Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Consider what you know about the Dominican Republic. Where is this country located? What language is spoken there? What different ethnic groups live on this island?

Teaching Suggestion: This question geographically situates students with the setting of the novel. The Dominican Republic is a Spanish-speaking country in the Caribbean that is located on the island of Hispaniola and shares a land border with French-speaking Haiti. Prior to independence in the 19th century, the Dominican Republic was ruled by both colonial French and Spanish powers. Although Joseph does not explicitly state a time period, her reference to President Balaguer implies that the novel most likely takes place during one of his several nonconsecutive terms in the 1960s, 1970s, late 1980s, and 1990s. Furthermore, the author references the history of slavery and Spanish colonialism on the island with her inclusion of Papi’s African descent and Guario’s distant relation to an indigenous islander who rebelled against the Spanish.      

In this vein, the history of the Dominican Republic is more than just the era of Spanish colonization, but includes indigenous history as well as the legacy of the slave trade; this dichotomy between Spanish colonizers and non-Spanish dwellers is reflected in the character of “Mr.