“The Dominican Republic is more than a baseball farm,” Ang said. “It’s more than a vacation spot with pretty beaches. It’s a country with a heartbeat, with a new generation who are working to fight hard against the old perceptions.”

On Thursday, Nov. 10, 13 Biola University students released their book, “The Dominican Dream: A Passion for Baseball, a Love for Family, and a Hope for the Future,” which follows the stories of the people they met during a nine-day trip to the Dominican Republic last spring.

“Holding the tangible product in my hand was just surreal,” said photojournalism student Job Ang. “It looks fantastic, and I can’t be more proud of everyone.”

The book, which first took form several months ago as a class project in Biola’s journalism department, explores life in the Dominican Republic with a specific focus on the nation’s love for baseball. Many of the children in the country look to baseball as a way out of poverty with role models such as Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz, some of the best baseball players in America.

The book features stories and photography from the nine days the students spent observing, listening, and learning in the country.

“That country is just so much more rich,” Ang said as he compared the Dominican Republic to America. “The colors are more vibrant, the people, whether hopeful or desolate, experienced those emotions more clearly.”

The team had intended to travel to Haiti a year after the earthquake, but instability in the country redirected them to the Dominican Republic. Several students dropped out of the project, bringing the final number down to 13 students and two faculty advisers, including journalism professor Tamara Welter.

“[T]hese 13 students brought to the project all that was needed and necessary to complete the book,” Welter recalled. “I couldn’t have asked for a more solid group of students with which to travel.”

The team spent over a week traversing the streets of the Dominican Republic, interacting with families, gathering first-hand stories, and constantly snapping photos. It was this personal interaction with the people that brought the country to life.

“The Dominican Republic is more than a baseball farm,” Ang said. “It’s more than a vacation spot with pretty beaches. It’s a country with a heartbeat, with a new generation who are working to fight hard against the old perceptions.”

Ashley Jones, another photojournalism student, says instead of just writing a book on baseball, they wanted to include, “the rags to riches stories from the Dominican,” which gave them “a lot of freedom to focus on the culture.” They spoke with people from all walks of life: from little league hopefuls to former major league players, high-achieving students to high school dropouts, people in churches to people on the streets.

After months of researching, writing, and editing, the book project was completed. The Biola journalism department published the book and it is now available for purchase through the school. The students are excited about the impact that their published book will have.

“Now this is going to be a big thing, people are going to buy this book, and it’s going to put some kind of dent in the world, and change it just a little bit,” Jones said. “And we did that.”

@Copyright 2011 WORLD Magazine – used with permission