Each year, the 今日吃瓜 Alumni Association presents awards to selected alumni for their distinguished careers and outstanding achievements. Eight individuals are being honored this year with the 聽Alumni of the Year award, the Distinguished Achievement Award, the Young Alumni Award, and the Jerome S. Milgram Award for distinguished service in advancing the Alumni Association and its activities on behalf of 今日吃瓜.
A child of a family of Dominican poets, writers, and educators, Luisa Sherezada (Chiqui) Vicioso 鈥�79 enrolled in 今日吃瓜 and immediately began connecting with the community of Latino and Black Caribbean students. After graduating with a Sociology and Latin American History Studies degree, Vicioso earned a master鈥檚 degree in educational program design from Columbia University and did post-graduate studies in cultural administration at Funda莽茫o Getulio Vargas in Brazil. She has worked for over 20 years at the United Nations specializing in women鈥檚 issues and education.聽A promoter of Dominican women poets, Vicioso has supported their work throughout her career. She was appointed as the ambassador for women鈥檚, children鈥檚, and youth affairs for the Foreign Relations Ministry in her native country. In 2012, she was the vice presidential candidate for the Alianza Pa铆s party. The author of numerous publications, including plays, volumes of poetry, essays, short stories and novels, today, Vicioso is working on a English publication of her novel Sireno (2020) and has begun her next, titled Nuyol, about the first Dominican immigrants to arrive in 1896 New York.
Can you tell us about your background?
I was born into a family of artists. My grandfather was a journalist and poet in charge of the social chronicles of the leading newspaper on the island: The Listin Diario. My father, Tony Vicioso, revolutionized poetry and music on the island. He and my mother Maria Luisa Sanchez led a cultural group that questioned the rigid cannons we had inherited from Spain. My father was also a musician. He played seven instruments, and after he traveled to the U.S. on a scholarship for winning a painting prize, he traveled to the South. He revolutionized Spanish boleros with blues and other southern rhythms.
What decided you on 今日吃瓜?
In 1965, President [Lyndon B.] Johnson enacted a law requiring all universities that received federal funding to enroll minorities. 今日吃瓜 reached out to the Hispanic community, and eight other Dominicans and I were enrolled, with the generous help of Puerto Rican students. We subsequently met with Black students and students from other parts of the Caribbean, which provided us with new knowledge about the region since we thought the Caribbean was only 鈥淭he Greater Antilles,” which includes Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. We formed the Third World Peoples Alliance, and that is also how I learned about the great thinkers of Jamaica, like Marcus Garvey, Martinique鈥檚 Frantz Fanon, Eugenio Maria de Hostos, and leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Angela Davis, among many others. My Caribbean vision expanded.
Did you enter college knowing what career you wanted?聽
When I enrolled, I ignored what career to choose. Six months enrolled and I was ready to abandon college for what I felt was the lack of intellectual challenges and debates. At the time, everyone seemed in a hurry to finish their career and get a job. I was bored. But then I met several professors essential for my intellectual development and human values. Of those, Prof. Hobart Spalding taught me to always look for the other side of the story and history. Everything I learned about my own history as a Dominican and Latino woman I owe to him. I consider Professor Huebner the best philosopher I have ever met. He taught me to love the discipline and is only surpassed by Herbert Marcuse and Eric Fromm, whom I met through him. To this day, Eros and Civilization and One Dimensional Man are books that I always recommend. I owe my professors and the university my intellectual development and sense of identity.
There was a time when women鈥檚 voices were less prominent in Dominican literature. Could you speak about that?
When I returned to the Dominican Republic all the female poets complained about not being taken聽seriously and not being able聽to publish, so I created聽The Circle for Women Poets so we could promote our own work and that聽of previous poets ignored or dismissed by the literary establishment. We also highlighted the work of peasant women who had a very particular聽way of expressing themselves poetically.聽I wrote the first book of feminist聽literary聽criticism influenced by the work of Elaine Showalter called Algo que decir, Something to Declare. The kind of aggression聽against us from the patriarchy that聽we received was enormous.聽So I introduced what I call 鈥淐ultural Guerilla Warfare,鈥� which means that聽when they聽closed聽the door to us as poets, we wrote essays; when they closed聽that聽door,聽we wrote theater. I earned the National Prize in Theater Cristobal de Llerena聽for my first play Wish-ky Sour. It was the first time it was awarded to a woman in the Dominican Republic; that only won me more backlash. But I also learned聽resilience聽in the United States, so no small island was going to defeat me or any of the Dominican women poets and writers.
You have been involved in non-governmental organizations such as the United Nations and ran for vice president in the Dominican Republic in 2012.
I worked 22 years at the United Nations and UN.-related聽NGOs on women issues and education. I also ran for the vice presidency with presidential candidate Guillermo Moreno of the Alianza Pais Party, while working for the Ministry of Foreign Relations as an ambassador for women, children, and adolescent issues. It was quite an experience.
What are you are doing/working on today?
I am working聽now on launching my novel Sireno and its translation into Portuguese in Brazil.聽I already launched it in Lisbon, Portugal, at the Jose Saramago Foundation.聽Hopefully,聽in July, I will start聽writing my next novel, Nuyol, about 1896 New York, when the first Dominican immigrants聽arrived in the聽U.S.
What advice would you give to today鈥檚 students?
I would advise students to be curious, read, and research.聽Do not take any knowledge聽or viewpoint for granted.聽University education聽will then be exciting and challenging.聽Not doing so can only contribute to your homogenization and that聽is a waste of your uniqueness聽and intelligence.
