Most Canadians who have any perspective at all on the Dominican Republic these days have gained it either from budget travel to seaside Dominican resorts (Hotel Punta Goleta, Cabarete: $499—two weeks) or as fans of major league baseball, which in recent decades has employed a whopping 410 Dominican players (during the 1980s, the Toronto Blue Jays’ legendary Dominican scout, Epy Guerrero, sent players such as George Bell, Tony Fernandez, Alfredo Griffin and Manny Lee to Toronto).
The island Republic plays baseball with the best and tourism with the thriftiest. Unfortunately, it has not always played politics, either domestic or international, with the same alacrity or success. The 19th and 20th centuries in the Dominican were, for the most part, an evolving catastrophe of foreign occupation, violent revolt and brutal dictatorship. And shifting international affiliation.
It was during the American occupation of 1965—a period of political and social...
Charles Wilkins’s book Walk to New York: A Journey Out of the Wilds of Canada (Penguin, 2004) describes a hike he took in 2002 from Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the north side of Lake Superior, to New York City. His book Little Ship of Fools, about rowing across the Atlantic with a crew of 16, will be published in 2013.
Advertisement
Advertisement