300 words essay and 100 words peer review

What's Love Got to

Do with It? Transnational

Desires and Sex Tourism in

the Dominican Republic

DBNISB BRENNAN

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DUKE UNIViRSITY PRESS

DURHAM AJ.ID LONDON 2004

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3. PERFORMING LOVE

,. Double Wedding" and "Love in the Caribbean," the Ilews headlines read. 1 The local event in Soslla had become national news. Two white English female tourists met-and soon

married-two Afro-Dominican male resort workers in a shared 'cer- emony. They married two months after they had first met at th~ all- inclusive hotel in Soslla where the men worked and the womenJiad been guests. The marriage ceremony took place after the men had been refused entry into England. Even though the men had tourist visas and all the necessary paperwork, when they landed at Heath- row, English immigration officials detained them, questioned them separately; and decided that they were so young, at eighteen years old, that they might have the intention of overstaying their tourist visas and looking for work. But it was also on the lssue oflove-and its implausibility-that the officials denied the Dominican men en- trance. "The authorities concluded that it was not reasonable that two young English women, with less than rs days to get to know the men, would have sent two tickets to visit England, with no other additional motives," reported a leading Dominican news magazine (Victoria r994: 45). If officials reasoned that they were not really in love, they must have seen the men as pretending or peiforming being in love.2

President Joaquin Balaguer issued a statement on the wedding, the media led with the story, and neighborhood gossip in Soslla picked up on this event. The wedding became symbolic of how the Dominican Republic sells itself through tourism. "There is no way the men love these women," gossiped both Dominicans and foreign residents alike living in Sosl.la. "These guys are sankies, they want visas; that's. it." By characterizing the men as sankies-essentially male sex workers-Sosllans assumed the men were in the relation- ships solely for material gain. This assumption is clear in a cartoon from a now-defunct Dominican satirical magazine that lampoons

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I 92 What's Love Got to Do with It? 1; c·

'1?ogamo,11111e1rulfip'ldeque l'Mjrn, que /(J much:!clw de allibid,1de ban a comms,1/su epe/;icu/o de /Jaile'

6. Cartoon on the double wedding, DDT (Dedarado Delirium Tremens), 8 Decem-

ber 1994, "The Love of the Little Black One." See page 94 for translation

Peiforming Love 93

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Cartoon on the dQuble wedding, DDT (Declarado Delirium Treme11s),

8 December 1994, ''The Love of the Little Bl*1ck One."

Lmido»: A local and melancholic morning of 1499, two English women, bored to_no end,

reneiv their passports before leaving 011 j'.l.n adventure toward "El Nacional" (Sorry: toward

the Caribbean).

ENGLISH WOMAN r: Allison, do yon have everything ready? I'm calling Apollo taxi

and coming to get you ..

ENGLISH WOMAN 2: Yes, I -already threw my stuff in the bag. Let's go.

ENGLISH WOMAN 3: Be careful with the Sand Key Pants Klds!

Airport sign: Welcome to the Domi11ica.11 Republic

DOMlNICAN WOMAN: Welcome to the Dominican Republic, misses, but you're

going to have to wait to check in because there is no electricity,

cuSToMs WORKER 1: The light is back! (Damn, it only lasted four hours!)

CUSTOMS WORKER 2: Good that it's back!

Billboard: Welcome to Sosua

Hotel sign: Sosna, Kingdom of Kings

HOTEL CLERIC And your family, how are they, Mrs. Pujols?

DOMINICAN MAN: Hi, young ladies. My name is Cupid and I'm a specialist in love.

ENGLISH WOMEN: Sorry, we didn't come for that.

Then a loudspeaker sounds .

LOUDSPEAK£rc "We ask our guests to come on down, the activity boys are going

to begin their dance spectacle."

And then i11 Eaglish .

LOUDSPEAKER: "We say come on to the people because our boys are b1*inning

the dance class." DOMINICAN MAN 1: American, look, it's "monkey waist" that I'm giving!

DOMINICAN MAN 2: The dog dance is like this!

94 What's Love Got to Do with It?

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the overnight Weddings. The cartoon plays up the "predatory" na- ture of the Dominican men in featuring in the secon.d frame one of the English women's mothers crying "Cuidado con Jos Sand Key Pants Kids!" (Be careful with the san.ky-pankies!]. It is just as illustra- tive of the presumed naivete of the English tourists, who are por- trayed as initially rejectirtg the advances of the predatory sanky- pankies. This cartoon, and the media frenzy in general that sur- rounded the tourists' relationship with the Dominican men, inspires myriad questions: Why did these weddings grab national attention? Why were so many Dominicans embarrassed by it? Why are rela- tionships in Soslla between Dominicans and foreigners, particularly tourists, questioned, doubted, and sometimes even laughed at? \Vhy were the men portrayed as san.ky-pankies? And most strikingly; why were these relationships dismissed as mere performances oflove and not seen as the "real thing?"

The ''real thing," marriage por amor, is understood by SosUans in the context of Soslla as "sexscape" as driven by romance and emo- tional needs rather than strategy and .financial needs (marriage por residencia or for a visa).3 Unlike Linda-Anne Rebhun's research on love in Caruaru, Brazil, where the people she interviewed "ex- pressed confusion over the nature of love and about the changes they had seen during their lifetimes in the definitions oflove" (1999: n), in my interviews with Sosllans they regularly echoed one an- other's descriptions of relationships based on "real love." Rebhun aptly expresses just how difficult it is to do research on love because of the "slippery nature" of emotions; "now conscious, now uncon- scious, now openly expressed, now indirectly expressed, and always manipulated" (1999: u). 4

In this chapter I am not attempting to determine which relation- ships were rooted in emotion or which grew out of strategy; rather, I am interested in analyzing why Sosllans drew the conclusions they did about other people's relationships. I cannot possibly mea:sure "real love" in one relationship or another or guess precisely what motivates individuals. My aim is to make sense of why Sosllans described others' relationships as "real" or not. Of course, when sex workers and resort workers told me their own relationships were based on strategy and not on emotion, it took me out of the guess- tog game. Elena, for example, laughed when I asked if she was in love with the German man (not JU.rgen) whom she married in the spring of 2001; "You know how it is. It's not love. My children and I

Peiforming Love 95

will have more opportunities in Germany." However, it is important to keep in mind the various motivations that could shape self- reporting on love. Positing love could make Sosllan sex workers appear foolish. No matter what they feel for their foreign boyfriends, these women have an incentive to portray themselves as not naive enough to actually fall in love.

Even though sex workers in Soslla talk about the possibility of marriage par amor, I only rarely heard sex workers describe having experienced this kind of emotion-driven love as opposed to strategy· driven love. (Nanci's love story that I tell here is unusual.) Rather, sex workers' descriptions of what they want in relationships-in mar- riage or in consensual unions with either foreign or Dominican men-do not center on emotions but on the concern for better treatment in the household (greater gender equity), sexual fidelity, and financial security. For Soslla's sex workers, choosing to "fall in love" with one man over another is a rational process with serious material consequences. Contrary to the notion of "falling in love" as a kind of elation that comes with losing control of one's senses or wits, for these women being in love-or pretending to be in love- requires alertness, savvy, and determination. Rebhun comments on this idea that in the United States "we tend to believe that sentiment is genuine only if it is spontaneous; conventi0I1al, required, manipu- lated sentiment seems false ... and its falseness morally reprehen- sible." But, continues Rebhun, "deliberation and requirement are as much a part of emotion as spontaneity" (Rebhun 1999: 29-30).

