Dominican Republic: Where Merengue, Baseball and the Caribbean Meet
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The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti — the same landmass, dramatically different histories, cultures, and circumstances. The DR is the Caribbean's largest economy and one of its fastest growing, driven by tourism, remittances, and an agricultural sector that produces coffee, cacao, and tobacco of international quality. Santo Domingo, the capital, contains the oldest continuously inhabited European city in the Americas, founded in 1498.
Merengue is the national music — a fast, rhythmic genre built on accordion, tambora drum, and güira scraper, associated with the Cibao valley in the north and adopted as a national symbol by the Trujillo dictatorship in the 20th century with such enthusiasm that after Trujillo's death, the music had to be reclaimed as something belonging to the people rather than the regime. Bachata — slower, more guitar-based, more melancholy — was for decades considered the music of the poor and marginalised. It is now one of the most internationally danced styles in the world.
Baseball is the cultural religion. The Dominican Republic produces more Major League Baseball players per capita than any other country — over 11 percent of current MLB players are Dominican, from a country of 11 million people. Baseball academies run by US teams recruit players as young as 15. The pipeline is simultaneously an economic opportunity and a system with troubling power dynamics. Within the country, the passion for the game runs deeper than any of that complexity.
