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Blanquiando: My Mother's Passing, Diana Putterman

Master of Arts in Humanities | Master's Theses 1936 - 2022

This thesis is an attempt to heal the wounds of my family’s matrilineal line left behind by the effects of our racialized world. It is a depiction of how life’s twists and turns ultimately created a collision of race and cultures within a single family. My mother, Violeta Estel Garcia Putterman, was born into poverty in the Dominican Republic to a black woman from St. Kitts and a Chinese man. This vivacious, and exotically beautiful girl’s life took a positive turn when an older, married, white American sugar plantation engineer took a romantic interest in her as a 15-year old …