Marriage in a Sexscape

This chapter examines the practices and meanings of "love" within the Dominican community in Soslla that have emerged alongside the growth of the tourist and sex-tourist trades. 5 Specifically; I focus on how resort workers (men and women) and sex workers try to par- lay their access to foreign tourists into marriage proposals and visa sponsorships At the discos, bars, and beaches, it is possible for any Dominican to meet-and perhaps to marry-a foreigner. Domini· can resort workers, in particular, have many opportunities to spend time with tourists. Love takes on multiple meanings in this tourist setting, and marriage has specific uses. Marriage in a tourist econ- omy-especially in an internationally known sex-tourist destina- tion-often has nothing to do with emotion-driven love or romance.

96 "What's Love Got to Do with !ti'

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Below, I recount several women's and men's marriage choices, and though they might describe having experienced emotion-driven love, they chose to marry individuals as a strategy to get ahead (progresar). They use the discourse and practices of romantic love to secure marriage proposals for a visa. After all, why waste a marriage certificate on romantic love when it can be transformed into a visa?'

Other scholars have documented poor women's use of the sex trade as a first step to marriage and greater .financial security. Ka- mala Kempadoo writes about migrant Colombian and Dominican women who work in the sex trade in Curai;ao's Campo Alegre I Mirage whoSe work with clients might develop into "close and intimate" relationships that tead to marriage. Women also might pay to acquire Dutch citizenship by marrying, which means that migrant women could stay and work legally as sex workers in Cura- i;ao or travel to Europe without restriction (1998). Sylvia Chant and Cathy Mcilwaine also write about the sex trade as a possible route to marriage~and sometimes to migration-between Europeans and Filipina women. Much like the perceptions Dominican sex workers maintain of life in Europe, Filipina sex workers also perceive a better life for themselves and their children in Europe. And like their Do- minican counterparts, these Filipina women are locked out of op- portunities for legal migration (1995: 248).

Some relationships are not easily described, however. Many rela- tionships that start out as transactional (by one or both parties) can transform into something else entirely. In the sex trade, in particular, the line between love and money can become "very fuzzy;" as Yos Santasombat has observed in relationships bet\veen Thai sex workers and farang men (white-skinned Westerners) (1992: 15-17, cited in Hamilton 1997), In fact, many sex workers and resort workers in So- sUa hope for romantic love even while they doubt the "authenticity" of the relationships around them. No relationship between foreign- ers and Dominicans escapes scrutiny. In this context of transnational desires and economic ambitions, these relationships become fodder for the gossip mill. "So are they really in lover is a common response by both Dominicans and foreign residents living in Soslla when they hear about a relationship bet\veen a Dominican and a foreigner. The possibility of love for migration is almost immediately mentioned, and then either waved away or confirmed. In fact when stories of the double wedding hit the newsstands, Sosllans (both Dominicans and foreign residents) had a field day.6 Comments flew about how plain

Peiforming Love 97

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and overv;reight the women were and hm\' handsome and well mus- cled the men were. Quite simply, I could find no one-in either the Dominican or foreign-resident communities-who believed these relationships were our of emotion-based love on the Dominican men's part. Like the British immigration officials, SosUans did not believe that these relationships (at least on the men's part) could be the "real clung." Rather, Sosllans understand-indeed expect-that many relationships beginning in their town are strategic perfor- mances on the part of Dominicans. Their love-skepticism emerges from Sosllans' knowledge that, in Arlie Hochschild's (1983: ix) lan- guage, "active emotional labor" is involved-indeed demanded-in jobs at hotels, bars, and nightclubs. Hochschild sharply observes that "simply having personality does not make one a diplomat, any more than having muscles makes one an athlete"; along these lines, if we focus simply on the exchange of sex for money (or goods) in Soslla, we will miss "a sense of the active emotional labor involved in the selling'' (1983: ix). SosUans know that many sex workers and resort workers are hard at work selling romance along with the other goods

and services they deliver. With much of any tourist experience relying on fantasy, Edward

Bruner's (1999) description of "touristic borderzones" as "performa- tive space[s]" calls attention to the performative aspects of tourist encounters. He writes, "The touristic borderzone is like empty space, an empty stage waiting for performance time, for the au- dience of tourists and for the native performers" (1999: 158). Tourists on vacation often engage.in behavior and activities they would never engage in at home, such as paying for sex or, as Deborah Pruitt and Suzanne LaFont observed in Jamaica, having cross-racial relation- ships (1995). When I interviewed male tourists in Soslla, they often told me that they never had paid for sex at "home," but since they were on vacation they thought, "why not?" Chant and Mcilwaine also found that some foreign men-who had not intended at the outset to pay for sex-buy sex in Cebu's bars in the Philippines because of "peer pressure." One man boasted to his friends, for example, that he had bought five women in one night (1995: 225). In encounters between locals and foreign tourists, locals often have more practical goals-such as laying the groundwork to receive money wires from tourists once they return to Europe-and might need to "perform" for tourists to achieve them, whereas foreign

tourists primarily seek fun and pleasure.

98 What's Love Got to Do with It?

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Sex and romance in Soslla have thus become more than just sites for the production of intimacy, pleasure, and emotional comfort. They have become, in a way, sites of capitalist production and con- sumption (with Dominicans possibly supplying sex and/ or "roman- tic love" for foreign consumers), which can result in inequalities, discomfort, and sometimes even violence. Sexual exchanges across interracial and international borders can reinforce existing racial hierarchies and inequalities. Karen Kelsky's research with "yellow cabs," for example, suggests that sexual exchanges not based on money can also reinforce racial hierarchies and inequalities. The term yellow cabs refers to young, single Japanese women who spend their savings on "erotic adventure with a variety of non-Japanese men" in places such as tourist resorts in Hawaii or US. military bases in Japan. Although these women might seek to have sex with these non-Japanese men, they will not marry these men, because of ideas of "racial purity. "7

Relationships in Soslla por residencia also can be a kind of stage for Dominic;ms to resist such racial hierarchies as well as inequalities based on geitder, class, and citizenship. For example, the strategizing of Dominican women within Sosll.a's sex trade sometimes has eco- nomically advantageous results. Some clients have paid for the edu- cation of their "girlfriend's" children (as Ji.irgen did for Elena's daughter; see the Introduction) or have helped sex workers get a fledgling business off the ground (such as a clothing store or hair salon). In these cases, sex in a_ postcolonial context, much like in a colonial Context, can be used as a "vehicle to master a practical world (to achieve privileged schooling, well-paying jobs in the civil service, or access to certain residential quarters)" (Stoler 1997b: 44). Because any use of sex between black local women and white for- eign men in a postcolonial context is a "crucial transfer point of power, tangled with racial exclusions in complicated ways" (Stoler 1997b: 44, on Fanon 1967: 63), today's sex trade is inextricably linked with a violent colonial history for Hispaniola's women. In the rela· tionships between sex tourists and sex workers, there are similarities to the relationships b( ·ween the colonizer and the colonized. I do not mean to suggest, however, that Dominican sex workers (or resort workers) are "enslaved" but want to underscore that they stand to lose more-materially-than love gone awry.6

Of course not every Dominican worker in Soslla's tourist econ· omy tries to parlay access to foreign tourists into marriage proposals

Peiforming Love 99

and visa sponsorships, yet many are perceived as doing so. SosUans (Dominicans and foreign residents) and Dominicans outside of Sost'ia brand as "sank.ies" a wide range of men who do not trade their bodies for money. For example, young, good-looking Domini- can men who have migrated to work in Soslla's hotels, bars, and beaches often are glibly referred to or derided as sankies.

