(Paulino, Edward) Edward Paulino is assistant professor of global history at John Jay College, City University of New York (CUNY). He is a cofounder of Border of Lights, an organization that bears witness to the 1937 genocidal Haitian massacre and promotes solidarity between Haitians and Dominicans. Paulino serves on the board of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigration Rights and is a member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He has also written and performed his one-man play, Eddie’s Perejil, about how the 1937 Haitian massacre challenged his romanticized notion of a diasporic Dominican identity. Dividing Hispaniola: The Dominican Republic’s Border Campaign against Haiti, 1930-1961 (University of Pittsburgh Press) is a study of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo’s scheme, during the mid-twentieth century, to create and reinforce a buffer zone on the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti through the establishment of state institutions and an ideological campaign against what was considered an encroaching black, inferior, and bellicose Haitian state. Junot Diaz writes that this is, “An indispensable account that tracks the troubled contours of one of the bloodiest borders in the New World. Paulino’s scrupulously researched, vigorously argued history is a bridge that reaches back to our island’s agonized past but also, hopefully, to its brighter future.”
