Trujillo: The Reason for Fuku and Zafa

The more that I look at the textual evidence of this novel the more I continue to question this idea of the curse Fuku and Zafa.  I have this internal conflict with whether or not it is real or fake.  I wrote a post last week expanding Morgan's idea that it is fake, and utilized as an excuse, or crutch, for the family to justify the negative events that happen.  I argued this because the family does not seem to want to put in the effort to move on from their misfortunes, and it is easier to blame the curse, rather than take responsibility for their bad luck and attempt to move on and make better lives for themselves.

Now that I taking another step out of the box from the situations that occur in the story, it seems that this curse only appears to channel through Trujillo and his goons.  Every time an unfortunate event occurs it is branched from Trujillo.  For example, Beli is beat because she is cahoots with The Gangster, Trujillo's sister's husband.  Abelard is beat and tortured (along with the death of his family) because he "commits treason" against Trujillo.  Oscar is beat and killed because he falls in love with the Capitan's girlfriend, Ybon.  The Capitan is obviously young during Trujillo's reign, but the text states, "when a Dominican cop says he wants to meet you he ain't exactly talking about bringing you flowers" (291).  Just like Trujillo, the Capitan is apart of the Dominican political party.

It seems as though that once the family is affiliated with the Dominican Republic physically, that is when the curse takes affect.  Lola says, "Ten million Trujillos is all we are" (324).  Lola says that she will never come back to the DR after she leaves for good because she is aware that nothing but bad comes from it.  I feel that Lola is aware that it is not the curse itself that deals out bad luck, but the location itself and its government/political regime itself.