9 Male

resort workers, particularly "activity directors" -the resort position held by the two young men who married in the double wedding- often are talked about as sankies. 10 By referring to male resort workers as sanky-pankies, Sosllans see these men as prostituting themselves as well as sacrificing love for migration. The term is now loosely used throughout the Dominican Republic to refer to Domin- ican men who hit on tourist women-especially women older than

they. Female resort workers, too, undergo public scrutiny and risk

being stereotyped as putas but usually from Dominicans outside of Sost'ia, as Sosllans know that most of the women who clean, wait- ress, and cook in the hotels and other tourist businesses are from Soslla, Puerto Plata, and other nearby towns. SosUans also know that women who enter the sex trade are not from Soslla but migrate from towns throughout the island (to protect their families left behind). However, to Dominicans outside ofSosUa, women's claims of working in Soslla's hotels and restaurants can appear as "cover stories" for working in the sex trade. In fact, most of the sex workers I interviewed concealed their participation in the sex trade from their families and neighb?rs by creating "cover stories" about work- ing in SosUa's tourist hotels and restaurants.

History of Migration off the Island: "Headaches" for Dominicans Wishing to Migrate

The automatic eyebrow raising and speculation of SosUans that suggest relationships between foreign tourists and Dominicans are por residencia result from the virtual impossibility of leaving the island legally without family members to sponsor migration. Re- sponses to an Internet posting to the message board of a Dominican electronic newspaper in English, Dominican One, underscores just how difficult it is for Dominicans to enter the United States. Arnold queried, "Hi, I would like for my Dominican girlfriend to visit me in the United States for rwo weeks some time in the next year. How

100 What's Love Got to Do with It?

much of a big pain is this? She told me I needed to write her an invitation letter and she needed to get a passport. How hard is this and any headaches anyone here· foresees?" (31 March 2000). Two responses explained it would take a near miracle for Arnold's girl- friend to obtain a tourist visa: "No, no headaches. It just won't happen!Jesus Christ could not get a visa ifhe were Dominican! Tha1 is about how difficult it is" (3r March 2000); and "Hahahahaha- hahahahahahaha" (2 April 2000, from within the Dominican Re- public). A third response hinted that the Dominican girlfriend might overstay her visa and that Arnold should not trust her motivations: "Want some good advice from someone who knows, don't bring her to the U.S. 'You will be sorry,' move to the Dominican Republic with her instead" (2 April 2000). Arnold's innocent question revealed him to be a novice about the difficulties facing Dominicans who want to travel or migrate to the United States.

Understanding why Dominican resort workers and sex workers might feign love and use marriage-or are perceived as feigning love and using marriage-as a way to get off the island demands a brief discussion of the island's migration history. The past few decades of migration from the Dominican Republic to New York and the transnational cultural and economic flows between the two places (Georges 1990; Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Guarnizo 1994) have in· formed a diasporic mentality in the Dominican Republic. There is little doubt that families with relatives in New York have benefited as one of Eugenia Georges's (1990: 196) informants sums up: "In the Dominican Republic there are three kinds of people: the rich, the poor and those who travel to New York." And of course, there is a fourth group: families who rely on remittances sent from family members abroad. 11

Dominicans started using migration as a means to social mobility following the isolationist years under the dictator Trujillo (from 1930 to 1961), who restricted migration off the island. After Trujillo's assassination in 1961, restrictions on migration both in the Domini- can Republic and the United States loosened. Sherri Grasmuck and Patricia Pessar argue that following the 1963 revolution, migration was ''politically induced" by an "extremely unrestrictive immigra- tion policy favored by the United States" which operated as a "safety-valve for political discontent" (1991: 31). During these years of political unrest, Dominican migration to the United States increased from 900 immigrants on average annuaily, to 9,000 a year (Pessar

Peiforming Love 101

1995a). Many of ~hese early migrants had progressive ties and left disillusioned, or fearful, after socialist Juan Bosch was overthrown by a U.S.-backed military coup in 1963. Out-migration to the United States significantly increased and complemented the model of eco- nomic development of the newly elected president, Balaguer, during his presidency of 1966 to 1978. (Leader of the Reformist Party, Bal- aguer was reelected in 1986 and remained in office until 1996.) Hurt by the Balaguer government's policy of keeping food prices ar- tificially low, rural producers migrated to urban centers, where un- employment grew. Out-migration to the United States continued at an average rate of 12,000 a year during this period (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991). Following the deterioration of the national economy after 197 4, and a rise in landlessness from the splintering of many smallholdings, both migrant and nonmigrant households experi- enced economic insecurity (Safa 1995a). Migration permitted many families to hold on to a "middle-level status," while other non- migrant families fell into poverty in the midst of a troubled econ-

omy (Georges 1990). Without ties to New York or elsewhere, economic mobility is

difficult-even for middle-class families-and, often, families end up just getting by and surviving. Low salaries are an obstacle to mobil- ity for all classes, other than for the wealthy. Schoolteachers and office workers, for example, earn under 4,000 pesos a month (U.S. $333.00). Consequently, many professionals with university degrees consider themselves both middle class and part of los pobres at the same time. A social worker identified with two classes simulta- neously: "My wife, a schoolteacher, and I have been working as professionals for twenty years. But do we own a house? Or a car? We Dominicans work until we die." He also recounted his parents' downward mobility: "My parents, who own a butcher shop, are old and should not· be working. But they work every day, my father cutting meat and my mother stuffing sausage. They used to be middle class, but now with prices rising every day they are pobres."

At the time this book went to press, prices for basic foodstuffs, cooking gas, and gasoline continued to rise-while salaries remained the same. Two events in the spring of 2003-the collapse of a bank, Baninter, and the cost of hosting the Pan American Games-exacer- bated an already deteriorating economy. Baninter' s main owner, Ramon Baez Figueroa, was arrested for allegedly running a "bank within a bank" for more than a decade. The bank is reported to have

102 What's Love Got to Do with It?

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lost $2.2 billion, a figure equal to 13 percent of the country's GDP. In the process, the peso has depreciated dramatically and the country's credit rating has bee1_1 downgraded (Economist:June 14, 2003). iz In the midst of rising prices and a falling peso, the Dominican government (under President Hipolito Mejia) spent $175 million to host the Pan American Games in August 2003. Even though the Dominican gov- ernment banned protests, demonstrators took to the streets to pro- test against the millions spent on athletic fields and facilities (Gon" zalez August 8, 2003= 1). As the Rev. Rogelio Cruz led a demonstration carrying the "torch of hunger" through Santo Domingo's poorest neighborhoods, the security chief for the games declared his troops would "rip the heads off" or "break the necks" of any protesters while President Hipolito Mejia said he should be beaten (Gonzalez August 10, 2003:n).

In this context of limited economic mobility and extraordinary ob- stacles to legal migration off the island, it becomes clear why Domini- can migrants in Soslla, most of whom do not receive remittances from family overseas, work so hard to establish transnational rela- tionships with the tourist population. These transnational romantic ties act as surrogate family migration networks to access a middle- class lifestyle and its accompanying security. Without family mem- bers in New York or e-lsewhere to sponsor their legal migration, Do- minicans who seek to migrate need other means of getting fuera. 13 Manfage to citizens of other countries is one surefire strategy.

Suspicious Love

On account of the obstacles to legal migration just discustied, Do- minicans consider the workers in several occupations as under suspi- cion for "performing" at being in love with tourists for money and visas: male sanky-pankies, male resort workers and activity direc- tors, female resort workers, and female sex workers.

