SANTO DOMINGO.- A story Dominican Today ran datelined New York on Pulitzer Prize writer Junot Diaz’s statement “I had to suppress my Dominicanness,” received an observation from the creator of Osacar Wao himself: “It’s just sensation.”
The article is from the event, “A Conversation with Junot Diaz and Lin-Manuel Miranda,” organized by the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA) and held at the Malcolm X Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center.
But Diaz, who said he doesn’t write to newspapers, asks Dominican Today to avoid giving a wrong impression to people on the term Dominicanness’, “especially in a society where Dominican-Yorks aren’t even considered Dominicans.”
“It’s just sensation and of all the things that I said that night they take something that makes me seem like I'm rejecting my
Ddominican-ness and puts it in the headline!,” he said and noted that the story’s text “didn’t represent the spirit nor the letter of that great conversation.”
“I’m trying my best out here, in a country that thinks all Dominicans are animals or criminals and it would be nice not to be simplified by a Dominican news source. I get that enough from the gringos,” said Diaz in an email received Friday.
From: Cuba, it is a secret the censors are looking for me
Junot you are a voice that has power in all cultures it is a universal language that you speak in a Dominican dialect .....keep talking you provoke amuse and awaken us stimulate us to think of who we are and why we are.....well done ...
Written by: generoso, 3 Oct 2008 6:40 PM
From: United States, Santo Domingo
Junot don't such an a..hole and non-conformist spoiled brat and try to have a little more compassion and understanding that reality in the DR is not necessarily what you hear in the confines of universities and other egghead meeting places.
Try not to talk your mind on the many subjects that you have ignoramously referred to without having a firm understanding of the special circumstances that create it. Specially of the Haitian problem and the cronyism and ineptness of Dominican politicians.
So my unwarranted advise to you, because you have a promising career if you keep your dumb opinions to yourself, is to try to be more magnanimous to the country that raised and nurtured you. It is not Dominican Republic's fault that you had to leave because of limited economic conditions and few opportunities. So try to limit your anger. Yes I know that Dominican politicians are corrupt and they stink but look how far we have progressed from the likes of Trujillo, Balaguer and the rest.
Written by: generoso, 3 Oct 2008 6:45 PM
From: United States, Santo Domingo
We are proud of you for having been awarded such a high distinction as a fiction writer and I hope that you keep on producing internationally noticed and widely acclaimed works that not only attain recognition from your peers but are also a sound commercial success, but make them on subjects beside the tired old stories of the Trujilllo's, Rubirosa's and the like and instead write about present Dominican icons, success stories and luminaries and this would greatly help your mother country to exit from the poverty, exploitation, ignorance and illiteracy that has plagued us like a curse since Columbus time.
From: Dominican Republic, Boycott Dominican Tourism
Written by: gouletcolonial, 3 Oct 2008 5:47 PM
From: Canada
Junot you are a voice that has power in all cultures it is a universal language that you speak in a Dominican dialect .....keep talking you provoke amuse and awaken us stimulate us to think of who we are and why we are.....well done ...
talk about something Cuban you bum
Written by: generoso, 3 Oct 2008 7:20 PM
From: United States, Santo Domingo
IT SOUNDS LIKE THE WHAT ROSS PEROT VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, ADMIRAL SOMETHING that said:
"Who am I? What am I? at the start to the then VP debate in the USA a few years back.
Writing is the most ultimately rewarding spiritual experience because words transmute magically into actions, so they have great force.
So you have to ask and create what you want with conscious effort...
So your wishes can materialize.
From: Dominican Republic
This Junot does not behave like a Dominican. He may be register with the JCE but he endorses and approves the presence of illegal aliens in DR! The Junot doesn't give a damn about DR, its culture, and its history! Anyone who punishes DR for asserting its rights to purge its territory of ilegal aliens is, by no means, a Dominican citizen!
From: Cuba, it is a secret the censors are looking for me
chill bugger off please
From: United States, Port Washington, LI (New York)
Read about it on the new yorker magazine and the way he implied about his grandfather he has a dark and obtuse obsession about haitians which i don't really care, he quoted " my grandfather used to live in the border with haiti, deal with gourdes but at that time the dominicans have a senseless meaning for the patriotism definition.
Junot will choke himself with his tongue and his brain talking non sense against Dominican Republic
From: United States
Can someone explain what exactly did Junot say in favor of illegal Haitians in the DR that has gotten everyone upset?
Written by: generoso, 4 Oct 2008 8:32 PM
From: United States, Santo Domingo
Guillermone:
The Haitian-Dominican feud goes back many generations, Haitians invaded the DR in the 19 TH century when their doctrine of "deshuké" or removal from the root obliterated and destroyed entire populations where they pillaged, raped and murdered like nothing ever seen here. In several cases entire towns were murdered, raped and burned by the ruthless Haitians.
