In a recent court ruling, undocumented Dominicans of Haitian descent are being deported to Haiti sparking a human rights debate amongst the political elite and the Dominican Diaspora about the morality of deporting individuals living in the margins of the island’s society for generations. Many of the Haitian descendants were born in the Dominican Republic and have been assimilated into Dominican culture; this has been an ongoing political issue even before the passage of the court ruling. Historical relations between the two nations have been hampered with war and brutality. It started with the brutal treatment and occupation of Dominicans immediately after the Haitian revolution in 1803. Conversely, the October 1937 massacre of approximately 20,000 Haitians by the Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo’s shock troops worsened relations between both nations.
Today’s presence of Haitian descendants has reached its tipping point especially after several natural disasters including hurricanes and earthquakes where thousands sought refuge across the Dominican border with the hope of refugee relief. Considering the history of the two nations, the justifications put forth in the citizenship question are the following: the sovereign rights to protect its borders; homeland security and crime prevention; is just simply a pretext for their innate fear of further Africanizing Dominican culture through the increased population of Black Haitians.
African cultural influence is associated with Haiti and what is considered “Black” in contrast to the mainstream Hispanic Catholic culture that dominates the Dominican Republic despite having a large African descendant population. Haitians represent the link to an African ancestral past that the Dominican political status quo wishes to erase and present a more Eurocentric image to the U.S. and the continental Europe to attract investment meanwhile increase their own personal wealth. The old Colonial Spanish strategy of “Blanqueamiento” or whitening the population with “white immigrants” when Black slaves reached numerical majority. This was a common immigration strategy used by Spanish slave holders especially after the Haitian Revolution and Caribbean slave rebellions.
The Dominican Republic is in the midst of tourism boom through its natural resources climate and beaches and cheap labor. Their national economic development strategy is to address the entrenched poverty in the Dominican Republic and project an international image that is attractive for investors and create employment for native Dominicans. In their world view, this can only be accomplished by creating a greater comfort level for White European and U.S. tourists to visit and spend their Euros and U.S. Dollars. It appears the Dominican government planners are apparently focused on preventing the increase of a Black Haitian underclass that would be an international embarrassment to Dominican politicians and their vested interests. Caribbean History has taught us political strategists will strengthen the mestizo and mulatto middle-class and promote fertility programs and lessen their birth mortality rates. At the expense of sounding like a conspiracy theorist this form of eugenics strategy would have to be comprehensive and easily funded by western government programs promoting sterilization and population control.
The non-Spanish speaking countries throughout the Caribbean have criticized the anti-Haitian policy as a violation of human rights and recommended the Dominican Republic’s expulsion from organizations like CARICOM. It is highly unlikely the Dominican Republic will fold under pressure from the Caribbean nations since they are more focused on their long range strategy. Similarly to Puerto Rico, the great percentage of the Dominican Diaspora community in the U.S., Spain, and Argentina will be increasingly people of African descent and this will be the most “efficient” way of exporting it structural unemployment problem. Thus the whitening strategy is moving along in full force.
The mass deportation of Dominicans of Haitian descent will garner national support with the xenophobic and racist mass media as the driver to prevent a majority Haitian population. The Dominican political status quo will not invest the necessary resources into the community of Dominicans of Haitian descent required to educate and make them employable in skilled positions. Humanitarian assistance to this population with no political status will not happen unless international pressure is exerted externally from many fronts.
The debate in the Dominican Republic and Dominican Diaspora has deteriorated to name calling as in the case of Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize winner in literature and island’s political elite rather than engage in reasoned political debate. Diaz’s criticism of Haitian deportation and accusations of political corruption has been reduced by the island’s elite as a lack of patriotism to the flag of the republic and its right as a sovereign nation to exercise its rights to protect its borders. The Dominican court decision has in essence legalized White Supremacy as official state policy with the intention of deporting Black Haitians as part of long range strategy to whiten the population of the Dominican Republic.
The multilateral organizations like the Organization of American States have been very quiet on this matter and this may require the involvement of the United Nations Human Rights Office to recognize this Dominican court ruling as a violation of basic human rights. Notably, Haiti’s Catholic Conference of Bishops (CEH) rejected allegations that the Dominican population conducts a racist campaign against undocumented nationals of the neighboring nation who cross the border in search of work. CEH president bishop Chibly Langlois said “generalized racism cannot be attributed to the Dominican population and the acts of violence against Haitians in this country are isolated and not by the overall population.”
The complexity of the issue of race in the Dominican Republic is reflective of the history throughout the Spanish – Speaking Americas. It is important to distinguish between the pretext of creating an immigration policy and the underlying cultural history of White Supremacy on the island of Hispaniola. The new court ruling translates into a violation of human rights in a massive proportion adversely impacting the lives of thousands Black Haitian families living in the Dominican Republic for generations with no citizenship or legal status.
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