Las Hermanas Mirabal

Last weekend we went to a house “museum” that was the house of three very important women to the history and the present of the Dominican Republic. Their story is so sad and so inspiring that I cannot help myself but share it with you and hope that you read it. (Also, a better account can be found in the movie or book of In the Time of the Butterflies or Tropico de Sangre so if you have the time to read or watch one of those do that instead of read my incomplete and probably inaccurate account-although I promise I’m not being overdramatic for the sake of story-telling. Everything I describe really did happen.)
“Las Hermanas Mirabal” refers to 3 very powerful women that were leaders in the revolution against Trujillo, a dictator that demanded respect and fear for 30 years as the Dominican Republic’s leader. Anybody that he thought did or said anything in opposition to him was “disappeared”. Sometimes they returned, a different person after suffering unmentionable tortures, but many times they did not. The Mirabal sisters’ scuffles with him began at some sort of ball or party to which their family was invited. Minerva, one of the sisters, was dying to go to law school. Of course, no woman was allowed to do this. Trujillo asked her to dance with him. Nobody says no to Trujillo. So she did but she took the opportunity to bring forth her request for him to make an exception. He told her that women belong in the house and that she was too beautiful to worry about things like law. He began to get touchy with her and she pushed him back. Nobody pushes Trujillo; the whole room stopped and stared. He let the family go home because Trujillo always did his business in secret. But a day or a few days later one of his generals showed up to their house. They took away their father. The family went to get their father back. Minerva ended up making a deal with the General. They were going to roll a dice. If she won, she got her father back and got to go to law school. If she lost, she would stay at his service for life. She won…
Sort of. Her father returned a broken, helpless man and died shortly thereafter. She did go to law school and completed her degree. But as it was handed to her, the General pointed out that he never said anything about allowing her to practice law. So she joined a revolution plotting to overthrow Trujillo. Eventually two of her three sisters joined, and they all married men in the revolution. The third sister’s husband wouldn’t allow her to be a part of it and someone had to stay home to take care of their mother and everyone else’s children. So she did. Consequently, she survived and I met her last weekend. Her name is Dedé and she is a captivatingly honest and beautiful woman. She will be turning 87 in a couple weeks. I remember that one of the questions we asked her was if she had any part in the revolution that her sisters led. She told us that clearly she hadn’t because she was still alive. She said (in Spanish, of course), “I kept my mouth shut and he didn’t kill me. They didn’t, so he killed them.” Back to the past…
The women and their husbands spent a good deal of time in jail once Trujillo was on to their little revolution. After some international involvement began, the sisters were eventually let free and returned to their homes to begin petitioning for the release of their husbands. A little bit after they were released Trujillo came to visit their house. After all he had done to them-tortures to them and their husbands right in front of their eyes-he had come to hear their gratitude for their release. This was what really got to me-it wasn’t just a power thing for him. He was so personally involved in the oppression that he personally showed up to peoples’ houses to humiliate them. Anyway, Minerva still wouldn’t have relations with him and asked for the release of their husbands when they got there. Shortly after, they went to go visit their husbands in prison. It was the year 1960. On the way back their car was stopped and they were taken into the corn field where they were beaten to death. This scene in the movie In the Time of the Butterflies was so powerful to me. I don’t know if it’s exactly how it happened or not (I’m not sure if anyone knows) but it was powerful. Minerva looked right into the eyes of one of the men who was about to beat her to death and told him that he didn’t have to do this. Even though she knew full well what he was about to do to her, she recognized his brokenness and his fear. Nevertheless the men rounded the sisters up and formed a circle around them. The women repeated to themselves over and over again “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…”
Of course, Trujillo made this look like an accident. He ordered that their bodies be put back in the car and a brick or something put on the gas pedal so it would drive itself off the cliff and look like an accident. By this point, though, everyone knew that there weren’t any accidents of these sorts. 6 months later, in 1961, Trujillo was assassinated.
I think part of the reason this has affected me so much is that the effects are still so apparent. Trujillo wanted to “purify the Dominican race” and gave horrible treatment to Haitians. The country has made many strides toward recovering a good relationship with Haitians, but prejudice is still very visible in some places. Some of my Dominican friends that are women are studying law and would not have that opportunity without the fight of the Mirabal sisters. Also, their strength was so profound that one cannot help but stop and take a critical look at one’s own life. Would I have the strength to do what they did in their situation? Probably not. That’s a sobering reality. What should one do to find that strength? Where does it come from? “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” –Psalm 121:2
Once again, I am going to refer to what I’ve learned from Captivating. (Seriously, reading this book was like having someone speak to me the words of my heart as I realized them for the first time. I'm not saying that it is perfect. It is written by humans. And I don't support everything in the book. But I still think that you should read it.) We all want to have an irreplaceable role in the Kingdom. Women are created with beauty, yes, but we need more that to just be beautiful. We are born wanting to save the day in some special way that nobody else can. Unfortunately, so often life gets to us and “we don’t feel that we are irreplaceable, so we try to make ourselves useful” instead. We forget that this wasn’t God’s original plan for us. I couldn’t help but remember this upon hearing the story of these women. They didn’t forget this. They died fighting for what they believed in. And yet somehow they still won. We face little battles every single day. What would the world look like if we believed so strongly in the Kingdom that was, is, and is to come that we began fighting-I mean, really fighting-for it now?