Jesse S. Morgan and Dr. John P. Hawkins, Anthropology,
I was awarded an ORCA grant in order to carry out ethnographic research in the Dominican Republic (DR.). ORCA’s support made it possible for me to spend four months in Santiago, the second largest city, during winter semester. I had originally intended that my fieldwork would focus on the cultural theme of the tigre, or tiger (a charismatic showoff type in Dominican society). However, the reality warp between my elaborate Provobased scheming and the practicalities of living and doing ethnography in a large unfamiliar Caribbean city encouraged me to shift my focus and walk through open cultural doors instead of banging on closed ones. And so, I eventually decided to take advantage of unique contacts I had made in order to create a brief ethnography1 of Haitian families living in Santiago. I was especially interested in the way that these families related to their Dominican neighbors.
Even though I had previously lived in the DR for nearly two years, I knew almost nothing about the neighboring country, Haiti–probably a reflection of the isolationism and racism of the Dominican government’s foreign policy as well as prejudice present in Dominican society at large.2 Although I spent most of my time observing and living with Haitians, I received valuable help from professors at Santiago’s PUCMM university whose knowledge and unbiased perspectives regarding Haiti and Haitian immigration were refreshing. Among the unique research opportunities afforded me while in the field were various trips to Haiti. I was accompanied by my Haitian friends from Santiago in order to see their villages, and thus become acquainted with both sides of the immigrant experience. Getting everyone into the right country at the trip’s end sometimes proved difficult and expensive. Once I ended up fording the river and sprinting across no-man’s land, trying to keep up with my Haitian informants as we threaded our way through barb wire fences guarded by armed soldiers (previously bribed). Another time, I was fortunate enough to observe first-hand an “operation” of the Dominican immigration police. Most Armed soldiers suddenly fell upon a thicket of Haitian shacks crammed into the bottom of a dirty ravine. Of the men with whom I had been chatting seconds before escaped by plunging through the canal and into the dense foliage on the other side, leaving frightened wives at the mercy of the soldiers. Women and children cried as houses were entered and possessions and inhabitants seized (or harassed) at random. One official reached out and turned off my tape recorder.
Residents of the rapidly growing upper-middle class neighborhood, Urbanización Mirador, live with more comfort than the average Dominican. At least most of them. Jaque Dejues, however, has been living for years in a “house” with no floor, windows, doors, water, stove, or address. His next door neighbors have satellite dishes and Range Rovers in their garages. Over the past 13 years spent in the large cement skeleton of an unfinished house, Jaque’s only bet has been that he is better off here than he would be back in his village in Haiti. As an educated man and a language teacher, Jaque left Haiti during the “difficult times” of the Duvalier regime. In the DR he has learned Spanish, found work as a carpenter, and can sometimes send money to his siblings living in Northern Haiti. An average of ten to twelve people–normally from the same mountain village as Jaque– usually share “his” house with him. Many are on the move, here only until they find more work or another place to live.
Haitians have always played an important role in the Dominican economy 3. In spite of ludicrous anti-Haitian rhetoric 4 which attributes essentially all the DR’s economic and social problems to Haiti, each year during the cane harvest the DR opens wide its borders to the indispensable Haitian sugar cane cutters. But until recently, the Haitians who came to the DR worked and lived in rural areas. My study shows that the majority of immigrants are young (under 30) and have been in Santiago for less than five years. The men work primarily as construction laborers and street vendors. Men and women– often with young children in tow–walk the city streets offering products like jeans, soaps, and perfume, imported from Haiti in micro-quantities where humanitarian aid has apparently lowered prices.
I agree with other observers that besides becoming more urban, immigration seems to become increasingly circular. Haitians come and go between Haiti and Santiago less as a function of Haitian politics or agricultural seasons than as a function of sales and construction opportunities as well as erratic Dominican persecution. Many of the Haitians in Santiago assured me that they would return as soon as they had the money that their families expect them to bring back. Often when I was in Cape Hatien (perhaps five hours from Santiago) I would run into Haitians whom I knew from the DR. When I came back to Santiago I would sometimes find that Haitians I had met in Haiti had preceded me there.
The Dominicans in Mirador neighborhood react differently to their Haitian neighbors. Very few willingly associate with them, but some will halfheartedly sympathize with their situation and admit that their presence does little harm. These usually betray their abysmal ignorance of Haiti and Haitians and the rootedness in Dominican society of harmful Haitian stereotypes and prejudices as they try to describe the plight of these foreigners. Other neighbors feel free to taunt, intimidate and take advantage with impunity. Dutifully believing what has been told them by paternalistic leaders many Dominicans conceive of Haiti as a wretched, strange, very remote place. It would be very difficult for them to imagine Jaque’s village with its green grassy mountains, fresh rivers, tranquil cobblestone streets and the massive ruins of an 18th century castle patterned after Versailles which sits on the hill above.
References
- Completed ethnography will be submitted to the anthropology department as my senior thesis.
- Documented in El Otro del Nosotros, a survey done by Equipo One-Respe in Santiago, 1994.
- Baez Evertz, Franc. 1986. Braceros Haitianos en la Republica Dominicana. Instituto Dominicano de Investigaciones Sociales, Santo Domingo.
- Ex-president of the Republic Joaquin Balaguer speaks of the “the progressive ethnic decadence” of the Dominican people, attributing
it to the “threat” which “the Haitian influence presents to their physical and moral constitution” ( La Isla a Reves, 1983: 47).