Female Solidarity in Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa's Novel "A Woman of Endurance"

Mar 25

By Dr. Nydia Mejías Tirado

“I bring you my shoulder so you can lean on it when things get difficult. I offer you my open arms when life tests you and you need the support of another woman” (Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, 362).

Introduction

A Woman of Endurance is a historical novel that confronts the reader with multiple harrowing, violent, and savage emotions, but also with scenes of solidarity, compassion, and love. This novel by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa was released in 2022, in English, under the title A Woman of Endurance and in Indómita Spanish, translated by Aurora Lauzardo Ugarte. The novel focuses on the Afro-Puerto Rican world of the 19th century, located on the country's sugar plantations. Pola, the central character of the plot, is brought to the island after being violently uprooted from her original country on the African continent.

Slavery, with all its barbarity, marks the setting of the work. Through its pages, we witness the violence, physical abuse, and sexual subjugation that this character faces. However, we also witness the reconstruction of this embittered and distrustful woman. How was the restoration of this broken being possible? Answering that question became our challenge. We thought and sought to demonstrate that the solidarity among women created a firm platform that aided in the reconstruction of this indomitable woman and provided her with tools to recover the feeling of community belonging that had been taken from her.

About the Author

Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa is the author of two novels: Daughters of the Stone and A Woman of Endurance or Indómita (in Spanish), as well as short stories published in various anthologies and literary magazines. Her intention is to complete a series of books, generation by generation, from the 19th century to the present, so the third novel will end with the arrival of the 20th century (Pontoni, 2022). Llanos-Figueroa studied at a public school in the Bronx and graduated from The State University of New York.

This Puerto Rican author, although raised in New York City, has very deep-rooted Boricua roots. When she was a child, she was sent to live with her grandparents in Puerto Rico, where she became acquainted with the rural culture of Puerto Rico, including the storytelling that was natural for the women in her family, especially the older women. Thanks to her mother, her grandparents, and her Afro-descendant family from Carolina, Puerto Rico, she learned about the music, food, remedies, beliefs, and wisdom that her ancestors brought. Regarding her cultural background and her status as a writer, she states: “My Puerto Rican identity cannot be separated from my Afro-descendant identity. This, in one way or another, ended up leading me to become a writer, since everything I write has to do with the Afro-Puerto Rican world” (Rodés, 2022).

In the interview "Cafecito con Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa" with Keishla Rivera-López (2022), the author tells us about her research process for the setting and location of the novel, classified as historical, although she clarifies that "she writes fiction, not history". To achieve the novel's setting, she visited several haciendas that are preserved as historical-cultural references of the 19th century in Puerto Rico, such as: Hacienda La Esperanza in Manatí, Hacienda Buena Vista, and haciendas in Guánica, Salinas, and Arroyo. Conversations with the elderly and the reconstruction of their memories also serve as a source to enrich many of the novel's everyday scenes. For the historical foundations on the slave system in the 18th and 19th century sugarcane plantations of Puerto Rico, she draws on library archives, demographic records, baptismal certificates, among others.

The recurring themes in her work are: African religiosity, music, the force of nature, culturalism, and motherhood. Dahlma states that she believes in the healing processes, she does not like to write about hopelessness. About her writing process, she says that she could not tell her stories without the presence of her ancestors, who she affirms "wait for her in her dreams and meditations; they speak to her and she listens to them" (Rivera-López, 2022).

Historical Background

The brutal history of slavery in Puerto Rico serves to historically contextualize the novel Woman of Endurance. Guillermo Baralt (2021) affirms that from the founding of the first sugar mill in Aguada around 1522 until the abolition of slavery in 1873, labor was linked to African slavery. For this, they used the coercive transfer of thousands of Africans from the western part of Africa. Throughout the 16th to 18th centuries, the development of the sugar industry was slow, but the number of slaves grew at a more accelerated rate in the first half of the 19th century. This sugar boom on the island was due, among other factors, to the disappearance of the largest sugarcane producer in the Caribbean, Saint Domingue, now Haiti, as a result of the Haitian Revolution. The enslaved came to represent 11% of the population of that time, and the labor of the most important industry on the island fell on them (Baralt, 2021).