Trujillo gave them payback in 1937, killings thousands; the actual numbers killed were greatly inflated, nevertheless it was a uncalled for masacre that should not have happened in the civilized world.
Haitians come to DR much like illegal "wetbacks" or Mexicans invade the USA and put stress on the infrastructure and health facilities. It is estimated by the public health department that 30% of the annual Dominican Republic's health budget goes to care for Haitian women that come to DR to give birth in public hospitals.
Written by: generoso, 4 Oct 2008 8:43 PM
From: United States, Santo Domingo
Con't:
Dominicans are very sore about this "friendly invasion" and the international community with very well designed spin propaganda and several documentary films, paint Dominicans as
"exploiting" the Haitian workers in the farms, construction projects and sugar cane "bateys".
Haitians love their country and only come here because there are better opportunities to make money and they work harder and cheaper than most Dominicans that don't have the genetic
history of famine and survival at all costs in their bloodstream.
So briefly answer your question, Junot has been very vocal about condemning the Dominican Republic "exploitation of Haitians" and taken the leftist intellectual side against his own country and this is why he is generating so much controversy, without considering the historical implications and the fact that there is ALSO A LOT of poverty in the DR where 1 million adults and children go hungry every day and don't have a latrine to use and go outdoors to poop
From: United States, Port Washington, LI (New York)
generoso:
Brilliant.,....
From: United States
Generoso, thanks !!!
And yes.... it was a brilliant . I have read so much about the problem with the Haitians but no one had explained it quite like that. You were direct, to the point, stated facts without sounding racist and this is the correct approach on how to deal with this problem. I just hope the DR can find a solution before it getsany worse.
Written by: Jander, 5 Oct 2008 12:37 AM
From: Dominican Republic
"I’m trying my best out here, in a country that thinks all Dominicans are animals or criminals and it would be nice not to be simplified by a Dominican news source. I get that enough from the gringos,” said Diaz in an email received Friday."
Why would anyone yet alone a Pulitzer prize winner even be caught making the above staement.?
I don't mind being called a Gringo until it becomes a stereotype . For the first time I am a bit insulted by the connotation " get that enough from the gringos,"
Alos New York is really not the United States and only makes up a small percentage of our entire population. If you have had bad experiences well shame on them but I can vouch that how most people perceive Dominicans that even know any up would have to much class and education to call anyone an animal , criminals is another story "if the shoe fits wear it."
Here is an example of how to use your words more wisely.
Continued>>>>>>
Written by: Jander, 5 Oct 2008 12:39 AM
From: Dominican Republic
All three of these expressions refer to exactly the same people, but they will invoke different associations in the reader's mind: a "vagrant" is a public nuisance while a "homeless" person is a worthy object of pity and charity. Presumably, someone writing an editorial in support of a new shelter would use the positive form, while someone writing an editorial in support of anti-loitering laws would use the negative form.
In this case, the dry legal expression "with no fixed address" quite deliberately avoids most of the positive or negative associations of the other two terms -- a legal specialist will try to avoid connotative language altogether when writing legislation, often resorting to archaic Latin or French terms which are not a part of ordinary spoken English, and thus, relatively free of strong emotional associations.
Source:
http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/ar....itcent/hypergrammar/conndeno.htmlWritten by: Jander, 5 Oct 2008 12:39 AM
From: Dominican Republic
connotation
an association (emotional or otherwise) which the word evokes
For example, both "woman" and "chick" have the denotation "adult female" in North American society, but "chick" has somewhat negative connotations, while "woman" is neutral.
For another example of connotations, consider the following:
negative
There are over 2,000 vagrants in the city.
neutral
There are over 2,000 people with no fixed address in the city.
positive
There are over 2,000 homeless in the city.
Continued
From: Cuba, it is a secret the censors are looking for me
Jander for homeless person you may also use the PC term " Outdoorsman "
From: Cuba, it is a secret the censors are looking for me
you are also correct about Junot making that statement...he could have used" honkies" or "crackers" instead of "gringos " as chillexlaxin201 would have said
Written by: erivera, 6 Oct 2008 12:48 PM
From: United States
I only met him once and this does not surprise me. Junot is friends with another writer friend of mine, and met up with us at a bar in California after a reading a few weeks ago. Some of his friends were there with him and two of them were women. One: gorgeous, statuesque Latina, lawyer, intelligent. The other: unimpressive, small, blond with funny teeth. Guess who he spent the most time chatting up?
From: United States
Jander the guy is very frank, and fast and loose with slang. He uses similar 'terms of endearment' for Dominicans, blacks, etc if that helps you feel less offended.
