Winner 2019 Isis Duarte Book Prize given by the HaitiDominican Republic Section of the Latin American Studies AssociationWinner 2019 Barbara Christian Literary Award given by the Caribbean Studies AssociationHighlights the histories and cultural expressions of the Dominican people Using a blend of historical and literary analysis Colonial Phantoms reveals how Western discourses have ghostedmiscategorized or erasedthe Dominican Republic since the nineteenth century despite its central place in the architecture of the Americas. Through a variety of Dominican cultural texts from literature to public monuments to musical performance it illuminates the Dominican quest for legibility and resistance. Dixa Ramrez places the Dominican people and Dominican expressive culture and history at the forefront of an insightful investigation of colonial modernity across the Americas and the African diaspora. In the process she untangles the forms of free black subjectivity that developed on the island. From the nineteenth century national Dominican poet Salom Urea to the diasporic writings of Julia Alvarez Chiqui Vicioso and Junot Daz Ramrez considers the roles that migration knowledge production and international divisions of labor have played in the changing cultural expression of Dominican identity. In doing so Colonial Phantoms demonstrates how the centrality of gender race and class in the nationalisms and imperialisms of the West have profoundly impacted the lives of Dominicans. Ultimately Ramrez considers how the Dominican people negotiate being left out of Western imaginaries and the new modes of resistance they have carefully crafted in response.