‘Acapulco in the Atlantic’: Revisiting Sosu ´ a, a Jewish Refugee Colony in the Caribbean Simone Gigliotti This article examines the foundation objectives, settlement history and ethnic relations of the tiny but idyllic Sosu ´a in the Dominican Republic. Sosu ´a was established in 1940 as the first and only Jewish agricultural colony resulting from discussions at the 1938 Evian conference in France, which unsuccessfully addressed the growing refugee displacement produced by Nazi Germany’s relentless persecution of Jews and other minorities. Fleeing from the grasp of one dictator to the ostensible embrace of Hitler’s Caribbean counterpart, Rafael Trujillo, Jews in the tropical settlement were celebrated as the solution to this underdeveloped, peasant-populated, mainly agricultural northern region. Yet, the lack of international, institutional and financial commitment, settler apathy for intensive labour, and feelings of cultural displacement meant that the colony never reached Trujillo’s desired yet wildly unrealistic projection of 100,000 settlers. Instead, no more than 500 settlers passed through Sosu ´a from 1940 to 1947. Today, the town thrives as a transnational site of displaced settlers, sex tourism and itinerant labour, with its markers of Jewish ethnic and settlement history barely visible. The small town of Sosu ´ a in the Dominican Republic has a layered history of settlement that competes for visibility with its appeal as an international tourist destination for escapist holidays and sex tourism. At the nearby airport in Puerto Plata, international visitors – couples, families, retired groups and single men, particularly from the United Kingdom and Germany – pack the arrivals area. They appear unable to speak a few words ISSN 0261-9288 (print)/ISSN 1744-0521 (online) q 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/02619280600590209 Simone Gigliotti is a lecturer in the History Programme at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Correspondence to: History Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand. Email: Simone.gigliotti@vuw.ac.nz Immigrants & Minorities Vol. 24, No. 1, March 2006, pp. 22–50