Through the pages of the novel, we witness the dehumanizing brutality to which the captives were exposed and the sexual violation of the women who were torn from stable homes in Africa. As mentioned, Pola, the main character of the novel, arrived in Puerto Rico from Africa in the 19th century, when landowners bought women for the purpose of procreating future slaves, since slavery was hereditary by law. Babies, as in Pola's case, were taken from them as soon as they came out of their wombs. Baralt (2021) affirms that their buying and selling could result in great economic benefits for the owners. The enslaved were commercially tradable goods used for the acquisition of wealth.

In the novel, readers witness how the sugar plantations functioned. The harvest or sugarcane cutting began in January. The overseers woke the enslaved men, women, and children early in the morning. They picked up their machetes, hoes, and shovels and went to the field where they worked all day and only had lunch. Not everyone had the same job; the strongest enslaved people of both sexes cut the cane, others were oxcart drivers, and the young people and women carried the carts. As the cane was cut, it was ground and the sugar was processed in the mill. The harvest ended around May; during that time, the enslaved worked on clearing, felling, weeding, and planting cane, among other tasks (Baralt, 2021).

There were also enslaved men and women who performed other tasks on the hacienda. In the novel, we learn about the sewing workshop that was responsible for sewing custom-made clothes, the main house's table linens, the laundry, and ironing. There were also the enslaved women in the kitchen who made the dishes that were served to the hacienda family and the enslaved people in the cane field; from the kitchen, all the culinary tasks of the hacienda were supervised and directed. The healer provided traditional medicinal treatments based on healing herbs; she managed wounds, bone breaks, and treated stomach and heart diseases, as well as any ailment of an emotional and social nature; her duty was to cure the sick. Not all the enslaved people on the haciendas received the same treatment, nor did they have the same living conditions. The Creole enslaved (born in the colony) occupied the most privileged positions in the hacienda's work (Baralt, 2021). Most of them were born from the sexual violence of the enslavers.

In the novel, the reader is confronted with the day-to-day life on the hacienda, the abuse, misery, and injustices to which the enslaved were subjected, as well as the ways in which the enslaved communities ensured their human dignity despite the violence (Rodés, 2022). Dahlma Llanos affirms, "For me, it is necessary to tell what has not been told about our African heritage" (Pontoni, 2022). Her purpose is that the history of our ancestors, systematically erased, is not lost, to rescue it from the silence to which it has been subjected.

Scenes from the Novel in which Female Solidarity is Manifested

In Woman of Endurance, solidarity is manifested in many of the characters, but we are going to highlight three of its female characters: Rufina, the healer; Tía Josefa, in charge of the sewing workshop; and Pastora, in charge of the kitchen. Martha Páez Neira (2013), in her theoretical approach to the concept of solidarity, says that "it means sharing and assuming the needs of the other as one's own. It constitutes a value that allows one to think of the other, of how to help, collaborate, and give the best of oneself to contribute to the other, thus contributing to the development of man and, therefore, of humanity" (44). Solidarity is a moral value, it is the possibility that human beings have to collaborate with others, enabling the creation of feelings of belonging (Campos Perales, 2023). From this perspective, we see how the solidarity of these three women enables the reconstruction of Pola's character, developing in her a feeling of community belonging that had been cruelly taken from her. Their solidarity allows Pola to create safe social bonds, far from the alienating and hostile practices that characterized her.

Rufina the Healer

Little is written about the cases of escape, the stories of the transgressor, maroon, or rebellious slaves have remained invisible. In the first pages of the novel Woman of Endurance, the theme of escape is brought to light, Pola escapes from the Hacienda El Paraíso. In those cases, the transgression of the escape was paid for with violent punishments to serve as an example. That is why, when Pola arrives at the Las Mercedes hacienda in Carolina, her body was completely mutilated, destroyed because she had been brutally whipped and raped on multiple occasions. At the hacienda, she is taken to the hut of Rufina, the healer. Rufina's practice was endorsed by the masters: she could collect healing herbs, attend to wounds, and prepare concoctions, remedies, and mixtures for the sick. In her hut, she had all the herbs she needed and could go to the field, without the masters' permission, to find more (20). When they bring Pola to her shack, she feels compassion, she thinks she must have gone through hell. After several days of convalescence, Pola wakes up and among other things says to her: "They did you a lot of harm down there." She dries her eyes with the tip of her apron (20). It is a first sign of solidarity. She has not suffered the violation to which Pola has been subjected, but she feels her suffering and is outraged. She murmurs curses under her breath, as if the beating hurt her: "Son of a bitch, may lightning strike them, Satan, animals, bastards..." (22).

