Junot Díaz, “The Silence: The Legacy of Chidhood Trauma”

This is a remarkable piece.

…That violación. Not enough pages in the world to describe what it did to me. The whole planet could be my inkstand and it still wouldn’t be enough. That shit cracked the planet of me in half, threw me completely out of orbit, into the lightless regions of space where life is not possible. I can say, truly, que casi me destruyó. Not only the rapes but all the sequelae: the agony, the bitterness, the self-recrimination, the asco, the desperate need to keep it hidden and silent. It fucked up my childhood. It fucked up my adolescence. It fucked up my whole life. More than being Dominican, more than being an immigrant, more, even, than being of African descent, my rape defined me. I spent more energy running from it than I did living. I was confused about why I didn’t fight, why I had an erection while I was being raped, what I did to deserve it. And always I was afraid—afraid that the rape had “ruined” me; afraid that I would be “found out”; afraid afraid afraid. “Real” Dominican men, after all, aren’t raped. And if I wasn’t a “real” Dominican man I wasn’t anything. The rape excluded me from manhood, from love, from everything.

The kid before—hard to remember. Trauma is a time traveller, an ouroboros that reaches back and devours everything that came before. Only fragments remain. I remember loving codes and Encyclopedia Brown and pastelones and walking long distances in an effort to learn what lay beyond my N.J. neighborhood. At night I had the most vivid dreams, often about “Star Wars” and about my life back in the Dominican Republic, in Azua, my very own Tatooine. Was just getting to know this new English-speaking me, was just becoming his friend—and then he was gone.

No more spaceship dreams, no more Azua, no more me. Only an abiding sense of wrongness and the unbearable recollection of being violently penetrated.

…

…I had trouble at home. I had trouble at school. I had mood swings like you wouldn’t believe. Since I’d never told anyone what had happened my family assumed that was just who I was—un maldito loco. …

Teen girl in Dominican Republic dies from cancer following delayed treatment

Ophelia reports that the pregnant girl* in the Dominican Republic whose treatment for leukemia was delayed while criminally immoral people debated whether she should be allowed proper medical care has died.

I can only hope this tragic story will prove a rallying call for women and reproductive rights in Latin America.

*I wish people would stop referring, as that article from Jezebel does, to a pregnant girl or woman as "the mother." It's incorrect and counterproductive.

16-year-old girl in Dominican Republic not given chemotherapy because of abortion ban

Reproductive rights has become a battlefield in Latin America in recent years, with some victories for women and unfortunately too many for the forces of reaction.

This girl's case is a tragic illustration of the consequences for real people's lives when the Catholic Right gets its way:

At the Semma Hospital in the captial city of Santo Domingo, a 16-year-old girl is dying of acute leukemia. Doctors say the girl, whose name is being withheld to protect her privacy, needs an aggressive chemotherapy treatment. But there's one problem: the teenager is nine weeks pregnant and treatment would very likely terminate the pregnancy, a violation of Dominican anti-abortion laws.

One of the people responsible for this travesty claims that the doctors who fear giving the girl chemotherapy should not, as the treatment is legal:

Pelegrin Castillo, one of the architects of Article 37, says the constitutional ban does not prevent doctors from administering the treatment. It does, however, prevent them from practicing an abortion in order to treat the patient with chemotherapy.

"It's an artificial debate," Castillo said. "What we have clearly said is that in this case doctors are authorized by the constitution to treat the patient. They don't have to worry about anything. They have the mandate of protecting both lives."

But this appears to be disingenuous, and the "mandate of protecting both lives" nonsense makes the problem plain. (If anyone doubts the overwhelming influence of the Vatican on this article, note the distinction between an "accidental" and an "intentional" termination.)

There are - it appears unconfirmed - reports that they have begun chemotherapy; if true, this should have happened much sooner. People can only hope that the delay hasn't made a difference to her recovery. The girl's mother and women's rights groups have reignited debate about the murderous abortion ban. Hopefully some measure of justice will come from their efforts in the near future.