Read the two excerpts.
"Remembering to Never Forget: Dominican Republic's 'Parsley Massacre’” by Mark Memmott:
Seventy-five years ago, thousands of Haitians were murdered in the Dominican Republic by a brutal dictator. It was one of the 20th Century's least-remembered acts of genocide.
As many as 20,000 people are thought to have been killed on orders given by Rafael Trujillo. But the "parsley massacre” went mostly unnoticed outside Hispaniola. Even there, many Dominicans never knew about what happened in early October 1937. They were kept in the dark by Trujillo's henchmen.
"A Genetics of Justice” by Julia Alvarez:
At this point I would always ask her why she and my father had returned to live in the country if they knew the dictatorship was so bad. And that's when my mother would tell me how, under pressure from his friends up north, Trujillo pretended to be liberalizing his regime. How he invited all exiles back to form political parties. How he announced that he would not be running in the next elections. My father had returned only to discover that the liberalization was a hoax staged so that the regime could keep the goodwill and dollars of the United States.
My father and mother were once again trapped in a police state.
How do the passages work together to develop a central idea?
The passages show how Alvarez’s family was affected by the parsley massacres when they returned.
The passages show how Alvarez and her family were tricked into returning to the Dominican Republic.
The passages show how people often did not know or understand the extent of Trujillo’s deceit.
The passages show how the events of Trujillo’s dictatorship are still not fully understood today.