But Rufina not only feels compassion for Pola, she tries to emotionally recompose her: "We can almost never avoid what they do to us. But we can fight. I know you know what I'm telling you: resist. I know you're a warrior because you're still here" (22). Every time she can, Rufina looks for the right words so that Pola's warrior spirit does not leave, she has seen healed bodies that later walk empty, devoid of their spirit: "After all that has happened, are you going to let those white sons of bitches win? ... Do you love yourself so little that you're not even going to fight for your own life?" (25). "Rufina refuses to give up on the woman with cutting teeth and a wounding gaze. She has seen a glimpse of Pola's warrior spirit and must conjure it to return" (25).

These brief scenes illustrate the healing power of solidarity. Rufina never disappointed Pola. She guided her entry into the world of Las Mercedes. She was able to see beyond her anger and bitterness during her recovery. When Pola was anxious about the well-being of a maroon girl named Chachita, Rufina brought food and clean clothes to the girl, even at the risk of her own life. Rufina not only healed the physical wounds of the main character but also penetrated her emotional world to heal her spirit (301). From a psychological perspective, Rufina demonstrates solidarity from the commitment and duty to do good to the other (Páez Neira, 45).

Aunt Josefa

Aunt Josefa is another character whose solidarity helps Pola to emerge from the bitterness, violence, and fear that originated and began to grow from the moment the involuntary migration from her place of origin began. The dynamics of the needlework workshop that Aunt Josefa directed demonstrate how a relationship of cohesion is established among the people who constitute the group, developing among them an especially committed interpersonal bond (Razeto Migliaro, 2005). This begins when Pola, who has regained her health, has to reintegrate into work and leave Rufina's hut. Doña Filo, the owner of the Las Mercedes hacienda, sends her to the needlework workshop instead of the cane field under the supervision of Aunt Josefa. Pola views her with suspicion and protests. Rufina speaks to her gently, advising her: “What is life worth if we cannot trust our own? Aunt Josefa is not your enemy. In fact, she is your refuge. Remember this well before you open that mouth to disrespect her” (68).

Aunt Josefa was Doña Serafina's (Doña Filo's) trusted enslaved woman; she was in the workshop when she arrived as a young newlywed. She had so much trust in her that she guarded the keys to the fabric warehouse. The workshop provided the owner with a considerable fortune and the plantation with a good reputation. The needles were a well-established structure, made of wooden planks (73). Aunt Josefa gave instructions to Pola, who initially performed support tasks for the work of 23 other mulatto women in the workshop, while she learned to cut fabrics and became a skilled cutter. At the end of the day, Pola was sweaty and tired, but never as tired as the enslaved people could be at the end of a day in the cane field (74).

In these circumstances, Pola begins to receive shows of support from Aunt Josefa. On one occasion, Pola has a nightmare, her own screams wake her up, Aunt Josefa calms her, her voice is a balm in the darkness “We all carry our nightmares in secret places. …They want to steal our humanity … Don't let them. Don't give them the only thing they can't take from you.” Pola, although she pretends to deny it, recognizes that Aunt Josefa's voice comforts her (83). She, with great patience, teaches her with great discretion the importance of helping each other among the workshop companions, fostering interpersonal relationships of trust, where camaraderie and mutual aid prevail. These modes of action associated with the value of solidarity help to respect diversity and strengthen the spirit of collaboration and teamwork (Campos Perales, 2023).

