Being La Dominicana by Rachel Afi Quinn

Author:Rachel Afi Quinn [Quinn, Rachel Afi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780252085802
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2021-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

La Plaza and El Mall

At night, the streets in the Colonial Zone are still bustling with tourists and locals out enjoying the warm breezes of Santo Domingo at this hour. There is a calm. On this night, Clara pushes her cart towards the plaza. She is selling café, hot ginger tea, and slices of sweet cornmeal arepa with just a few raisins scattered in it. I press the soft warm ridges of the thin plastic cup between my fingers, just firmly enough to hold it without dropping it but not so tight as to bend it and spill the steaming liquid, and I take a sip.

On some weekend nights, Clara brings her granddaughter, a chubby eight-year-old girl with fair skin like her grandmother, round cheeks, and two thick braids down her back. She races around the shopping cart from which her grandmother sells late-night snacks. The child runs across the plaza with friends, and then sometimes back to the shopping cart, lacing her fingers in between the metal mesh, as Clara pumps hot liquid out of the large thermoses that hang off its sides. One pump, then two, fills my cup to the brim with syrupy tea that makes my fingers sticky as it cools enough to drink. This is how I remember Santo Domingo. And the murmur of people wandering in the plaza.

“How many?” Clara asks us, as my friends and I calculate the number of coins we have between us or whether one of us will break a bill to cover it all. Four teas, and we add a slice of arepa to share: “Keep the change.” Each year, I go back and find Clara there, and the look of recognition on her face when I stroll up becomes as familiar as the sweetness of her ginger tea. The taste of our night complete, my friends and I wander on cobblestone streets and brick plazas. We find a bench to sit on and watch as people pass; we wait to see familiar faces of those out to enjoy the evening breeze and to rest in the shadows. The frustrations of the day are lost in the darkness and in plastic cups of beer that offer some relief from the heat. A toddler screeches under the yellow light of Catedral Isabel Católica, chasing after his ball beneath the shadow of the statue of Cristobal Colón. Every night we sit and drink right beneath the nose of empire and colonization.

In contrast to this outdoor public space, numerous malls fill the city, popular for their food courts with American chain restaurants and movie theaters showing American films. They are packed with families on outings and teenagers hanging out. It was a common occurrence in my life in Santo Domingo that I went to the mall. On any given day it was an opportunity to leave my apartment, where the power and water were irregular, and to sit in an air-conditioned public space. Sometimes I would take along one of the kids in my neighborhood who was bored and stuck at home.

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