The Dominican Republic’s “Ethnic Purging”
June 17, 2015 Writer Edwidge Danticat on Mass Deportation of Haitian FamiliesDemocracy Now
HAVANA TIMES- The Dominican Republic is set to begin what some are calling “ethnic purging,” placing the fate of hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent into limbo. Half a million legally stateless people could be sent to Haiti this week, including those who have never stepped foot in Haiti and don’t speak the language.
In 2013, a Dominican constitutional court ruling stripped the citizenship of children born to Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic as far back as 1929, retroactively leaving tens of thousands without citizenship. Today marks the deadline for undocumented workers to register their presence in the Dominican Republic or risk mass deportation. However, only 300 of the 250,000 Dominican Haitians applying for permits have reportedly received them. Many have actively resisted registering as foreigners, saying they are Dominican by birth and deserve full rights. Dominican authorities have apparently organized a fleet of buses and set up processing centers on the border with Haiti, creating widespread fears of mass roundups. The Dominican Republic’s decision to denationalize hundreds of thousands of people has sparked international outcry.
We are joined by the acclaimed Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat.
Transcript
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Dominican Republic is set to begin what some are calling “ethnic purging,” placing the fate of hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent into limbo. Half a million legally stateless people could be sent to Haiti this week, including those who have never stepped foot in Haiti and don’t speak the language. In 2013, a Dominican constitutional court ruling stripped the citizenship of children born to Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic as far back as 1929, retroactively leaving tens of thousands without citizenship. This is Dominican migration minister Ruben Darío Paulino.RUBEN DARÍO PAULINO: [translated] Let’s not comment on any excesses in the reparation plan, but, yes, firmness in upholding the laws, so all the undocumented in this country return to their country of origin.AMY GOODMAN: Today marks the deadline for undocumented workers to register their presence in the Dominican Republic or risk mass deportation. However, only 300 of the 250,000 Dominican Haitians applying for permits have reportedly received them. Many have actively resisted registering as foreigners, saying they’re Dominican by birth and deserve full rights. Dominican authorities have apparently organized a fleet of buses and set up processing centers on the border with Haiti, creating widespread fears of mass roundups. This is Tini Rosier, an undocumented migrant risking deportation.
TINI ROSIER: [translated] If the deadline lapses, what they say is that we will have to go. There will be no fighting it and nothing that can be done. And I will have to go, because my mother and father brought me here when I was nine years old.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
The Dominican Republic’s decision to denationalize hundreds of
thousands of people has sparked an international outcry. Haitian
President Michel Martelly has denounced it as “civil genocide.” The
United Nations protested the ruling, and the U.S. State Department
voiced measured disapproval. Meanwhile, Dominican-American writers Junot
Díaz and Julia Alvarez, Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat and
American writer Mark Kurlansky have united to express their shared
condemnation of the decision. They wrote in The New York Times,
quote, “One of the important lessons of the Holocaust is that the first
step to genocide is to strip a people of their right to citizenship.”
AMY GOODMAN:
For more, we are joined by Edwidge Danticat right here in New York, the
acclaimed Haitian-American novelist. Her latest book is Claire of the Sea Light.
Edwidge, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you back on.
EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN:
Talk about the significance of what’s happening right now in the
Dominican Republic, the other half of the island, Hispaniola, from where
you were born, in Haiti.
EDWIDGE DANTICAT:
Well, I think this—we’ve often had deportations from the Dominican
Republic to Haiti, but this is the first time that they will be done
with a law behind them that actually, since the law—this constitutional
court decided to strip citizenship from that large number of people, has
really made life much harder for Dominicans of Haitian descent, but
also migrants who are on the island. So, this law not only now gives the
Dominican government the power to deport mass amounts of people, but
also creates an environment, a civil environment, that’s really hard for
people, because, you know, others might feel now that we’ve had an
increase of violence against Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent,
because it seems like a state-sponsored open season on people who are
not only—who are considered Haitians by the way they look, primarily, or
by their Haitian-sounding name.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
And most people here in the United States are not aware of this long,
troubled history between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, occupying the
same island. There are ultranationalists and conservatives among the
Dominican Republic who still—who talk about, hearken back to what they
claim was the Haitian occupation of their country, and they see a line
running through historically on this issue. Could you fill us in on some
of that history that’s led to what we are facing today?