SANKY-PANKIES

One of the first groups of Sos\lans who were reputed to "perform" at being in love with tourists were the sanky-pankies. Those first called sankies, in the mid-198os, were young men in their late teens and early twenties who worked on the beach renting jet skis, beach chairs, umbrellas, and the like. Their trademark was bleached dread locks, as well as tanned and toned bodies. Sankies were known for

PeifOrming Love 103

wooing white, female, middle-aged tourists. In this early stage of SosUa's tourism development, many of the female tourists were French Canadian and Canadian. These men did not work for cash, as did female sex workers, but for gifts, meals, and other expenses at the discretion of the female tourists. Much like the "romance tour- ism" Pruitt and LaFont describe between Jamaican men and tourist women which unfolds through a "discourse of romance and long- term relationship" (1995: 423), sankies' skills often included treating the tourist women as "girlfriends." Romantic dinners, moonlight strolls, and lessons in dancing merengue at the nightclubs can be part of encounters between tourist women and sankies. But money also changes hands. French Canadian female tourists have described giving their Dominican "lovers" money ( even though they did not ask for any) and clothes, as well as paying for meals and drinks (Herold et al. 1992). Female tourists do not perceive that they are "paying" for sexual services, however; they recount that "they fell in love with the men and the men fell in love with them" (Herold et. aL 1992: 8). Similarly, Jacqueline Martis observed that men working in the sex trade in Saint Martin or Curac;ao (with female tourists) were jockeying to "hook up '\vith a woman who would take care of them and take them away from the island." They, like the sankies, "wanted to think of themselves as having a romantic liaison, not as prostituting" and thus referred to themselves as "players" (1999:

2II-l2).

Few of these "original" sankies remain in Soslla; they were suc- cessful at marrying female tourists and migrating to Canada. So- sllans report that most of these marriages ended in divorce, after the men received their citizenship. Today, there are a few high-profile men-allegedly some of the "original" sankies-who have remrned from Canada. Now, in their late thirties and early forties, their profit- able (and capital-intensive) motorcycle rental and beach equipment businesses stand as examples of what one can achieve through mar- riage and migration off the island.

MALE RESORT WORKERS/ ACTIVITY DIRECTORS

In light of the desperation some Dominicans feel to leave the island, and the difficulties they face in order to do so, it is easy to see why SosUa's foreign tourists are a gold mine. Contact with foreigners distinguishes Soslla's employment opportunities from those in other parts· of the country. The actual jobs might be the same-waiting

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tables, bartending, or tending a cash register-but the chance to meet foreign tourists is a fringe benefit of working in the tourist sector, an investment of sorts, in the employees' future. The job of activity director, coveted by young Dominicans who seek either sho:rt-or long-term relationships with foreigners, perhaps best epito- mizes the sexual or romantic promise of Soslla. Usually young, energetic men (although there are some activity directors who are women) with self-taught skills in several languages, activity direc- tors organize events for hotel guests, such as exercise classes, dance contests, and volleyball tournaments. Their reputation for romantic and sexual entanglements with female hotel guests is why Sosllans often call them sankies. As mentioned earlier, the two young Do- minican men involved in the double wedding were both activity directors. One of the English women recalled how her soon-to-be husband greeted her and other guests with whom she was having a drink: "Hi. My name is Pablo and my job is to make your vacation fun" (Victoria 1994: 44).

Hotel management, keenly aware of how highly valued these positions are, take advantage of willing young Dominicans, Some activity directors work for no wages during their "trial period," which might last a month or longer. The offers for dinner and nightclubbing, as well as gifts (some even continue to receive gifts from abroad long a·fter tourists have returned home), showered on them by hotel guests give them the opportunity to elect to work for free and even continue to endure low wages later on. A Domini- can manager at one of the largest all-inclusive hotels on the north coast smiled when I asked about the activity directors. "They have more contact with the guests than other staff," he said and laughed. "Thus, they are privileged." Norberto, the other young activity di- rector who married in the double wedding, described getting many visa promises from hotel guests. But when, at the end of their vacation, the two English women promised that they would send airplane tickets so that Pablo and Norberto could come to En- gland and meet the two women's families, Norberto "did not have many illusions because there are many who say the same thing, but then nothing happens." "But," he added, "when I saw the ticket had arrived, I was convinced this thing was serious" (Victoria 1994: 44).

Hugo, another activity director, left school at age fifteen in Pu- erto Plata, where he lived with his family, to begin working in the

Peiforming Love 105

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resort complex at Playa Dorada, about twenty miles outside of SosUa. "We are the heart of the hotel," he explained, "Without us, it would die; we keep the guests happy." Hugo has met a lot of women while working at the hotel: "We meet people all day. They come to us for everything, so we meet a lot of women from all over the world. I have many girlfriends in lots of countries. They send me things and come back on their vacations to visit me." This close contact (.an pay off. Hugo married a woman from England whom he met when she was a guest staying at the hotel. However, "things did not work out." "My wife," he complained, "always wanted to know where I was going whenever I left the house." To make matters worse, he could not find a job. After living in England for nine months, he returned to the Dominican Republic. Now di- vorced, he is disillusioned with both living overseas and marriage. He is happy to be back at the hotel, meeting "a variety of women" who "spend their money on me."

At the time we spoke, he was not looking to marry-or to mi- grate off the island. Unlike his coworkers, he knew firsthand how difficult it is for Dominicaris who are not fluent in English to live and to work in Europe. "You know everyone wants to go fuera-that's what I thought a few years ago. But it's a lie; it's not easy there. Sure you can make a lot more money there, if you can find a job." Hugo, like the female sex Workers who have lived in Europe (whose stories I recount in chapter 6), has no more fantasies about life fuera. Yet it is unclear what caused him greater unease: marriage and monog- amy or the experience of migration. "I don't want to be married-I can't go home to one woman in the house. I need to be free and loose, Dominican men are machista; we don't like to be reined in." Some migration scholars have documented threats to men's author- ity in the household through the migration process (Kibria 1993; Pessar 1996). Since men and women experience migration differ- ently (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994), marriage to foreign citizens presents even greater challenges during the migration process (a dynamic I analyze further in chapter 6).

FEMALE RESORT WORKERS AND SEX WORKERS

Consuelo, a twenty-four-year old sex worker, walked around Los Charamicos clutching a pocket German-Spanish dictionary wher- ever she went. Having it with her at all times functioned as a marker of prestige, allowing her to show off her envied ties to Europe. 'Tm

106 v\That's Love Got to Do with Iti'

~

rf'

trying to learn German. I'm moving to Germany in the next few weeks to live with a German man I met here," she elaborated. She also was in the Cod tel office at least once a day, sending or receiv- ing faxes or telephoning Germany. She was able to pay for the calls with the money her German client-turned~boyfriend wired to her. Months later, she was still in town, running around making arrange~ ments by fax and phone as urgently as if she were leaving the next day. Some of her coworkers dismissed her preoccupation with going to Germany as folly. Ani had known her for years, since they had worked together in a bar in Boca Chica. 1~ "She was the same there- determined to get to Europe. She only sought out clients she thought could get her there." Ani laughed, "But look, she's still here. It does not work that way-it is not easy."

