in the time of the butterflies
November 25th is observed as International Day Against Violence Toward Women in many Latin American countries. That was the day in 1960 when three young sisters who had been fighting to overthrow a brutal dictatorship in the Dominican Republic were assassinated. Known as the butterflies (originally their underground code name), the Mirabal sisters became beloved national heroines. They and their era are the subject of Julia Alvarez's devastating, inspiring book. Good novels with political themes are a rare treat. Here we have not one but two: along with Butterflies comes MotherTongue by Chicana poet Demetria Martinez, winner of the 1994 Western States Book Award for Fiction. Her story of a young Chicana who falls in love with a Salvadoran refugee tortured as a counter-insurgent in his own country, now exiled to the U.S., is haunting and simply beautiful. Both authors have interwoven political and personal themes with powerful effect. Both books center on young women maturing, and celebrate women. Both reveal powerful links between the spiritual and the political. Both follow a journal structure, with different voices speaking at different times. Both are treasures. Also, both books are written by Latina w
Their background did not suggest that one by one they would become involved in the underground movement against dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Maria longs to "take the war out of him"; Jose Luis thinks she loves the idea of him - the dissident - not the real person, flaws and all. In the same mood, Dede describes how, at an event honoring the sisters, she thinks of the younger people: "to them we are characters in a sad story about a past that is over. " Julia Alvarez, now a professor at Middlebury College, was brought to the U. Instead it was more killings, hapless new rulers, and the rise of "the prosperous young," living in luxury where guerrillas had once fought. The Mirabal sisters are revered in the Dominican Republic; their family home is a shrine, where Patria's wedding dress lies on the bed ready to wear, and the braid of young Maria Teresa's hair rests under glass. , her character Mary/Maria writes: "His nation chewed him up and spit him out like a pinon shell, and when he emerged from an airplane one late afternoon, I knew I would one day make love with him. I hear them and remember the endless funerals. How concessions that seem trivial may lead down one road and a refusal to make such compromises can lead down its opposite. " But Maria seems less cause than symbol of why "there is a bomb ticking inside me. "Was it for this, the sacrifice of the butterflies?" asks the survivor Dede, who takes center stage in the last pages of the book, grappling with guilt and grief. " On her journey, Maria rejects the traditional white god; this is the only way to assert her spirituality. Within a year Trujillo was overthrown, but this didn't lead to a society of the sisters' dreams.
Common topics in this essay:
Dominican Republic,
Maria Teresa,
Jose Luis,
Award Fiction,
El Salvador,
Julia Alvarez's,
Carlos Fuentes,
Chicanas Latinas,
Meryl Streep,
Maria Teresa's,
jose luis,
dominican republic,
demetria martinez,
latin american,
julia alvarez,
el salvador,
maria teresa,
telling story,
mirabal sisters,
salvadoran refugee,
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Acceptance Essays
