My trip to the Dominican Republic changed what I thought I knew
I went to the Dominican Republic earlier this year for the first time. To be honest, the DR had faded in appeal for me as a destination because of what I heard and read about its’ relationship with Haiti. I felt like its’ relationship with Haiti came from a place of anti — Blackness and colorism. I am an outsider, a Black American with no ancestral claim to Hispanola, so I won’t make the assumption of thinking my opinions or thoughts about DR and Haiti really mean much . People from either side can and would be well within their right to tell me to stfu about a complex situation that I don’t know anything about. Still and all, I consider myself a proud nerd, a history bluff and someone who is very interested in world cultures especially ones in the Africa Diaspora.
I feel as though one can’t talk about the DR without talking about Haiti. One island with two distinct countries who share a long and complex relationship. Haiti is the most successful example in modern Western Hemisphere history of a colonized land that fought against and won its’ independence from it’s colonizers , France in 1804. Angry, fed-up, exploited and proud African men and women beat France’s ass and sent them on their way. With a bounty on their head of course, with all sorts of sanctions and punishments for daring to be free. The Dominican Republic would be held in the control of Spain until 1821 when they were briefly independent and then conquered by Haiti until 1844 when Juan Pablo Duarte overthrew Haitian rule. I am cliff noting history. Both sides of the island would have American intervention and invasion at various points in the late 19th and early 20th century. Both sides would engage in forms of aggression and mutual distrust. The Parsley Massacre in 1937 perpetuated by the Dominicans resulted in the deaths of up to a 30,000 Haitians over six days. I’ve read that dark skin Dominicans were killed as well, highlighting the claims of extreme colorism present in the country. The history between the Dominican Republic and Haiti is intense and that intensity is alive and well today.
As I said before knowing the history of the DR and my growing empathy for Haitians, I didn’t know what would be my experience going there. I reflected on my childhood and teen years when I had tons of Dominican friends. There was a time when pollo al horno con arroz blanco y habicheulas was eaten at least three times a week by yours truly at La Caridad. There was the immersion of me in Spanish by being a dutiful student in sixth grade and a subject I’d take through 12th grade. My Southern, Black grandfather had encouraged me to learn Spanish and learn Spanish I did with earnestness. There was a time reggaeton in the form of Don Omar and Daddy Yankee blared out my speakers every afternoon after school. I wouldn’t say I was whatever a Black person is who wants to be Hispanic but I do think I was affected by the identity politics especially prominent in immigrant heavy New York. There was something so intriguing to me when I first saw Black people who looked like me speaking Spanish. Maybe I wanted some of that “ exotic” swag too.
Somewhere though, maybe because of a literal move, I stopped reaching into other’s culture and got back into loving my own. Maybe it was in the attempts to try practicing Spanish with American born Latino kids and them laughing at me or rolling their eyes. Maybe it was me having to check myself about this immersion. I would still practice my Spanish and todavia conozco un poco{still I know a little}. So going to the DR as in my trips to Puerto Rico and Mexico, I was delighted to practice my Spanish. I was delighted to let people know to their constant amazement that yes I’m a Black American who knows Spanish.
Over the years and during my immersion period, I learned about the race politics of Latin America. I learned about the prominence of colorism much like America’s that posits whiteness and lightness as the ideal. What I kept reading and quite frankly seeing when I observed Latino communities around me was that blackness was not embraced and was looked at as a flaw. That in El Diario and Especialito newspapers and magazines, white looking people were the ideal. On Telemundo and other Spanish speaking channels, everyone mostly was white. In NYC, there is a prominence in the Bronx and Washington Heights of people who look like J. Lo. I am aware of and did see and know Black Dominicans but the prominence of lighter hued people set me up mentally to expect an island full of them.
Arriving in Punta Cana and for the next four days and in the various parts of the country I would go to, I saw an overwhelming number of people who looked like me. Full Black, blue black, kinky haired, beautiful African descended people. Now I’d always heard about the DR being Black but it had been set up in my brain especially relating to the Dominicans I knew back home that they would be lighter and whiter. This experience, a beautiful experience I might add where I met smiling, amused amigos and amigas who shared my hue, changed how I think about Haitian and Dominican relations.
I could no longer think of the DR as the big, mean, lightskin sister picking on her poorer darker sister when they were largely in fact the same hue as far as I’m concerned. I came to think of it more as two similar hued sisters subjected to similar determinants who were raised differently. A Haitian fellow who I am acquainted with explained it to me that ,” They have given up large portions of the island to European / white interests. They have little to no control over their land. Whereas the Haitians are committed and will preserve ownership of their land even if it comes without that European investment and endorsement.” I didn’t have the lived experience or knowledge to consider his statement but seeing the resorts and how they are run and the state of some of the communities surrounding them bears truth.
I went to the DR prepared to be really Black . To educate someone if they tried to insult me or treat me ill because of my dark skin. I made sure to wear my natural hair , my natural wig and my African print. I did the most when I didn’t even have to. During my trip to Santo Domingo I stopped at a little boutique shop woman-ed by this beautiful ,darkskin sista with the prettiest fro. I was so in love with seeing her aesthetic and seeing all the Blackness that surrounded me. I told her how pretty she was and that I loved supporting her business. She smiled and held up her Black power fist.
Quiero regresar un dia a La Republica Dominicana y tambien ir a Ayiti( I want to return one day to the Dominican Republic and also to go to Haiti. I don’t agree with the nefarious Haitian Dominican citizenship laws and how Haitians seem to still be majorly stigmatized in the DR. But I’ve softened my feeling about the country because it is a Black country , like all Black countries , filled with good , Black people trying to survive in a world entrenched by white capital. The scarcity mindset and the exploitation that follows even in the tourist systems that allow people like me to visit harms both Haitians and Dominicans. The irony wasn’t lost on me while I was there about how these systems operate, how I felt odd being part of a smaller group of black tourists with a majority European crowd being waited on hand and foot by native Black people. It made me in a little weird way feel white. Or feel my whiteness through my American privilege. I look at the situation through lens of compassion. I look at it while knowing it’s not necessarily my fight and both sides of people would resent my intrusion. I look at it through my Black American lenses as I do at Black cultures across the world and hope one day we can see the brother hood and sister hood innate between each other.