If it is "not easy" to get to Europe (or elsewhere off the island) by meeting foreign men, why do Dominican women such as Consuelo try so hard to do so? Soslla as a tourist enclave operates much as urban spaces have in step migration. Consuelo, for example, sees migration to Soslla as the first step toward marrying a foreign tour. ist, the only legal way she knows to obtain a visa to travel overseas. Without family in New York, women have a greater chance to get overseas by marrying a tourist than they do of obtaining a visa- legally-to the United States. In some ways, hanging out in the tourist bars in Soslla is a better use of their time than waiting in line at the U.S. Consulate in Santo Domingo. Marrying a tourist can be seen as hitting the jackpot. This, in part, is why so many women who have never worked before in the sex trade decide to do so in Soslla. Carla, a sex worker, illuminates why SosU:a draws women from throughout the country: "We come here because we dream of a ticket." But without a visa, Dominicans cannot use the airplane ticket Cada describes;

Mari and Andrea: "No, it's not love." The words romance and love are noticeably absent from female sex workers' and female resort work- ers' discussions of the "ideal" relationship with foreign tourists. Se.'{ workers and resort workers are looking for hombres serios, not the loves of their lives. Fidelity, financial security, and a good future for their children characterize the tops of their wish lists. This is not to say that they do not also hope for romance. One Valentine's Day the tourist bars were abuzz with a striking mix of commercial and romantic desires. The sex workers were wishing one another a

Peiforming Love 107

happy Valentine's Day, and many expressed hopes that they might find romance that evening. Some had gone to the hair salon earlier in the day, while others put on their best outfits and took more time than usual with their makeup. One sex worker, who had stopped going to the bars because at the time she had been receiving large money wires from a client in Europe, reappeared to celebrate Valen- tine's Day. She explained that she wanted to hang out with her friends and maybe fulfill her dreams of"romance."

The hopeful pursuit of romance I witnessed on Valentine's Day was rare because, in sex workers' narratives, economic imperatives usually outweigh romantic dreams. There is an expected tradeoff of emotion-driven love for financial mobility. Both sex workers and resort workers candidly admit that they sacrifice romantic love for a better future. Mari, for example, has used both waitressing and the sex trade (when she was younger) to meet foreign men. As a wait- ress she met and married a German man and lived in Dlisseldorf for a year and a half. Surprisingly, she returned to Sostla because she hated Germany and, as she put it, did not "love him." Back in Soslla, this time working in promoci6n (passing out flyers to tourists for clubs and restaurants), she met a Dutch man, in his fifties. Still married, Mari planned to return to Germany to see her husband and then "take the train to Holland." I reasoned that since she had opted to leave Germany and return to the Dominican Republic, it was possible that she was looking for romantic love, not just a visa to live in Europe. After all, she had expressly said she did not love her German husband. I was wrong. She and Elena shook their heads, frustrated by my naivete and carefully spelled out for me that Mari did not love either of these men. These relationships, they made dear, "are not really about love." Rather, «they are about thinking of your family and your future." Because the Dutch man appeared to have more resources than the German man, along with the fact that he treated her well, Mari believed he would make a better husband. (In the Conclusion I recount what happened when her German husband showed up in Soslla.)

Another sex worker, Andrea, spent the night with her Dominican boyfriend-the man she "really loved" -on the eve of her departure for Germany to marry a German man who had been a client. When I dropped by the next morning to wish her well before she left for Germany, her Dominican boyfriend was still asleep- Stepping out-

108 'What's Love Got to Do with It?

side onto her porch (she lived on the second floor of a house her German boyfriend had been paying for), she explained she could not lie about her feelings for her soon-to-be husband: "No, it's not love." Yet with images of an easier life for her and her two daughters compelling her to migrate, she put love aside-at least temporarily. She went to Germany, married, brought her girls over, and settled into a new life.

Although Andrea's friends who remained behind in Soslla saw Andrea as living out their dreams, her marriage was far from ideal. Four years later she was still in Germany, but she was trying to get a divorce. Much like Mari, Andrea had met another German man who had a Getter job-and more money. They planned to marry as soon as her divorce came through. I found out about Andrea's new pur- suit from her cousin in Sostla, to whom she sends money every month. Her cousin was puzzled when I asked if Andrea was in love with her new boyfriend. "This new guy has more money:" For Andrea, who wanted her children to grow up in comfort aild to get a good education, love takes a backseat to financial concerns. Besides, a network of female family members, such as this cousin and her two children, depend on Andrea to send remittances. ill this sense, her successful performance of being in love is directly tied to her family obligations. After all, she was lucky enougtl to get off the island. Now she is expected to (and willingly does) help out the other single mothers in her family, her parents, and her good fi.iends, including Elena. She has even sent new sneakers, jeans, and belts to a circle of her closest friends (all sex worker~). With so many expecta- tions and demands on Andrea, there is considerable pressure on her to keep her relationship afloat, no matter what.

Considering the benefits for family and friends, it is easy to see why Andrea's friends, while sporting new fashions from Germany, perpetuate the .fiction that marriage in Europe is without significant conflict. However, as 1 recount in chapter 6, life in Europe can be isolating for Dominican sex workers. Yet stories of women's migra~ tion, such as Andrea's, still manage to persuade women into think" ing that tourists will be their ticket off the island. Like Dominican migrants' sanitized nan ..ttives during the early years of migration to New York, so too migration to Europe by sex workers has been greatly romanticized. Because migrating to Europe is a relatively new phenomenon, not many former sex workers such as Mari, or

Performing Love 109

resort workers such as Hugo, have returned to Soslla to dispel the myths and gossip of an easy and fantasy-filled life alla. Instead, sex workers and resort workers imagine lives-of material comfort for themselves and, in the case of the sex workers and female resort workers, for their children.

"Love" in a Global World: New Transnational Courting Practices

Part of a day's work for sex workers who are interested in getting off the island-or at least in receiving money wires-is keeping in con- tact with clients who are back home in Europe. Faxes and telephone calls are the primary ways they communicate. And Codetel has assumed a starring role in the unfolding drama of these relationships. At the Codetel office in Los Charamicos, accordion files contain received faxes filed under first or last names or a slew of other identifying characteristics. There are faxes for "Juana at Hotel P,.>.ra- iso" or for "Carmen at the Anchor." The senders might have met the recipients at these places or believe that these women work there all the time. Usually written in English or broken Spanish, these faxes document that romantic/ sexual encounters are a by-product of So- sU.a's tourist trade.15 lndeed, some days the files are literally bursting with faxes. Judging by one of the customer bases for fax services one is most likely to see inside the Codetel office in Los Charamicos- groups of young Dominican sex workers teasing one another about their "boyfriends" -sex tourism generates a good portion of the faxes in the files. 16 ln contrast, the Codetel branch on the other side of the beach, in El Batey, is filled mainly with foreigners: tourists phon- ing home and residents sending personal or business-related faxes (they have phones in their homes). Cell phone use is on the rise, and during my visits to the nightclubs in 2003, cell phones were a visible accessory-nearly everyone (men and women) sported one on his or her person. Whether the phones work is another thing entirely; many SosUans buy minutes for their phones through phone cards, rather than keep ongoing accounts.

Unlike the love letters sex workers send their clients, the faxes sex workers receive usually convey some kind of news: when to pick up a money wire or details about the men's return visits to SosUa. It is not possible to receive incoming calls at Codetel, so sometimes transnational "couples" use faxes to arrange times that the women

110 'What's Love Got to Do with It?

