Politics in the Domincan Republic
The Government
The government of the Dominican Republic is structured as a representative democracy. The country gained its independence on February 27, 1844 from Haiti and celebrates the national holiday every year. The constitution that it abides by today was not written until over a century after they became independent; it was enacted on November 28, 1966 (Nation Master).
There are three branches in the system of government: executive, legislative and judicial. The executive branch today is headed by the Dominican chief of state and head of government, President Leonel Fernandez Reyna and his Vice President, Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal. The president is also the Supreme Commander of the country’s police and armed forces. They were sworn into office on August 16, 1996 (Presidency of the DR). The president and vice president are elected on the same ticket, by popular vote, for terms of four years; they can be reelected. The executive branch also includes a cabinet, made up of people nominated by the president.
The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies form a bicameral Congress in the Dominican Republic’s legislative branch. There are 30 members of the Senate (Senado) who are elected by popular vote, also for four year terms. There is one senator delegated to each of the country’s 29 provinces and one for the national district. Each of these districts also has a governor who is appointed by the President. The Chamber of Deputies (Camara de Diputados) consists of 120 members elected in the same manner as senators are (Nation Master).
The Supreme Court (Corte Suprema) facilitates the country’s judicial branch. The eleven judges in the Supreme Court are chosen by a council of people from the legislative and executive branches of the government. The President presides over the Supreme Court (Nation Master).
Family in Politics
Despite the fact that the government structure is much like that of the United States, Dominican politics are very different. Due to the fact that the country is so much smaller than the United States the politics are also on a much smaller scale. The politics are centered in the country’s one large city, Santo Domingo. As a result all of the politicians know each other and are often related by blood or marriage. Unlike American politics, those of the Dominican Republic frequently revolve around friendships, ethnic connections and family ties.
...les of democracy completely. The structure of the Dominican Republic has not always conformed to the west and democratic tradition. Instead it uses a lot of elaborate for with questionable substance. The country’s constitution has taken after the Constitution of the United States but the underlying political realities are very different. Politics are key to the success of the Dominican Republic’s future and democratic system. The noticeable difference with today’s politics and policy makers is that political leaders must now deal with a large amount of problems and public issues that require them to make all of these decisions by ruling not just for themselves but also for jobs, water, education, housing and social development. The Dominican politics have evolved into a quest for power and privilege that together will keep the country prospering and growing.
“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.” –Edgar Allan Poe. Poetry is one of the world’s greatest wonders. It is a way to tell a story, raise awareness of a social or political issue, an expression of emotions, an outlet, and last but not least it is an art. Famous poet Langston Hughes uses his poetry as a musical art form to raise awareness of social injustices towards African-Americans during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Although many poets share similarities with one another, Hughes creatively crafted his poetry in a way that was only unique to him during the 1920’s. He implemented different techniques and styles in his poetry that not only helped him excel during the 1920’s, but has also kept him relative in modern times. Famous poems of his such as a “Dream Deferred,” and “I, Too, Sing America” are still being studied and discussed today. Due to the cultural and historical events occurring during the 1920’s Langston Hughes was able to implement unique writing characteristics such as such as irregular use of form, cultural and historical referenced themes and musical influences such as Jazz and the blues that is demonstrative of his writing style. Langston Hughes use of distinct characteristics such as irregular use of form, cultural and historical referenced themes and musical influences such as Jazz and the blues helped highlight the plights of African-Americans during the Harlem Renaissance Era.