A scene that shows the spirit of solidarity among the workshop workers is when they send Pola to take lunch to the cane field because the woman who used to do it had injured her hand and could not make the delivery, so they send Pola as a substitute (108). In the cane field, Pola had a strong fight with Leticia, one of the cane cutters, and ends up with her clothes almost destroyed. A week after the fight, Aunt Josefa says to Pola: “There are some things on your cot. Throw away that junk you patched up. I can't allow any of my women to walk around with that mess of a dress” (128). On her cot were two outfits that the women of the workshop made for her. She had never worn anything other than the bleached sacks that women who are worthless wear. On the floor were some shoes, Pola had never worn shoes. She caresses everything with her fingers. Pola delights in the sensation of the fabric on her skin. Pola repeated in her mind the words of Aunt Josefa that she was “one of her women.” At that moment she felt a strange pressure on her face. "She hasn't tried to smile in a long time" (128).

The simple recognition of belonging to the Las Agujas collective awakens in Pola a feeling of cohesion and equality. Durkheim, the founder of modern sociology, affirms that "where social solidarity exists, despite its immaterial character, it does not remain in a state of pure potential, but manifests its presence through sensitive effects" (cited by Razeto Migliaro, 2005). This social solidarity arises from the collective work and group life that unites them, linked by a moral order of rules and laws generated among themselves. Durkheim identifies this invisible bond as "social solidarity" (974). That is why it is not surprising when on one occasion, Aunt Josefa says threateningly to Celestina, the opportunist head of the maids: “Don't you dare go sticking that swollen nose of yours into my business. Take care of your black women in the house and I'll take care of mine. … My girls are like my family. So, if you mess with them, you mess with me” (205).

Pastora, the Cook

Pastora, the cook, was a treasure to the hacienda family. She had a reputation for serving delicious and abundant tables (73). The owner had paid a fortune for her; she acquired her culinary skills in the governor's kitchen where she learned to master the art of French cuisine (83). The black people of the plantation loved her because she made sure they got all the organs and other parts that the white people refused to eat, as well as the leftovers from the table. She deliberately overestimated the family's portions to ensure there were enough leftovers (84). Pastora's kitchen was famous for the order and cleanliness that reigned in it; it was connected to the family's house (73). Part of Pola's duties was to help Pastora in the kitchen, and she was excited to work in a place with so many smells and flavors of good food (84).

On one occasion, Pola steals a piece of meat and puts it in her apron pocket. Celestina discovers her and talks to Pastora. When Pastora returns to the kitchen, she says to Pola: “Be careful of that one, that Celestina. …That daughter of a bitch only wants to get some of us into trouble.” … “Now finish the bite. There is a lot to do. And the next time you want to try something, you don't have to hide. You can eat as much as you want in my kitchen. But be careful with Celestina” (87).

Pastora's complicity is another sign of solidarity. Seen from the perspective of Razeto Migliaro (2005), the kitchen was the center where all the helpers were on equal terms, the bond created between them allowed solidarity to manifest itself. "Each one for the group, and the group for each one" (171). Pastora was willing to vouch for Pola, she was committed to her, the bond of solidarity was created.

Pola and Healing Solidarity

Pola learns to recognize and accept the many faces of love and solidarity. She manages to access motherly love through the maroon girl Chachita, mentioned earlier. She meets her one of those Sundays that she escaped to the forest and climbed a tree to lie down on one of its branches. From above she saw the girl and Pola comes up with the idea of bringing her leftovers from Pastora's kitchen for the girl to devour. The girl leaves her poppies, looks at Pola, and smiles. Trust begins to grow between them. Chachita tells her her life story; she lives abandoned in the forest because she has leprosy on her ears. “Instinctively, (Pola) approaches Chachita, puts her bony shoulders in her arms, and whispers comforting sounds” (147). She thinks that girl needs a mother (148). They tell each other stories. Neither asks questions, they are happy to be together. “Woman and girl begin to laugh, something new for both” (194). Pola wonders: “How can this little spark of a girl give her back everything she lost so long ago?” (290). The feeling of solidarity is so strong that Pola has to take risks to protect her and hide her from the Spanish military when they were searching for fugitives in the countryside (265).