It is nice to see shoddy journalism get called out. DT.com could have presented an abridged transcript of the dialogue, or an article about the good work of the organization behind the session in bringing artists to the Heights. Instead we got a sensational stub...straight from the NY POST school of tabloid-ism.
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Try not to talk your mind on the many subjects that you have ignoramously referred to without having a firm understanding of the special circumstances that create it. Specially of the Haitian problem and the cronyism and ineptness of Dominican politicians.
So my unwarranted advise to you, because you have a promising career if you keep your dumb opinions to yourself, is to try to be more magnanimous to the country that raised and nurtured you. It is not Dominican Republic's fault that you had to leave because of limited economic conditions and few opportunities. So try to limit your anger. Yes I know that Dominican politicians are corrupt and they stink but look how far we have progressed from the likes of Trujillo, Balaguer and the rest.
From: Canada
Junot you are a voice that has power in all cultures it is a universal language that you speak in a Dominican dialect .....keep talking you provoke amuse and awaken us stimulate us to think of who we are and why we are.....well done ...
talk about something Cuban you bum
"Who am I? What am I? at the start to the then VP debate in the USA a few years back.
Writing is the most ultimately rewarding spiritual experience because words transmute magically into actions, so they have great force.
So you have to ask and create what you want with conscious effort...
So your wishes can materialize.
Junot will choke himself with his tongue and his brain talking non sense against Dominican Republic
The Haitian-Dominican feud goes back many generations, Haitians invaded the DR in the 19 TH century when their doctrine of "deshuké" or removal from the root obliterated and destroyed entire populations where they pillaged, raped and murdered like nothing ever seen here. In several cases entire towns were murdered, raped and burned by the ruthless Haitians.
Trujillo gave them payback in 1937, killings thousands; the actual numbers killed were greatly inflated, nevertheless it was a uncalled for masacre that should not have happened in the civilized world.
Haitians come to DR much like illegal "wetbacks" or Mexicans invade the USA and put stress on the infrastructure and health facilities. It is estimated by the public health department that 30% of the annual Dominican Republic's health budget goes to care for Haitian women that come to DR to give birth in public hospitals.
Dominicans are very sore about this "friendly invasion" and the international community with very well designed spin propaganda and several documentary films, paint Dominicans as
"exploiting" the Haitian workers in the farms, construction projects and sugar cane "bateys".
Haitians love their country and only come here because there are better opportunities to make money and they work harder and cheaper than most Dominicans that don't have the genetic
history of famine and survival at all costs in their bloodstream.
So briefly answer your question, Junot has been very vocal about condemning the Dominican Republic "exploitation of Haitians" and taken the leftist intellectual side against his own country and this is why he is generating so much controversy, without considering the historical implications and the fact that there is ALSO A LOT of poverty in the DR where 1 million adults and children go hungry every day and don't have a latrine to use and go outdoors to poop
Brilliant.,....
And yes.... it was a brilliant . I have read so much about the problem with the Haitians but no one had explained it quite like that. You were direct, to the point, stated facts without sounding racist and this is the correct approach on how to deal with this problem. I just hope the DR can find a solution before it getsany worse.
Why would anyone yet alone a Pulitzer prize winner even be caught making the above staement.?
I don't mind being called a Gringo until it becomes a stereotype . For the first time I am a bit insulted by the connotation " get that enough from the gringos,"
Alos New York is really not the United States and only makes up a small percentage of our entire population. If you have had bad experiences well shame on them but I can vouch that how most people perceive Dominicans that even know any up would have to much class and education to call anyone an animal , criminals is another story "if the shoe fits wear it."
Here is an example of how to use your words more wisely.
Continued>>>>>>
In this case, the dry legal expression "with no fixed address" quite deliberately avoids most of the positive or negative associations of the other two terms -- a legal specialist will try to avoid connotative language altogether when writing legislation, often resorting to archaic Latin or French terms which are not a part of ordinary spoken English, and thus, relatively free of strong emotional associations.
Source:
http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/ar....itcent/hypergrammar/conndeno.html
an association (emotional or otherwise) which the word evokes
For example, both "woman" and "chick" have the denotation "adult female" in North American society, but "chick" has somewhat negative connotations, while "woman" is neutral.
For another example of connotations, consider the following:
negative
There are over 2,000 vagrants in the city.
neutral
There are over 2,000 people with no fixed address in the city.
positive
There are over 2,000 homeless in the city.
Continued
It is nice to see shoddy journalism get called out. DT.com could have presented an abridged transcript of the dialogue, or an article about the good work of the organization behind the session in bringing artists to the Heights. Instead we got a sensational stub...straight from the NY POST school of tabloid-ism.