In the Dominican Republic has many economic factors and it is very difficult for Dominican families to find work to support their families and provide them with the necessary things that they need. Due to this lack of economic resources in many cases is why many Dominicans robbed convenience stores, steal food from farms, ect…. just to feed their families. Many Dominicans have been struggling in their native country and due to this struggle they have been forced to do bad things to afford food for their families. Many have robbed bodegas (comer stores) for the basics that they need to eat just for one day. They have also been to the country side and steal vegetables, rice, animals, and other things to support their families. Many have also been arrested due to this delinquency but the government fails to see that our country needs more resources to keep citizens from commuting the crimes that they are committing just to support their families and not starve to death like it has happened too
The Harlem Renaissance gave a voice to many gifted artists, writers, and poets. Perhaps, for the first time, people were using the arts on a broad scale to give national and international voice to the long-silenced personal and political struggles of America’s ethnic other, specifically the African-American. Among the many gifted poets of the movement, Langston Hughes is, easily, one of the most recognizable and influential. Although his poems are lyrically beautiful, many of them also admonish a mythologized, free America as little more than a quaint, and for many, wholly unattainable model. Two of Hughes’ best known works, “Let American Be America Again” and “I, Too” speak directly to the grotesque imbalance of freedoms and rights in the U.S.. Using a number of literary devices, Hughes creates poems that are as poetically striking as they are politically and socially defiant. Through precise word choice, metaphor, and physical structure, Hughes creates multi-dimensional speakers who address two separate and unequal audiences. In these anthem-like poems, the speakers expound on their overwhelming desire for equality, unity, and freedom by addressing the short-comings of a capitalist system that makes commodities out of oppressed individuals and populations. Hughes’s poems focus on the American dream, a fantasy that is off-limits to anyone on the wrong side of the color line or income gap; however, despite their scathing criticisms, a patriotic hopefulness resides at the core of these two poems.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a disorder which causes people to develop an anxiety when certain obsessions or compulsions are not fulfilled. OCD can affect both children and adults with more than half of all adults with OCD stating that they experienced signs as a child. People living with OCD display many obvious signs such as opening and closing a door fifty times because they have to do it “just right”. Others exhibit extreme cleanliness and will wash their hands or take showers as often as they can because they constantly feel dirty. OCD devastates people’s social lives as they are fixated and obsessed with perfection that can take forever to achieve. However people living with OCD are often found to have an above average intelligence and typically excel at school due to their detail oriented mindset, cautious planning and patience. OCD can be caused by many different factors such as genetics or the ever changing world a...
Some symptoms of Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are fear of germs, perfectionism, and rituals. When someone has OCD they are afraid of germs and might constantly be washing their hands or cleaning their room. Someone who suffers from OCD needs everything to be perfect and they might organize their closet by color size. Their rituals calm their anxiety. Certain rituals are things such as checking the stove a certain number of times to make sure it is off or tap their finger a number of times just because it makes them feel better. Obsessive compulsive disorder can be associated with other mental disorders that cause stress and anxiety, but it can be treated with cognitive behavioral therapy and medication.
The contradiction of being both black and American was a great one for Hughes. Although this disparity was troublesome, his situation as such granted him an almost begged status; due to his place as a “black American” poet, his work was all the more accessible. Hughes’ black experience was sensationalized. Using his “black experience” as a façade, however, Hughes was able to obscure his own torments and insecurities regarding his ambiguous sexuality, his parents and their relationship, and his status as a public figure.
Langston Hughes was probably the most well-known literary force during the Harlem Renaissance. He was one of the first known black artists to stress a need for his contemporaries to embrace the black jazz culture of the 1920s, as well as the cultural roots in Africa and not-so-distant memory of enslavement in the United States. In formal aspects, Hughes was innovative in that other writers of the Harlem Renaissance stuck with existing literary conventions, while Hughes wrote several poems and stories inspired by the improvised, oral traditions of black culture (Baym, 2221). Proud of his cultural identity, but saddened and angry about racial injustice, the content of much of Hughes’ work is filled with conflict between simply doing as one is told as a black member of society and standing up for injustice and being proud of one’s identity. This relates to a common theme in many of Hughes’ poems that dignity is something that has to be fought for by those who are held back by segregation, poverty, and racial bigotry. The poems “Visitors to the Black Belt”, “Note on Commercial Theatre”, “Democracy”, and “Theme for English B” by Hughes all illustrate the theme of staying true to one’s cultural identity and refusing to compromise it despite the constant daily struggle it meant to be black in an Anglo centric society.
The Dominican Republic is a country appealing to the Haitians, because that is the nearest to them and can have better quality of life. But, in recent years we have seen a massive immigration from Haiti to Dominican Republic. These leads us to ask, what are the reasons which the people of Haiti are fleeing their country. These factors are: to escape of the poverty, deficiency of basic services and lack of jobs. Due to the scarcity of resources, lack of access to basic services and lack of job opportunities, many haitian families have been used as a defense mechanism traditional your transfer to the Dominican Republic to have access to health care services, public schools or work in the agricultural
To analyze Hughes’s poem thoroughly, by using Eliot’s argumentative essay, we must first identify the poem’s speaker and what is symbolic about the speaker? The title (“The Negro Speaks Of Rivers”) of the poem would hint off the speaker’s racial identity, as the word Negro represents the African-American race not only in a universal manner, but in it’s own individual sphere. T.S. Eliot’s essay, mentions that “every nation, every race, has not its own creative, but its own critical turn of mind”(549). In another sense, different societies have their own characteristics, however, with a racial mixture, shadowed elements can be formed. If one were to analyze in between the lines of Eliot’s essay and Hughes’s poem, he...
