The Farming of Bones (By Edwidge Danticat 1998)

This is the book that I have to read for my Spanish V class, even though it is written in English. The story takes place in the Dominican Republic and is about a young woman, Amabelle, who is a native of Haiti, but works in the home of a wealthy family in the Dominican Republic. She is in love with a man, Sebastian, who works in the sugar cane fields, which the author refers to as "the farming of bones." So far, a concrete plot has not yet presented itself; I don't know what the point of the book is. The summary states that the story is about Haitians being prosecuted in the DR, but none of that has happened yet. Amabelle's parents died when she was eight, leaving her orphaned in Haiti. The author has not yet said how Amabelle came to the DR, but I assume that it was to find work. Like in "A Mayan Life," the outsiders of the country are not looked at fondly. Haitians really only work as servants to the people in the DR and are viewed as lowly and unimportant. Books like "A Mayan Life" and "The Farming of Bones" educate the reader about other civil rights problems. In school, we have only really been taught about the Civil Rights Movement in America, but not about the discrimination that takes place in other countries. Reading these books gives the reader a new understanding about social issues in Spanish Countries.