Providencia Paredes, the special assistant to former US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and believed to be one of the first people of Latino descent to work in the White House as part of a president’s inner circle, has died.
Gustavo Paredes, one of her sons, announced her death on Facebook.
Providencia Paredes died in Washington on Wednesday last week at the age of 90, he said.
Gustavo Paredes described his mother as a “pioneer, role model and icon for many,” and “a woman of immense will, passion, curiosity and a zest for life.”
Providencia Paredes was born in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, in 1924. She arrived in the US in 1948 alongside then-Dominican ambassador to the US Luis Francisco Thomen, for whom she did domestic work.
Soon after her arrival she met then-US representative for Massachusetts John F. Kennedy. When Kennedy became a US senator, he asked Providencia Paredes to continue working for him, and help his new wife with her affairs.
When Kennedy was elected president and moved into the White House in 1961, he sent for her.
“When he moved to the White House, he said: ‘I want Provi, because she is the best,’” Gustavo Paredes said, using his mother’s nickname. “That is how she ended up as Jackie’s personal assistant.”
During his presidency, Kennedy endeavored to improve relations between the US and Latin America.
In 1961, Kennedy established the Alliance for Progress, and proposed a US$20 billion loan to Latin American nations to promote democracy in the region.
Kennedy and his wife traveled to Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia and met with six presidents of Central American governments in Costa Rica.
In her role as special assistant, Paredes traveled the world with the Kennedys on personal and official trips.
Gustavo Paredes said there were only two trips his mother did not attend: one to Canada early in Kennedy’s presidency, and his last, to Dallas.
However, Providencia Paredes selected the light pink suit the first lady wore on the day the president was killed that has since become an emblem of his assassination.
In a 2013 interview, Providencia Paredes told Fox News Latino about seeing Jacqueline Kennedy for the first time after the president was killed.
“We went into a room, just she and I, and she broke down. She said: ‘They could have killed me, too.’ She said she was very afraid,” Providencia Paredes said.
Providencia Paredes remained close to the Kennedy family after the president’s assassination, later working for former US senator Robert Kennedy until his death, traveling with him to Los Angeles during his presidential campaign.
“She broke the barrier of what an American was: She was making trips with the president, representing the aspiration of the American dream,” Gustavo Paredes said. “From her humble beginnings in the Dominican Republic, she ended up flying around the world representing the country of her birth as well as her new-found country.”
She is survived by her sons, Gustavo Paredes, 60, and Hector Corporan, 69; and four grandchildren: Ariel Paredes, 35; Margarita Corporan, 42; Guillermo Corporan, 35; and Sofia Corporan, 28.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the