Bachata and Dominican Identity

Abstract

Bachata and Dominican Identity/La bachata y la identidad dominicana by Julie Sellers

- Bachata and Dominican Identity/La bachata y la identidad dominicana, by Julie Sellers. McFarland Press, 2014.

In her bilingual text, Dr Julie Sellers argues that bachata (a musical genre born in the Dominican Republic during the late 1950s and early 1960s) and Dominican identity go hand in hand. The book analyses how the anti-bachata sentiments held by Santo Domingo's ruling elite in the 1950s and 1960s slowly diminished over time as international support grew. Sellers presents an analysis of the intersections between social class and race among bachata producers and their listeners as a backdrop for the study of the music as an identifying symbol, both for individual and collective identity. The author urges readers to consider where bachata fits into the notion of dominicanidad (Dominicanness) through her many interviews with influential bachateros.

There are two main differences that separate Bachata and Dominican Identity from other research on the genre, such as Deborah Pacini Hernández's Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music or Darío Tejada's Bachata: su origen, su historia y sus leyendas. First, Sellers focuses on the cultural implications that the musical category has had on a national culture instead of solely on the historical development over the years. Second, the author incorporates her personal interviews with various performers into a cultural analysis of Dominicanness. In the first four chapters of the book, Sellers looks at various aspects of culture from Puerto Plata to Santo Domingo that contributed to the rise of the 'knick-knack' music: migration from rural areas to the shanty towns of the city, poverty, limited access to formal education, and racial discrimination. She shows her readers the repercussions of these factors through the eyes of her interviewees. Chapter one contextualizes the text within the framework of negativity among the ruling oligarchy in the Dominican Republic toward bachata, in the early years, particularly during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. In other words, the upper classes had rejected the style as representative of the lower classes and therefore not worth much (hence the derogatory name). In chapter two, dominicanidad comes to the forefront. Through the voice of her informers, Sellers looks at how the essence of the Dominican Republic was influenced heavily by a class strata that associated 'upper class' with 'white' and 'working' class with 'black'. Trujillo then solidified those class and ethnic markers during his thirty-year regime. In fact, in the third chapter readers see how the regime of Trujillo made it so that merengue took the stage as the national genre and how he kept other musical genres out of the limelight. After the death of Trujillo in 1961, bachata's popularity began to grow; chapter four centres on the dawn of this underground music as corner stores played the music and maids listened to it while they worked in the houses of the elite. In chapter five, the author introduces readers to the different developments within bachata over the years that range from the bachata romántica of the 1960s to the techno-bachata of the 2000s. Romantic bachata is the premise of chapter six; the interviews with romantic bachateros such as José Manuel Calderón (el pionero de la bachata) show how the musicians were generally self-taught and they generally believed (and still believe) that bachateros were born not made. The growth of bachata off of the island and the influences of that growth at home is the focus of chapter seven; the Dominican Transnational Community truly contributed to a growing interest abroad before bachata obtained large scale success on the island. Bachata's expansion in the United States, particularly in New York, is the emphasis chapter eight. To finalize the text, in chapter nine, Sellers recognizes the women bachata singers over the years.

Sellers' approach to create dialogue between her readers and the producers of the music attracts readers at first; the interviews offer some insiders' views of the genre and the relationship that bachata has with cultural identity on the island of Hispaniola. However, a criticism of the text is that chapters five through nine give the impression of encyclopaedic entries about the musicians who played bachata instead of an analysis of the interrelated connectivity between the music and the overall idea of dominicanidad. Some readers might suggest that she incorporate more of her interviews into her book. Others might recommend that chapters five through nine open up more of a dialogue within the reader and avoid the heavy reliance on the footnotes in the text. Either way, both of the suggestions will have to wait until the next edition. Sellers shows how bachata reflects social, economic, political, class, and racial tensions over the course of the past fifty years; not only through her own observations but more importantly through the words of the bachateros themselves. One underlying idea that stems from the author's meetings with the musicians is clear: their contributions to the Dominican music scene have been a key influence in Caribbean cultures. Sellers' work will contribute to the study of bachata because of her extended conversations with eyewitnesses who experienced firsthand the interconnectedness of their music and their identity.