![]() ![]() As the desire for social justice began to stir in the Dominican Republic in 1959, the response of the Trujillo dictatorship was swift and brutal. In the first phase of the Cuban revolution, before it became enmeshed in the bipolar struggles of the Cold War, many Latin Americans could detect a major step forward in the struggle for social justice in a part of the world where millions had long been denied the basic elements of a decent life. ![]() The successful Cuban revolution, which led to the coming to power of Fidel Castro in January 1959, played a major role in radicalizing many Dominicans, including the Mirabal sisters. Eventually, Minerva returned to her law studies and graduated with the highest honors from the National Autonomous University of the Dominican Republic. During three years under house arrest at her parents' home in Ojo de Agua, she passed the time painting watercolors and writing poetry about the suffering endured by the exploited poor in her country. At age 22, having turned down sexual overtures from Trujillo, she was jailed and banned from continuing her law studies. One of the Mirabal sisters, Minerva, had firsthand knowledge of the dictator's nature. As they matured, all four sisters developed social consciences, realizing that daily life in their country had been distorted for an entire generation as a result of Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship. Mercedes convinced her husband that if their daughter Patria, who hoped to become a nun, sought to be educated, then the path to learning should not be denied her sisters. Although their mother Mercedes was barely literate, she recognized the importance of education. Their father Enrique kept them on a tight rein. ![]() Born into a family of landowners, the four Mirabal sisters-Patria, Minerva, María Teresa, and Dedé -grew up in a highly conservative and sheltered environment in the rural town of Ojo de Agua in Salcedo Province, Dominican Republic. Doña Chea was herself from a middle-class family in Ojo de Agua. He owned his own farm, shop, coffee mill, meat market, and rice factory. Don Enrique was a farmer and merchant born in a town of Santiago called Tamboril. A year later their eldest daughter Patria was born. In 1923, Enrique Mirabal Fernandez married Mercedes Reyes Camilo, better known as Chea. The Mirabal-Reyes family was a prosperous family from a town in Salcedo called Ojo de Agua. ![]()
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