HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: A SHORT HISTORY OF COLONIALISM AND ITS LEGACIES

The term anti-haitianismwas coined to define the prejudice and hate towards Haitian people in the Dominican Republic (DR). Though this prejudice and hate was not always present, it reflects consequences of how two countries that share one island have an unresolved past. Haiti and the Dominican Republic both exist on the same island of Hispaniola. Both countries have common histories of being colonized, their people enslaved, and the foundations of racist oppression that motivates colonizers’ violence. Both countries were also forced into dictatorship. The borders between Haiti and the Dominican Republic are physical, emotional and marked by historical trauma that divides them and has made them turn against each other, specifically governed by global anti-Black racism that fueled anti-Haitianism. Though this prejudice against Haitians, tensions between DR and Haiti, and anti-Blackness did not happen overnight. According to Gibson, (2013) these historical events can help trace how politics, power, colonization, and anti-Black racism have worked to further the divide and leave large groups of people unable to gain recognition as citizens by any state or its laws, protections, or supports; therefore being forced into a position of statelessness.

• In 1492 Christopher Columbus colonized the island with European settlers
• In 1795 France took over the entire island, which was under Spanish rule.
• In 1801 General Toussaint Louverture, who was formerly enslaved, led one of the largest and most important successful revolts and freed all people who were enslaved on the island colonizers had named “Hispaniola.” He governed the island and made slavery illegal.
• In 1808 a group of Dominicans started a war of reconquest to drive out the French and return the Eastern part the island to Spanish rule – the West, by this point, was the Republic of Haiti
• By 1822 Haiti had established control of the whole island once more.
• In 1844 the Dominican Republic gained its independence from Haiti, not Spain.
• In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo who was guided by anti-Black and white supremacist idealogies, ordered the massacre of Haitians in border areas where many worked cultivating sugar. To determine who was Haitian, soldiers with machetes asked dark-skinned people to say the word "perejil," which is Spanish for parsley. For Creole-speaking Haitians, the "r" sound was difficult to pronounce, and a slip of the tongue became a death sentence. Estimates of the massacre range from 10,000 to 25,000 people killed over the course of a few weeks.
• In 2010 the earthquake devastated Haiti. Dominican Republic stepped into support their neighbors. Still, to this day, some Haitians are left trying to recover from the natural disaster. This means finding work and possibilities in the Dominican Republic.
• In 2013 Dominican Republic's highest court ruled to revoke the citizenship of children of illegal Haitian migrant workers, which will not only impact migrants' children, but their grandchildren and, in some cases, even great-grandchildren. This is the case we see with Juan Teofilo, who has been stripped of his citizenship and separated from his two children who live in the Dominican Republic.
  

This contemporary practice of depriving Haitian immigrants from citizenship rights is a consequence of political and racial tensions that have historically accumulated as a result of colonization. This has historically shaped racialized antagonisms between the two countries, and left thousands of people stateless as the Domincan Republic responds to nationalism, racism, and colorism.

THE EXPERIENCE OF STATELESSNESS

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), today millions of people around the world are denied a nationality. As a result, they are denied basic human rights like being able to go to school, healthcare, the right to vote, the ability to get a job, secure housing/property rights, or even get married - these difficulties get passed down to follow generations and the traumas and obstacles and being denied a nationality become interwoven into a families history. The UN Refugee Agency defines stateless as:

“a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”... a stateless person does not have the nationality of any country. Some people are born stateless, but others become stateless. Stateless people are found in all regions of the world. The majority of stateless people were born in the countries in which they have lived their entire lives.”

UNHCR also suggests that stateless people often experience the denial of basic rights and a nationality from the cradle to the grave. So, with being denied a legal identity when they are born, the basic rights of human life in between, and the respect of an official burial and death certificate when they die. Many pass on statelessness to their children, who then pass it on to the next generation. Statelessness can be caused by:

• Discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, language or gender
• Oversight in nationality laws
• Conflict of nationality laws
• New states and changes in borders
• Loss or deprivation of nationality - i.e. in some countries, citizens can lose their nationality simply from having lived outside their country for a long period of time
• Lack of proof to a birth state state and/or key information needed to establish a nationality

ANTI-BLACK RACISM AND COLORISM

Anti-Blackness is a specific form of racism directed towards Black people that simultaneously devalues Blackness and systemically marginalizes Black people through overt and structural (covert) racism. Anti-Black racism, governed by white supremacist ideas, frames Black bodies (and Blackness) as inhuman, disposable and inherently problematic and is a foundational logic that drives and organizes white supremacy. All kinds of racism are inexcusable, but it is still necessary to make clearer definitions for the kinds of racism that disproportionately affect certain groups – like anti-Black racism, which largely impacts those of Haitian descent due to their darker skin. Globally, colonizers promoted anti-Black racism to justify their violent practices of disposession and enslavement and anti-Black racism still works to inform discrimination, negative prejudice and stereotypes towards those of Haitin descent to benefit those in power. Anti-Blackness prevents those of darker skin and/or visible African descent to exercise fundamental freedoms, basic human rights, and equality. Ultimately, colorism (a practice of discrimination that assigns more value to the lives of those with lighter skin and institutes prejudice against darker-skinned people), which is rooted in anti-Blackness, worked to render Haitian people as “others” and to create a racial caste system, or hierarchy, where the color of a person’s skin was taken to signify a person’s value. Even though Dominican Republic is in the Caribbean, the history of anti-Blackness and colorism, stemming from a global practice of colonization, still fuels hatred of dark skin. Within this model, to be Black or have darker skin is taken to represent Haitian descent, and is politically, socially, and legally used to devalue, discriminate, and harm Haitians.

What Statelessreveals is that in the Dominican Republic, colorism and anti-Black racism are entrenched, with a targeted and vocal disdain for darker-skinned Haitian people. So, the ideology of racism and colorism historically-rooted in colonization is still very present today. The lasting impacts force Haitian people into precarious realities and benefits power and privilege of lighter-skinned people in the Dominican Republic. The ideas at the foundation of anti-Blackness and colorism which create fictions of superiority and inferiority, therefore, are used to justify power and privilege of those in the Dominican Republic. Approximately 90% of Dominican people also have African ancestry, though they resist being classified as Black or of African descent.