The Border of Lights Reader: Bearing Witness to Genocide in the Dominican Republic

Border of Lights, a volunteer collective, returns each October to the Dominican-Haitian border to bear witness to the 1937 Haitian Massacre. This crime against humanity has never been formally acknowledged by the Dominican government and, until recently, no memorial existed for its victims. A multimodal, multi-vocal space for activists, artists, scholars, and others connected to the BOL movement, The Border of Lights Reader provides an alternative to the dominant narrative that positions Dominicans and Haitians as eternal adversaries. This innovative anthology emphasizes cross-border and collaborative histories and asks large-scale, universal questions regarding historical memory and revisionism that countries around the world grapple with today.

With contributions from Amanda Alcántara, Carlos Alomia Kollegger, Julia Alvarez, Bill Eichner, Azueï, DeAndra Beard, Nancy Betances, Jésula Blanc, Matías Bosch Carcuro, Presuma Bulgary, Cynthia Carrión, Raj Chetty, Magaly Colimon, Juan Colón, Edwidge Danticat, Catherine DeLaura, Lauren Derby, Polibio Díaz, Rosa Iris Diendomi Álvarez, Rana Dotson, Rita Dove, DREAM, Rhina P. Espaillat, Maria Cristina Fumagalli, Saudi García, Scherezade García, Juan Carlos González Díaz, Kiran C. Jayaram, Pierre Michel Jean, Jake Kheel, Nehanda Loiseau Julot, Sophie Maríñez, Regino Martínez Bretón, April J. Mayes, Jasminne Mendez, Osiris Mosquea, Megan Jeanette Myers, Rebecca Osborne, Ana Ozuna, Edward Paulino, Guillermo José Perdomo Montalvo, John Presimé, Daniel Ramos, Laura Ramos, Jhonny Rivas, Amaury Rodriguez, Doña Carmen Rodríguez de Paulino, Tony Savino, Ilses Mercedes Toribio, Deisy Toussaint, Silvio Torres-Saillant, Richard Lee Turits, William Vazquez, Chiqui Vicioso, Bridget Wooding, Évelyne Trouillot, and Óscar M. Zazo Martín.

"By bringing together in one volume poetry, visual arts, literary analysis, in-depth interviews and historical analysis this volume will provide its readers with a comprehensive view of the causes and the aftermath of the massacre."
— Ramón Antonio Victoriano-Martínez, University of British Columbia

Megan Jeanette Myers is associate professor of Spanish at Iowa State University. She is the author of Mapping Hispaniola: Third Space in Dominican and Haitian Literature (UVA Press, 2019).

Edward Paulino is associate professor at CUNY/John Jay College’s Department of Global History and is the author of Dividing Hispaniola: The Dominican Republic's Border Campaign against Haiti,1930-1961 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016).

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