EPISODE 18 - Growing up 1st Generation

Apr 7

Episode 18 - Growing up 1st generation with Nabil Vinás

This week Rocio and Mercedes talk with Nabil Vinás about growing up as a first-generation Dominican, our work as artists, working with young students, and staying connected to our Dominican roots.

About Nabil

Nabil Viñas (AEA) is an actor, screenwriter, and producer born and raised in Washington Heights, New York City to parents from Moca in the Dominican Republic. He was the co-lead in “Program” which premiered at the 55th New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, and played HBO’s New York Latino Film Festival among others worldwide. He produced and acted in the feature film “Tomorrow Ever After” which screened theatrically in 5 cities, earning critical acclaim in major press. Nabil is a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Screenwriting from The New York Foundation for the Arts. As a screenwriter, his short film "Come Back Hailey" played several New York festivals. He is developing his first feature script tentatively titled "Los Malos (The Bad Ones)". Nabil facilitates training in SEL and Restorative Justice through the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility.

Link to the piece Nabil wrote in 2014: Did You Know That Nabil Was Black?" (Dominicans and Their African Heritage)

The place Nabil works at: MorningsideCenter.org

The Book Titles

I should mention that a lot of these are "academic" books, which means they're sometimes expensive, often hard to find, and for me sometimes hard to read...! I would recommend WordUp Bookstore for getting books, and Biblio.com for the ones that are hard to find (they can get almost any book.)

Bird of Paradise, How I Became Latina, Raquel Cepeda
Blacks, Mulattos, and The Dominican Nation, Franklin J. Franco
Reconstructing Racial Identity and the African Past in the Dominican Republic, Kimberly Eison Simmons
Black Behind the Ears, Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops, Ginetta E. B. Candelario
Race and Politics in the Dominican Republic, Ernesto Sagás
Caribbean African Upon Awakening, Blas Jiménez
White Latino Privilege, Caribbean Latino Perspectives in the Second Decade of the 21st Century, Edited by Gabriel Haslip-Viera
Modernity Disavowed, Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, Sibylle Fischer
Why the Cocks Fight, Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola, Michele Wucker
Foundations of Despotism, Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History, Richard Lee Turits
The Dictator's Seduction, Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo, Lauren Derby

Separately, only because they're not specifically or explicitly about history or race, in case you're not already aware of these: