Learning about America in the Dominican Republic :: Personal Narrative Essays

Exactly one week after graduating from high school, with xiii years of American education behind me, I boarded a canvass and headed for a Caribbean island, I had fifteen days to spend on an island border with crystal blue waters, white sandy shores and luxurious ocean resorts. With beaches to act as on by day and casinos to play in during the night, I was told that this body politic was an exciting new tourist destination. My days in the Dominican Republic, however, were not make full with snorkeling lessons and my nights were not spent at the black seafarer table. Instead of visiting the ritzy East Coast, I traveled landlocked to a mountain community with no running water and no electricity. The bus ride to this town called Guayabal, was long, live(a) and uncomfortable. The mountain roads were not paved and the bus had no air conditioning. Surprisingly, the four-hour ride flew by. I had sight to think about as my mind raced with thoughts of the next two weeks. I wondered i f my host family would be welcoming, if the teenagers would be friendly, and if my work would be hard. I mentally prepared myself for life with out the everyday luxuries of a flushing toilet, a hot shower, and a comfortable bed. Because Guayabal was with out such basic commodities, I did not expect to see many reminders of home. I thought I was handout to leave behind my American ways and immerse myself into another culture. These thoughts filled my head as the bus climbed the rocky hill towards Guayabal. When I at last got off the bus and stepped into the town-square, I realized that I had thought haywire there was no escaping the influence of the American culture.In a way, Guayabal was an ideal of what author Mary Louise Pratt refers to as a hitting zone. Pratt defines a contact zone as a place where cultures meet, crash, and grapple with each other, much in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power (Pratt 76). In Guayabal, American culture and American consumerism were clashing with the Hispanic and Caribbean culture of the Dominican Republic. The clash came from the Dominicans desire to be American in every sense, and especially to be consumers of American products. This is nearly impossible for Dominicans to achieve due to their extreme pauperism. Their poverty provided the asymmetrical relation of power found in contact zones, because it keep not only the Dominicans capability to be consumers, but also their ability to learn, to work, and to live healthily.