He instilled a strict nationwide curfew, his soldiers raided the streets, his pictures were hung high and proud in everyone’s homes while his forces put tape recorders underneath the floors. These were a few of the many brutal conditions that Altagracia De Peña and millions of other Dominicans lived through under Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship from 1930-1961.

Fifty-eight years later, De Peña confidently poses for Phosphenes and shares her life story and her connection to the legendary Mirabal sisters.