Before We Were Free follows 12-year-old Anita, a young girl living in the Dominican Republic during the last days of the Trujillo regime. Odd things begin to happen in the fall of 1960, when the last remaining faction of her extended family suddenly flees the country for New York, leaving only Anita, her two siblings, and her parents in the family compound—and a swarm of frightening government agents lurking outside the gates. As the months wear on, Anita becomes aware of the fact that the Dominican Republic isn’t the wonderful place she once thought it was; instead, she’s living in an oppressive dictatorship and her family members are active in the resistance movement, plotting to assassinate the dictator, Rafael Trujillo. For Anita, a major part of her coming-of-age process is developing a more accurate understanding of the political turmoil happening around her. With this, Before We Were Free suggests that in order for children to come of age, it’s essential that they learn to think critically about what’s happening around them—but for children, this can be a fundamentally traumatic experience.
The novel shows that a feature of growing up in a dictatorship is that, by design, the situation seems normal to children. For innocence, on the day that Anita leaves school to say goodbye to her departing cousins and aunt, she doesn’t pray to Jesus for help and strength—instead, she prays to Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic whom she and most others call El Jefe, or “the boss.” In her mind, El Jefe is a benevolent caretaker of a fantastic country, and she wants nothing more than to impress him. This, the novel suggests, is a natural result of growing up in a dictatorship—Anita has been taught, in school and at home, to revere Trujillo and not question why he’s been in power for the last 30 years. The situation, to her, is perfectly normal.
However, Before We Were Free suggests that children are more observant than adults give them credit for—and these observations create opportunities to practice critical thinking and, in turn, come of age. As Anita begins to suspect that there’s something amiss politically, she asks perfectly reasonable questions of her parents and teachers but gets unsatisfactory or contradictory answers in turn. This is apparent, for example, when Anita’s teacher, Mrs. Brown, tries to answer a student’s question about the embargo against the Dominican Republic. While Mrs. Brown is willing to give a cursory explanation of what an embargo is (punitive trade restrictions), she’s unwilling to tell her students why the embargo is in place. Nonetheless, her evasive answer gives the students the impression that their country has done something wrong, which helps wake them up to the political situation. Another major moment of awakening comes when Anita’s older sister Lucinda finally explains what a dictatorship is and notes that the family only has a portrait of Trujillo in their home because they’re required to. Hearing this, Anita feels like everything she’s ever been told is a lie and she starts to realize that her world isn’t safe. Indeed, she—and everyone she loves—is at risk of arrest or imprisonment. In this sense, as Anita comes of age and comes to a more complete understanding of what’s going on in the Dominican Republic, she’s forced to move away from the false sense of safety that characterized her childhood.
Along with this new maturity comes the opportunity for Anita to grapple with morality in a way she hasn’t before. This is clear when Anita learns that Mami and Papi are involved in a plot to assassinate Trujillo. When Anita first thinks about it, she uses the word “kill” to describe what her parents plan to do. In her mind, killing and assassinating are unquestionably bad. But later, after Papi assassinates Trujillo, Mr. Mancini (the Italian diplomat who hides Anita and Mami in his walk-in closet) uses a different word to describe what happened: ajusticiamento, which translates to “bring to justice.” This new word requires Anita to overhaul her understanding of right and wrong to make room for the possibility that at times, killing can be an instrument of justice. This also requires her to undergo a major shift in the way she sees her country. While before, she was certain that the Dominican Republic was the greatest country in the world, seeing Trujillo as an evil person who must be brought to justice causes Anita to question this—and for Anita, this feels like a major loss of innocence. Nonetheless, Anita prefers to know the truth than to remain naïve—and she has to learn the truth to keep herself and her family safe. Because of this, the novel proposes that one of the true marks of adulthood is the ability to think critically, especially about one’s government.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Coming of Age and Political Consciousness ThemeTracker
Coming of Age and Political Consciousness Quotes in Before We Were Free
I look up at the portrait of our Benefactor, El Jefe, which hangs above the classroom, his eyes watching over us. [...]
Just staring at El Jefe keeps my tears from flowing. I want to be brave and strong, so that someday if I ever meet the leader of our country, he’ll congratulate me. “So, you are the girl who never cries?” he’ll say, smiling down at me.
“Are they really policemen?” I keep asking Mami. It doesn’t make any sense. If the SIM are policemen, secret or not, shouldn’t we trust them instead of being afraid of them? But all Mami will say is “Shhh!” Meanwhile, we can’t go to school because something might happen to us. “Like what?” I ask. Like what Chucha said about people disappearing? Is that what Mami worries will happen to us? “Didn’t Papi say we should carry on with normal life?”