7. Western Union office in El Batey

will call the men from Codetel (usually paid for by money wires sent by the men) or to arrange times that men will call the women at a neighbor's house.17 Some sex workers have become adept at cap~ italizing on the communication resources available to them, and, as a result, novices at navigating this transnational terrain come to them for advice. 18 Sex workers who are liter-ate, and have a proven track record of receiving money wires or faxes from clients, are at the top of this hierarchy. Elena, for example, has given out a lot of advice, and she has even helped compose letters and faxes for women who were uncertain about what to do with the addresses, fax numbers, and telephone numbers clients gave them. She helped Carmen write a letter to a Belgian client who had sent her a money wire and then abruptly stopped corresponding with her. Carmen came to Elena because, at the time, Elena was living with Jilrgen and was experienced, indeed successful, at transnational courting. Elena's advice was simple and centered on Carmen's performance of "love": "You have to write that you love him and that you miss him. Write that you cannot wait to see him again. Tell him you think

Peifonning Love 111

about him every day." Following Elena's guidelines, Carmen com- posed· the following letter that I helped her translate into English (his English was better than his Spanish):

Dear- I have been thinking of you every day and have been waiting

for a fax tO hear how you are. I got your money wire, thanks. But I still want to see you.

Please send me a fax at the following number-, and if possi- ble, a fax number where I can reach you.

I miss you very much and think of you all the time. I love you very much. I wait to hear from you. I hope you come to visit again very soon.

Many Kisses, 19

Carmen never heard from th.is client again. Since women always can enlist the help of more literate friends,

being able to read and write is not a critical skill in transnational courting. Sensing which men are not already married and are likely to continue corresponding and to return for future vacations (the most certain first step to receiving an invitation to visit Europe or Canada), often proves a more valuable-and elusive-skill. While sorting through all the pictures and letters of her European clients, Nanci, for example, commented on which ones seemed the most se- rious about keeping in touch. She pronounced several too "young" and thus not likely to follow through on the relationships. Nanci had honed her ability to detect which transnational suitors were worth pursuing during her four years in Soslla. She had been receiving money wires on and off from five or six European men at the same time. Her many and varied transnational ties were envied and diffi- cult to replicate, yet many tried. Stashed away in a spare pocket- book, Nanci kept a bundle of letters and faxes. 20 She also had photos-photos of the men back home and photos of her with the men during their vacations in Soslla. Taped to her wall were photos of at least fifteen different foreign men. Several of them had returned to SosUa to see Nanci and expressed interest in bringing her to Europe and marrying her (in chapter 6 I recount her experience of marrying one of these foreign men and moving to Germany).

Of course, even those sex workers who are veterans of transna- tional dating cannot easily predict their European clients' actions (or inaction). Yet some seem to assess better than others the characters

112 What's Love Got to Do with It?

of the men. Nora, who has never received p.n international fax or letter, kept a German client's business card·,among her valuables. Even though he promised he would fax her, he had not responded to the numerous faxes she sent him. Nevertheless, Nora dung to the card as if it were a winning lottery ticket. She could not seem to throw it away. In contriist, many of her coworkers quickly move on to cultivating new relationships when faced with their clients' lack of communication.

Conclusion: Marriage, "Papers," and Suspicious Love

It is not only in Soslla's tourist economy that marriage solves obsta- cles to migration from one country to another; marriage also se- cures migrants' futures once they are in new countries. In the Span- ish movie Flores de otro mundo (Flowers from another world [1999)), for example, an Afro-Dominican woman works in Madrid for four years as a domestic, during which time she is often stopped on the street by the police. Without the right papers, she explains to her Spanish boyfriend with whom she and her children are living, she cannot get a ·good job. An outsider, especially someone whose dark skin makes her unable t{ conceal her "otherness," cannot, she cries, "break into the circle." The only solution is a wedding. Although this woman eventually falls in love with her Spanish boyfriend, and he with her, she initially moves in with him to bring her children to Spain from the Dominican Republic and to begin the application process for Spanish residency. Love was not on her agenda; her children were her only concern. As she put it, "It doesn't matter what happens to me."

Similarly, the rush to marry in February and March 1997, in cities that are popular migration destinations in the United States (New York City; Los Angeles, Boston, and cities in Texas), demonstrated the central role marriage plays in many migrants' settlement strat- egieS.21 Fearing that new punitive immigration legislation would prevent them from obtaining citizenship in the future, thousands lined up for licenses and wedding ceremonies. Witnessing this mar- riage frenzy, a reporter for the New York Times questioned the new- lyweds' motivation:

Rarely has love been so suspect in New York City as in the last few days, with young men and womerr of foreign origin being

Performing Love 113

li r f

ii t

ii!

i •:;-

stopped by imperfect strangers and asked whether it is their hearts or their wallets that are going pitter-pat. The reason for this is simple: at marriage bureaus across town, there are sud- denly crushing ·lines of couples looking to· sprint down the aisle. No one can swear why this is happening. But common sense suggests that illegal immigrants by the thousands are racing to marry American citizens in the hope-a misguided hope, some experts caution- that they can stave off deportation after a tough- ened immigration law goes into effect on April r. (Haberman

I99T A32)

As the reporter suspected, some of these marriages of course were not for love but for residency. I spoke with a Dominican woman in New York who had overstayed her tourist visa and paid $5,000 to a Dominican-born man with U.S. citizenship to marry her. "It's a lot of money, but it's the only way I can stay here." The cere- mony itself was bittersweet: "I was very depressed going through the ceremony. It was sad to have such a special ceremony with someone you do not love. But I need my papers for my daughter's future." As a single mother, she is lonely and hopes one day to marry a man for love. But for now, she has a husband solely for documentation purposes. He has kept his end of the agreement by showing up for the ceremony and their meetings with immigration officials. Her cousin was not so lucky: a Puerto Rican man disap- peared shortly after she paid him $2,500 (a down payment on his $5,000 fee) to marry her. These two cousins in New York are in the position to "buy" a marriage and thus secure their legal status in the migration process. Unlike sex workers and resort workers in SosUa, when these cousins pursued marriage strategies, there was no hope or pretense of emotion-driven love or romance on their part or on the part of the men they were marrying. Their performances oflove were only for the INS.

Sex workers and resort workers who feign love for an oppor- tunity to get off the island are banking on the outcome that their marriages and migration will translate into mobility for them and their families. Because sex workers have been traveling to Europe to live with European boyfriends only over the past ten to twelve years, this migration por residencia is still a relatively new phenomenon. It remains to be seen how many of these relationships last. These Dominican women and European men may or may not formally

114 What's Love Got to Do with Iti'

[f marry, move the women's children to Europe, or have children together. Stories abound of the failed marriages of men gossiped about as sankies who married Canadian women and migrated to Canada in the early and mid-198os. Some of these men's pasts have become legendary-inspiring young men to hang out at their busi- nesses-particularly since they are so visibly successful (especially in the business of renting motorcycles, a particularly macho enter~ prise). Their performances of love paid off. Similarly, the double wedding might have caused snickering and raised eyebrows over the authenticity of the Dominican men's emotional commitment to their English wives, but Sosllans also acknowledged that these men were "very lucky." \;\Tith their marriage certificates to English cit- izens, they were sters closer to migrating-legally-to Europe.

Pe1forming Love 115

ll.:

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[~:,

"

n

Tourism accounted for 13.52 percent of the Dominican Republic's gross domes·

tic product in 1998 and has been above 13 percent every year since I994 (Asso·

ciation of Caribbean States 2001b). Receipts from tourism totaled $2,86 million

in 2000 and $2.68 million in 2001 (World Tourism Organization 2002).

