  I also heard that Haitians
were thus being identified singly if they tried to slip over the border.
The word was being used as a shibboleth.

I also would like the full reference -- I have used it for decades as an
example in my introductory lectures.

MJ Hardman


>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
>**************************************************
> 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
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