Now I’m really confused. I thought we liked El Jefe. His picture hangs in the front entryway with the saying below it: IN THIS HOUSE, TRUJILLO RULES. “But if he’s so bad, why does Mrs. Brown hang his picture in our classroom next to George Washington?”
“We have to do that. Everyone has to do. He’s a dictator.”
I’m not really sure what a dictator does. But this is probably not a good time to ask.
“That’s where I’m from,” Sammy says, puffing out his chest, as if someone is going to pin a medal on it. “Greatest country in the world.”
I want to contradict him and say that my own country is the greatest. But I’m not sure anymore after what Lucinda told me about us having a dictator who makes everybody hang his picture on their walls.
Not that I think of Sam as a boyfriend, which I’m not allowed to have anyway. Mami doesn’t approve of my being around any boys who aren’t related to me. But since my cousins moved away, the rules have both tightened and loosened in odd ways. I can’t talk about the SIM’s visit or my cousins’ leaving for New York City, but I can have Sam for a best friend even if he is a boy.
“You know how your parents will sometimes ground your brother or sister? It’s not because they don’t love him or her, now, is it? It’s because they’re concerned and want to make him or her a better person.”
The more I think about it, an embargo sounds an awful lot like the punishment chair at home whenever we misbehave.
“So how has the Dominican Republic misbehaved?” one of the Dominican students wants to know.
But that is a question Mrs. Brown won’t answer.
“Doris, put the lid on the sugar bowl, por favor. There are so many flies.”
I look around for flies, but there are none I can see. Lorena has just come out from the kitchen with a tray to collect the empty coffee cups. Perhaps she scared them away.
Then, just like that, it dawns on me: my mother is speaking to Mrs. Washburn in code. She’s saying: We are being overheard; be quiet. It’s as if I’ve stepped into a room I’m not supposed to be in—but now that I’m inside, the door has disappeared. I feel the same way as when Lucinda told me how one day I, too, would get my period.
“One last big favor to ask you, mi amor. No more writing in your diary for the time being.
“That’s so unfair!” Mami gave me the diary for Christmas. Telling me not to write in it is like taking away my only present.
“I know it is, Anita.” Mami wipes away my tears with her thumbs. “For now, we have to be like the little worm in the cocoon of the butterfly. All closed up and secret until the day...” She spreads her arms as if they were wings.
Not even the thought of falling in love with Sam is a consolation anymore. Overnight, all boys (except for Papi and Tío Toni and Mundín) have become totally gross. Here’s an old lech flirting with my sister. Here are Oscar and Sam drinking liquor and throwing up. If only I could be like Joan of Arc, cut off my hair and dress like a boy, just to be on the safe side. Or even better, if only I could go backward to eleven, instead of forward to thirteen!
I lift the sheet and she looks down with a questioning expression. Then a knowing smile spreads on her lips. “Congratulations,” she says, leaning over and kissing me. “My baby sister’s a señorita.”
I don’t feel like a señorita. I feel more like a baby in wet diapers. And I don’t want to be a señorita now that I know what El Jefe does to señoritas.
I admit I feel mean participating in this scheme—but I also understand that our lives are in danger. A tip from Lorena could wipe us out. It’s so unfair to have to live in a country where you have to do stuff you feel bad about in order to save your life. It’s like Papi and Tío Toni planning to assassinate Mr. Smith when they know that murder is wrong. But what if your leader is evil and rapes young girls and kills loads of innocent people and makes your country a place where not even butterflies are safe?
Actually, Mr. Mancini says that people are secretly calling it an ajusticiámiento, which means bringing to justice, the way criminals have to face the consequences of their evil deeds.
I feel so much better thinking that Papi and Tío Toni were doing justice, not really murdering killing hurting someone. But still...just the thought of my own father—
Today’s note was just to me. I guess from his hiding place, Mundín caught a glimpse of María de los Santos sitting in the gallery with some young fellow, and he wants to know what I know.
I couldn’t believe that Mundín was thinking about a girlfriend at a time like this!
But then... I’m thinking a lot about Oscar! As Chucha would say, the hunchback laughing at the camel’s hump!
I guess I finally understand what [Chucha] and Papi meant by wanting me to fly. It was like the metaphors Mrs. Brown was always talking about. To be free inside, like an uncaged bird. Then nothing, not even a dictatorship, can take away your liberty.