Guests at these hotels pay a fixed p1ice in their home countries and generally

spend little money in the Dominican Republic. The packages include airfare,

hotel, meals, and sometimes drinks and even cigarettes. The exact number is not known. I have seen a range of estimates; Richard

Symanski and Nancy Burly (1973), for example, write about 1,000 Jewish refu-

gees, whereas a recent article by Debbie Blumberg (2003) cites 645.

u These are the Jewish settlers' real names and are the only real names I identify

in the book. The settlers agreed to be identified. Also, I decided to use their real names because they have been interviewed and identified by name many times

before (by journalists, travel writers, and scholars of Jewish history) as well as

in fellow settler Josef David Eich en's testimonial, SosUa: Una co Ionia hebrea en La

Repllblica Dominicana (1980). I am grateful to Sylvie Papernik, Otto's daughter, who generously shared her

father's memoir with me.

,, '4

From 1980 to 1996, the average annual growth rate of tourist arrivals to

the Dominican Republic was 10.62 percent. Among the world's top tourism

destinations, the Domi.tllcan Republic was one of only eleven nations which

boasted an average growth rate over ro percent (World Tourism Organization

1998: I3). International tourist arrivals grew by I2.I percent in 1999-2000; ar·

rivals, however, decreased by 6,6 percent in :woo-2001. The Caribbean experi.

enced a regional decline in tourist arrivals after September n, 2001. The aver-

age regional decline was 6 percent in the months following the terrorist

attacks, while arrivals to the Dominican Republic dropped by 5 percent (World

Tourism Orgatllzation 2002). 15 The. U.S. Department of State reported the 1998 labor force to be 2,889,000

(unemployment rate: 14-4 percent) and the 1999 labor force to be 2,965,000

(unemployment rate: 13.8 percent) (US. Department of State, Bureau of Eco·

nomic and Business Affairs 2001). Economists estimate that 141,000 were em-

ployed i.t1 Dominican hotels, restaurants, and bars in 1999 (Economist 2000: 9),

The estimated labor force in 2000 was 3,785,521, of which 1,224,u4 were

women, a participation rate of 37.6 percent (Biez 2000: 45, 49, 51).

16 The term sanky~pankies evolved from ''Jos hanky-pankies." These men do not

work for a set fee but for gifts, meals, and other expenses at the discretion of

tourists. They hang out on the beaches hy day and in the nightclubs at night,

looking for foreign women. The original sank.ks' trademark, in the early 1980s,

was dreadlocks, sometimes bleached by the sun. Dominican men who do not

want to be labeled sankies thus avoid having dreadlocks or long hair. In the

early 19Sos, sankies were rumored to have sexual encounters with both men

and women, but as the threat, and stigma, of AIDS increased, sankies' homosex-

234 Notes to Chapter 2

ual liaisons have gone underground. A beachgoer or nightdubber today is

more likely to see sankies hitting on women. For more on Dominican sankles. see de Moya et a!. (1992). ,,

,, For example, see Rebecca Scott (1985) on cities in colonial Cuba. The following examine this theme of the "dangers" female sex workers rep·

resent: Donna Guy (1990) on late nineteenth- and early twentieth·ccnrury

Buenos A.ires; Carroll Smith-Rosenburg (r985) on U.S. cities in the late nine·

teenth cenrury;Judith Walkowitz (r980) and (r992) on Victorian London; and

Luise White (1990) on colonial Nairobi_.

'9

,0

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ll

23

24

When I rerurned to Soslla in 1999, everyone l asked about the fire at the

Anchor told me unhesitatingly that they believed it was arson.

The Dominican police have been criticized by the US, Department of State for

frequent human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, disappearances.

and torture or inhumane treatment. The police also have been cited for their

reluctance to handle rape cases and for frequent encouragement of victims to

seek assistance from NGOS (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor 2000).

In 1995, when the arrests I recount in this chapter took place, the average polke

officer was earning 900 pesos a month (U.S.$75.00), one of the lowest-paying jobs in the Dominican Republic.

The meeting was conducted entirely in German, but I sat with a German

friend who translated the discussions for me into English.

The suspect was dubbed the "gentleman robber," since his modus operandi

was to politely question his victims as to where everything was while they

were blindfolded and tied up. He always apologized before he left. Many

believed he had lived in the U1llted States because his English was so polished

He hit at least half a dozen houso:s or apartments in and around SosUa and Cabarere.

Despite these women's perceptions of the exclusivity of the meeting, one of

the first items discussed was that the sea! of the association could not have

colors from the German flag, since the organization must be an international group.

25 Carlos was referring to an insufficient number of schools in the countryside

Many schools are understaffed and have few books or supplies.

26 Although Europeans are customers, I am unaware of any foreigners who own

these kinds of bars with rooms in the back.

3 Peiforming Love

"Un Amor en el Caribe" by Lorena S. Victoria appeared on 2r November in

one of the Dominkan Republic's most well·respected news magazines, Rumbo (1994: 43).

2 Judith Butler's groundbreaking theodzation on '"performance" in relation to

Notes to Chapter 3 235

4

gender has become a central concept in gender studies. f'Or this project l am

interested in her writing on "gender parody," which we see, for example, in

drag that "implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself-as well as

its contingency" (1990: 137). If I were to write about a "love parody" in the Butlerian sense, however, I would be suggesting that there is no "original." Below I further explore this idea of distinguishing the "real thing" from false,

inauthentic, or fabricated "love.'' Catherine Lutz (1988: 145) summarizes James Averill's (1985) description oflove

in ''.American understandings" as "idealization of the other, suddenness of

onset, physical arousal, and commitment to the other." In Soslla, local under-

standings of what I am calling "real love" mirror Averill's description.

Linda-Anne Rebhun was also interested in how people "describe sentiment"

bur moved past "vocabulary to discourse: what people talk about in relation to

sentimenr, how they communicate, what they say; as well as what they leave

unsaid and they act out in wordless practice" (1999: n). Catherine Lutz writes about the attachment of local meanings to emotion in

her research with the Ifalnk: "Emotion can be a cultural and interpersonal

process of naming, justifying, and persuading people in rclationship to each

other. Emotional meaning is then a social rather than an individual achieve-

ment-an emergent product of social life" (1988: 5). 6 The November 1994 double wedding also was widely publicized in the British

press. lo the wake of these stories, another British woman cmne forward with a

cautionary tale. Four years earlier, Sharon Kelly had met and married Rafael

Gutierrez, a DomJnican tour company driver, after an eight-week courtship.

They married in the Dominican Republic and then successfully applied for a

British visa for RafaeL Soon after their move to Sharon's home in Norwich,

Rafael expressed a desire to obtain a visa to visit the United States. Denied

once, he applied again and received a tourist visa. He left England with a one-

way ticket to the Dominican Republic via New York but not before emptying

Sharon's bank account, maxing out her credit ca"rd, and stealing her most

valuable jewelry. Although they spoke by phone when he was in New York, as

of November 1994 Sharon had not heard from Rafael since May 1992 (Hardy

7

1994). Karen Kelsky explains that the term yellow cab was "allegedly coined by Ameri·

can men, (but] yellow cab was in fact invented and popularized by Japanese

journalists to imply that Japanese women are, from a foreigner's perspective,

'yellow' and can be hailed as easily as a taxi" (1994: 465). Angela Gilliam (2001) and Susanne Thorbek (2002a, 2002b) examine the rela·

tionship between the colonial eroticization of non-European women and the

contemporary exoticization of third-world sex workers. In particular, both

essays consider the role the brutal display in Paris's Musee de !'Homme of

Saarrje Baartman (a young woman taken from what is now South Africa to be

exhibited like an animal in Europe) has played in shaping colonial and contem-

236 Notes to Chapter 3

.if;

porary views of black ?Omen's sexuality. The display of her body "'was placed

at the unsavory intersection of slavery, an Enlightenment classificatory system,

and quasi-pornographic notions of medicine" (Gilliam 2001: 179).

