Usually when you speak about Hispaniola, (mostly if yuh gone foreign), you will be met with a “Huh??”. However, if you speak of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, that’s when bells start to ring. Often, some of us may forget that they are one island, especially seeing that ONLY Haiti was hit by the devastating earthquake in 2010 (this continues to tief everyone’s head). But, considering the long and very rocky history these two countries have between each other, it seems that the Dominican Republic would in fact favour the thoughts of those who continuously forget that they are on the same island.
To have a little bit more context, let us have a look at the past fallouts between DR and Haiti.
#TBT
In 1937, dictator of DR, Rafael Trujillo, carried out the Parsley Massacre, slaughtering a gross amount of Haitians, along with anyone who was dark enough to be considered Haitian (Buh wa de..). And it didn’t even stop there! If there was a chance yuh was a lil red ting who was a Haitian, if you couldn’t roll the “r” in perejil (Spanish word for parsley), you gone too. Since then, not only was there just an invisible border separating these two countries, but there was now blood, malice and pure resentment. Then in 2013, DR added insult to injury when a law was passed, ruling to expel anyone born to Haitian immigrants….despite having lived in the Dominican Republic their entire lives. So yeah, men who doh even know what bonjour mean were threatened to be thrown into a country they, as far as they knew, had no connection with. However, turns out that international outcries led to the government softening their stance on the law the following year.
Story stay the same…
Nowadays, it seems that nothing has changed, where DR is once again attempting to “clean out” their country of undocumented Haitian migrants. Although DR has said that those who have begun the documentation process will not be in danger of deportation, the process includes being able to present a work permit from one’s employer…..which can be rel pain in the @ss to attain apparently. However, I don’t think I need to tell you what is expected to happen to those who have not thought of beginning the documentation process. And if yuh askin’ yuhself, where everybody else? Why are there no international bodies trying to intervene? Well, padna, DR is not the only country trying to get rid of their undocumented workers…in fact, it is something of a trend. So men staying silent cuz nobody could trow stones when dey in a glass house, right?
But, what we want to know is, why go through all dis bacchanal? Ah mean, sure Trinis and Tobagonians have we lil differences too, but oh gorrr, yuh doh see we throwin’ dem out OR vice versa! The thing is, in the Caribbean, for an area that tends to be so culturally diverse and can always boast of this…it seems that we are finding ourselves being stuck in the past mindset of our colonizers. Das where we really reach? If it is that we ever moved from where we were? So that’s why we asking, started from the bottom…now we where???? Because from this view…it seems like we still right dere.