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a disease that a lot of people suffer with in society especially young adults. While it is not a disease that is deadly, it does affect the victim in every day aspects of their life and can ultimately control their lives. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health as, “… a common, chronic and long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions) that he or she feels the urge to repeat over and over”. The thoughts that individuals have when suffering through Obsessive Compulsive Disorder cannot be restrained and really can disturb the individual. Thoughts or actions that people may have can range from worrying about daily occurrences, such as washing their hands, to having thoughts of harming people that are close to them. People tend to have these reoccurring compulsions because they believe by doing them or thinking them, they will either prevent something bad from happening or because it eliminates stress that they have. This disease can last a lifetime and can be very detrimental and disabling to how one lives their lives. Individuals can start to see signs of OCD in either late adolescence or even early adulthood and everyone is susceptible. When it comes to classifying this incurable disease, there is much debate on whether or not it a type of anxiety (Abramowitz, Taylor, & McKay, 2009). It is important to be able to understand this mental disorder since so many people are diagnosed with it. While there are treatments for OCD, there are no cures yet. Treatments could range anywhere from taking prescribed medication to just going to therapy and counseling fo...
Through the exemplary use of symbolism, Langston Hughes produced two poems that spoke to a singular idea: Black people have prevailed through trials and tribulations to carry on their legacy as a persevering people. From rivers to stairs, Hughes use of extended metaphor emphasizes the feeling of motion which epitomizes the determination of the people. Overall, the driving feeling of the poems coupled with their strong imagery produce two different works that solidify and validate one main idea.
The total GDP growth for the country in 2012 is 4.5%, significantly more than the average of the region, 2.8%. The Dominican Republic has the second-largest economy out of all the nations in the Caribbean Sea; the Dominican Republic’s largest economic sectors are agriculture, free trade, and services such as tourism. The most important trading partner for the Dominican Republic is the United States of America. This bilateral relationship comprises approximately seventy-five percent of export revenues of the Dominican Republic. There exists a Free Trade Zone industry in the Dominican Republic, which provides approximately 70 percent of the total exports, around 4.55 billion US dollars, of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic’s economy places a strong focus on external markets and aims at diversifying the means of production, in order to keep up with the economic demands of the developing
The Dominican Republic is different from many countries but specially the United States. Many people go on summer to the Dominican Republic but had they ever ask themselves what makes this small and beautiful island different from the most powerful country in the world (The United States).When I wake up in the Dominican Republic the year stations are all the same, hot, no change. The climate in the Dominican Republic is Semitropical. The language of the Dominican Republic is Spanish. Still the culture of the Dominican Republic is unique. The Dominican culture is awesome all types of colors and variety in base of people. People dance all the time. However every weekend is a celebration. I can go to the beach whenever I like to, I don’t have to wait until summer. But what does it makes it different from United States. In contrast when I wake up in the United States it can be cold one day and the next day hot. The climate in the United States varies due to the differences in latitude and a range of geography features. Basically United States has 4 types of weather, cold, not too cold, a little bit hot, too hot. The language in the United States is English. The culture of the United States is Western, but is influenced by African, Native Americans, Asian, Polynesian, and Latin American. United States has a mix culture because people come all over the world, to have better opportunities or just to change their way of life. The weekends in the United States are
Analyzing the poem’s title sets a somber, yet prideful tone for this poem. The fact that the title does not say “I Speak of Rivers,” but instead, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1) shows that he is not only a Negro, but that he is not one specific Negro, but in his first person commentary, he is speaking for all Negroes. However, he is not just speaking for any Negroes. Considering the allusions to “Mississippi” (9) and “Abe Lincoln” (9) are not only to Negroes but also to America, confirms that Hughes is talking for all African Americans. This poem is a proclamation on the whole of African American history as it has grown and flourished along the rivers which gave life to these people.