9 Men who are gossiped about as sankies do not use this term to describe

themselves, Mark PaWlla's findings in a research project with zoo male sex

workers in Santo Domingo and Boca Chica suggest that only a small minority

of those interviewed use this term to describe themselves. Rather, more com-

monly; the men pejoratively apply the term to others, and sometimes use it

when ribbing one another. Padilla finds that the term carries less stigma than

the terms puta or prostituta for female sex workers, because male sex work

(with female clients) in comparison with female work seems less transgressive

and more in line with norms of male gende-r and sexuality (Padilla 2003).

JO Activity directors organize social events for hotel guests, such as dancing

lessons or sporting events.

II Remittances to the Dominican Republic grew by 85 percent between 1996 and

2000. In 2000 remittances totaled approximately $I.7 billion, 80 percent of

which came from Dominicans living in the United States (Latin Finance :wo1).

12 When I started fieldwork in the Dominican Republic in 1993, the official bank

rate was around 12 pesos to the US.$1. In the summer of 2003, the rate climbed to 33 pesos.

I3 Between 1993 and I994, the DomJnican Republic was the country with the

highest increase in immigration in the United States (6,171 people, or 13-7

percent). This increase is attributed to an influx of immediate relatives of US

citizens (an increase of 9,5oj benveen the fiscal years 1993 and 1994) (U.S

Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, worn).

14 Boca Chica is another toutist beach town with a lively sex trade. It is on the

south coast of the Dominican Republic, outside ofrhe capital, Santo Domingo.

15 Sex workers usually do not receive fax.es written in German or in languages

other than English or Spanish. In the case of their clients /boyfriends who do

not speak any English or Spanish, the men appear to have received help from

friends in translating their faxes so that the Dominican women can read them

16 Other Dominican customers at this branch of Codetel are internal migrants

who are in SosUa to work in the tourist trade. They generally use the service to

phone their families back home.

17 Sex workers do not have access to phones at the boatdinghonses; nor do they

have phones, other than cell phones, in their apartments or houses.

18 Although there are new cybercafes in El Batey, e-mail is not-as of yet-a form of communication between sex workers and their clients. Since literacy is low

among sex workers, and their familiarity with compnters is nonexistent, it is

not likely that this will become a widely used form of communication. 19 For more on letter writing benveen clients and sex workers, sec Hello My Big,

Big Honey, a collection of love letters that foreign men have sent Thai '"bar girls" in Bangkok (Walker and Ehrlich 1992).

Notes to Chapter 3 237

20

"

With only a third•grade education, Nanci could not read or write. In order to

correspond with her suitors, she sought the help of more literate sex workers. The leading source countries for spouses of U.S. citizens in fiscal year 1994, for

example, were Mexico (19,828) and the Dominican· Republic (14,894). The number of spouses of U.S. citizens admitted from the Dominican Republic

increased by 52 percent between fiscal years 1993 and 1994 (US- Department of

Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1..001b).

4 Sosua's Sex Wor/eers

Multiple interests in the household and resulting complex power dynamics have been handled well in women-and-migration research. Studies such as

Sherri Grasmuck and Patricia Pessar's (r99r) on Dominican migration to New York and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo's (1994) on Mexican migration have shown that decisions about which member(s) of a household migrates where, when, and how are a function of power dynamics in the household. This is

especially true when one examines who has access to the resources necessa1y

for migration. Dispelling the notion of the household as a homogenous, income-pooling "black box," this body of research reveals the household as a

site of unequal and hierarchical relations. For more on power dynamics in the household, see Blumberg (1991), Dwyer and Bruce (x988), Whitehead (1984),

and Young, Wolkowitz, and Mccullagh (1984). 2 Jose Itzigsohn (2000) also includes migrant remittances on this list of growth

sectors.

4

6

Clara B3.ez reports that the economic participation rate for women grew from

29.7 percent in 1985 to 32.6 percent in 1990, 35.3 percent in 1995, and 37.6 percent in :woo. The average growth rate for Dornin:ican women in the work force from r995 to 2000 was 3.4 percent, compared to 2.2 percent for men (Baez 2000:

51). In 2000 it was estimated that a family of five requires 5,400 pesos a month for

basic necessities (World Bank 2001) Women working in free-trade zones are subject to constant discrimination, inclnding low wages and sexual harassment by supervisors (Organization of

American States 1999). Human Rights Watch reported in 1996 that pregnancy tests are widespread in the factories, in spite of national laws prohibiting them (Htun 1996). Oxfam also cites abuses such as forced overtime, repression of unions, sterilization certificates, and insufficient bathroom breaks or work recesses as rampant throughout the free-trade zones (Hernandez Medina

2002).

Reductions in US. sugar quotas from the Dominican Republic, which had previously accounted for half of the quota from the Caribbean Basin, forced many men out of work. Sugar export revenues declin1c.d from U.S.$555 million

in 1980, to U.S.$19r million in 1989 (Safa 1995: 21). in 1999, sugar refining

238 Notes to Chapter 4

accounted for a mere 0.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product (Economist 2000).

7 Who spepds money is just as important in understanding household dynamics as who earns it and what they earn. Members ofhouseholds not only act with

different interests ap.d levels of authority, but their income allocation decisions greatly affect household members' well-being, especially children's. Patricia Engle (1995) found that women's abiliry to attend to children's immediate

needs hinges on their independent control of household income. When they have that control, children's nutrition levels are higher. Mercedes Gonzalez de la Rocha found that among the working class in Mexico, for example, women

allocate their wages to the household, while men generally only give half their wages, keeping the rest fur their own expenses (1994).

8 Their work decisions, in turn, will affect their daughters' education and work

trajectories as is underscored by Lourdes Benerla and Martha Roldan's (1987) study of women piecemeal workers' households in Mexico City. Benerla and

Roldan d.escribe that girls are passed over when deciding which household members will receive an elementary education as well as that girls help with

household tasks that are understood to be women's work, ~uch as acting as .,substitute mother(sJ for younger brothers and sisters." Their research calls

attention to the significant link between gender hierarchies in the household, girls' educational levels, and their future work trajectories (1987: 84)_

9 It ls unlikely, however, that Ani would have been able to send her daughter to college without help from her daughter's grandparents.

IO She elaborates that households without mothers at the center to hold them

together "cease to exist," while "a household withont men, either male head or sons, can go on" (Gonzalez de la Rocha 1994: 16I).

u I was extremely wonied about Maribel on~e I pieced together her age. AJ. though throughout my fieldwork I made a point of appearing to not judge the women's decisions on any level, I urged Maribel to stay out of the bars. ! had not given this advice to any sex worker before, nor have I since.

12 Scholars have written a great deal on women in extended families who raise 0ne

another's children to overcome problems of absentee fathers. Edith Clarke's My Mother Wlto Fathered Me (1957) remains one of the most well-known works on women in the Caribbean. In this dassk study on Jamaican families, house· hold composition, and conjugal unions, Clarke examined both single-parent households as well as what she called grandmother and great-grandmother households.

13 Data on female-headd households in the Dominican Republic reveal an in· crease in recent decad'c's, with r9.6 percent of households headed by women in

1971, 24.1 percent in 1984 (G6mez 1989), and 29.5 percent in 1991 (Ramirez 199J). The United Nations reports that 25 percent of Dominican households -are headed by women (United Nations Statistics Division 2000).

r4 Feminist scholars haw written C..."\'.tensively on this designation of women's

Notes to Chapter 4 239