Pola discovers sisterly love through her relationship with Adela, who hides that she is pregnant. The day Pola discovers it is because Adela runs to a secluded place to vomit at breakfast. Pola has followed her and helps her clean up. She says to her: “You're going to be fine. I see many women with their babies around here all the time. No one will take your baby away from you. The father and you can”… (156). Adela cries on Pola's chest. “Once again Pola finds herself supporting and comforting a young woman. This time it is not Chachita, ... Adela seeks strength in Pola, (she trusts her) ... Pola, the loving one” (156). The solidarity that Pola feels for Adela leads her to keep the secret and support her in everything.

Pola surrenders to the love of a daughter when she has to give comfort to Aunt Josefa for the death of her daughter Fela, who dies giving birth to a girl whose father is Don Tomás, the owner of the hacienda. Aunt Josefa suffers with repressed anguish during the nine months of pregnancy. The pain was so intense that it created an impregnable emotional barricade, no one could approach, she did not allow it. Until one day Pola says to her, “You have to put your pain in the background and this girl first. We know you have lost someone special, a daughter. But this confinement in yourself has to end. It is not good for you, it is not good for the workshop, and it is not good for the baby” (187). Pola penetrates the heart of the Aunt, her knees give way, and her suffering turns into crying. Pola hugs her tightly, the woman continues to cry, “And there they stay, Aunt Josefa letting herself be comforted and Pola learning to comfort” (188).

When Pola marries Simón, one of the enslaved men from the Las Mercedes hacienda whose kindness is key to her reconstruction, she receives three visits. First, Rufina arrives with a small bag full of herbs to stir up the flame of love and ward off envy (361). Pastora arrives later with a small cake to offer to Ochún, so that sweetness and food would not be lacking in the home. Finally, Josefa arrived, who brought her shoulder for her to lean on when things got difficult (362). Through the solidarity of these three women, Pola was directed in a very different direction, she was a broken and angry woman, who did not believe in anyone nor did she care about anything (301). But the healing power of solidarity helped her rediscover the love of the community, but, above all, self-love.

Conclusion

Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa states that she likes to write because “Every day we lose pieces of our heritage. And you cannot build a structure if you do not know the foundation. You have to find out about the past to be able to deal with the present and plan for the future. For me, it is necessary to tell what has not been told about our African heritage” (Pontoni, 2022). She really achieves it, the novel Woman of Endurance places us in a cruel and harrowing period of our history: slavery seen from the perspective of a black enslaved woman who suffers and endures it. To which we say, bravo! because the invisibility to which the history of our black women has been subjected is broken. As Marie Ramos Rosado (2013) very well says, “Puerto Rican history has been narrated from a patriarchal perspective” (66). Historians focus on the rebellions carried out by slaves and black men, but the writer's fiction makes visible all black women and their jobs: healers, cooks, seamstresses, maids, cane cutters, etc. The protagonism of these black enslaved women highlights their contributions and also serves to demonstrate the ability to overcome and resist in the midst of fatality.

One of the aspects that has surprised me is facing very little literary criticism. This lack of recognition of the author's work could not help but be associated with the marginalization of the Afro-descendant theme and more specifically the invisibility that the stories of black enslaved women have had in Puerto Rican literature. The effort that Llanos-Figueroa puts into recovering the memory of our ancestors through the recollection of the protagonist's origin, her family, her customs, her rites, the enslavement and the painful experience of slavery compels us not to forget, to continue reconstructing our past. We believe that “it is essential to arrive at a deeper understanding of these stories of race, culture, nation and mobilization to glimpse futures of equality, respect, coexistence and belonging” (De la Fuente y Reid Andrews, 2018).

In relation to solidarity as a healing value, we demonstrate how women shoulder to shoulder are capable of rising up in the face of adversity. From this perspective, it means sharing and assuming the needs of the other woman as one's own. We agree with Eva Pasek and Rina Colina (2018) when they affirm that ... “solidarity is a value contrary to individualism, it is reflected in service and seeks the common good and its purpose is to try to solve the spiritual or material needs of others” (107). Definitely, the women of Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa in Woman of Endurance, cultivated understanding, help, support and offered their friendly hand, showing how solidarity is a healing value.

Works cited

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Rivera-López, Keishla. Cafecito con Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa. Entrevista. Center for Puerto Rican Studies, 18 marzo, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Sdu4LK444&t=32s
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