R.Dove on Dominican Republic

[Ronald Kephart]

>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.

I'm still looking. But, one source I have, Eric Williams' *From
Columbus to Castro* (Vintage 1970, page 466), says "Trujillo was
responsible for the 1937 massacre of between 15,000 and 20,000
Haitians."  So I wonder if 1957 is the correct year(?).  Williams
doesn't mention the 'perejil' thing.


Ronald Kephart
English & "Foreign" Languages
University of North Florida