Late 1950's.
By government decree, every woman had to march at a huge rally honoring the dictator. All had to wear white dresses, shoes, gloves, summer hats. My mother had her seamstress make her a linen dress with mother-of-pearl buttons down the bodice. Before the dress was assembled, Mother took it to a lovely Chinese woman in the tiny Chinatown in Santo Domingo. This lady hardly spoke Spanish, but through signs and my mother's own design, flowers bloomed all over the bodice and pockets. There were calendars on the walls of this lady's tiny shop. One showed gorgeous, smiling Chinese girls carrying parasols and wearing sinuous silk dresses with high collars. Another had illustrations of strange, steep mountains coming out of the water. As a seven-year-old I made up my mind that Chinese artists didn't know what they were doing because obviously no mountain could look like that. This year I went to Guilin and sailed around those strange mountains and for the first time in over fifty years thought of that Chinese woman and her embroidery machine in a sultry little room in the middle of the Caribbean. The dress was gorgeous. My mother was gorgeous when she wore it. She didn't wear it the day of the rally. She was "sick" that morning and had to stay home. No member of my family would ever appear at a government rally and shout vivas to the tyrant. There are many ways to resist tyranny, I don't know how many of them require a new linen dress. This one has resided in my closet for many years to remind me of my beautiful mother and her indomitable spirit.
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