DR. ALAÍ REYES-SANTOS
Reseñas
Elena Lorac
“Sé que [Alaí] ha tenido que viajar mucho e ir a las fuentes documentales para poder analizar una realidad que puede pasar desapercibida. […] Estas intimidades están marcadas por relaciones de poder, una historia conflictiva, intereses imperialistas y económicos, mientras que la población empobrecida es la que vive la violencia dentro de esta relación alimentada por una ideología antihaitiana.”
Ana-Maurine Lara
“El marco de hermandad transcolonial de Reyes-Santos nos permite imaginar un camino a través del momento actual. […] Si la única posibilidad es el antidominicanismo
puertorriqueño y el antihaitianismo dominicano, entonces, ¿cómo dar sentido a las muchas familias, amistades, manifestaciones públicas y formas de resistencia cotidianas y sistemáticas que emergen en la vida íntima y pública?”
Celiany Rivera Velázquez
“El libro de Reyes-Santos es realmente sobresaliente, ya que nos invita a comprometernos con una comprensión más amplia de la historia del Caribe y nos desafía a enfrentar los perdurables legados del colonialismo y la desigualdad racial.”
OUR CARIBBEAN KIN: RACE AND NATION IN THE NEOLIBERAL ANTILLES
Rutgers University Press, 2015
Beset by the forces of European colonialism, US imperialism, and neoliberalism, the people of the Antilles have had good reasons to band together politically and economically, yet not all Dominicans, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans have heeded the calls for collective action. So what has determined whether Antillean solidarity movements fail or succeed? In this comprehensive new study, Alaí Reyes-Santos argues that the crucial factor has been the extent to which Dominicans, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans imagine each other as kin.
Our Caribbean Kin considers three key moments in the region’s history: the nineteenth century, when the antillanismo movement sought to throw off the yoke of colonial occupation; the 1930s, at the height of the region’s struggles with US imperialism; and the past thirty years, as neoliberal economic and social policies have encroached upon the islands. At each moment, the book demonstrates, specific tropes of brotherhood, marriage, and lineage have been mobilized to construct political kinship among Antilleans, while racist and xenophobic discourses have made it difficult for them to imagine themselves as part of one big family.