EDWIDGE DANTICAT:
Well, Hispaniola is shared by—the island—by Haiti and the Dominican
Republic. And we share a history of colonialism and occupations, and at
some point it was split between the French and the Spanish. And after
the Haitian independence, there was a shift, where Haiti—and there was
a—the whole island was under one rule, post-independence. And then,
Dominican Republic, in 1822, there was a separation. But there are all
these historical scars, where, you know, we, on the Haitian side,
remember the massacre of Haitian cane workers in 1937. And then these
things are brought up. But there’s also, for Americans, a common
occupation of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic at the turn of the
century, and both sides of the island have been marred, really, by the
corporate—this other kind of occupation of the sugar industry that goes
back to the beginning of the 20th century.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
And the significance of the Dominican government deciding on 1929 as
the date from which they’re going to start all of the tracing of the
lineage of those Dominican nationals who are now—who have been—I mean,
Haitian nationals who have been Dominican citizens now for generations?
EDWIDGE DANTICAT:
Well, I mean, there are so many things that are—that seem very
arbitrary about this decision, 1929, one can only guess. 1929 was the
beginning of the Depression here, and maybe there was a—the Gulf and
Western and these other companies that were part of the sugar plantation
complex, maybe there was a [inaudible], and then they actually—Haitian
workers were always brought to that side, and suddenly, when the sugar
industry pulls out, they are left hanging. But 1929 seems very bizarre
in terms of deciding that people are in transit since 1929. It boggles
the mind to think that you can be in transit in a country for 86 years. I
mean, there’s that several generations of families that have lived in
the Dominican Republic, that made their lives there, that risk now being
deported.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Edwidge, are people in the Dominican Republic speaking out? I mean, Dominicans?
EDWIDGE DANTICAT:
Oh, there are several organizations in the Dominican Republic that are
speaking out, because this issue is sometimes presented as an
immigration issue. But a large number of people who are affected by this
will be Dominicans of Haitian descent. And so, they’re—but often these
voices are drowned out by the ultranationalist voices who use this issue
to scapegoat the—and use this issue as a way to divide people and to
further their causes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
Well, the great Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, the Nobel
laureate, is considered something of an adopted son in the Dominican
Republic. His novel, The Feast of the Goat, is about the
assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Vargas Llosa
recently denounced the deportation ruling in the Spanish newspaper El País.
He wrote that the sentence, quote, “is a juridical aberration and seems
to be directly inspired by Hitler’s famous laws of the Thirties handed
down by German Nazi judges to strip German citizenship from Jews who had
for many years—many centuries—been resident in that country and were a
constitutive part of its society.” Dominican nationalists responded to
Vargas Llosa’s comments with outrage. They burned copies of his book,
and more than 60 community organizations signed a formal petition to
request that the government name the author persona non grata in the Dominican Republic. I’m wondering your response to this reaction to Vargas Llosa?
EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Well, many of us have also been named persona non grata.
I think that’s the immediate reaction to speaking out against what’s an
injustice. And I think what’s important to note is that those of us who
are speaking against this law, we don’t have a quarrel with Dominican
people. We’re speaking against an injustice and an unjust law, just as
we would anywhere else in the world. The reality is that a very large
number of people can be affected by this, and this is happening in our
region. And, of course, I have a personal connection to it, but I think
it’s something that should concern everybody who cares about justice and
human rights. And it sets also a very dangerous precedent for—in terms
of moving large numbers of people who happen to be migrant or citizens
elsewhere in the region.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
And there’s also actually been—right here in New York state, in the
state Legislature, there’s been a quiet little battle raging because
some Dominican legislators have been trying to get a resolution to
condemn what the Dominican government is doing, while others are trying
to stop that resolution from coming to a vote in the state Legislature.
So this is really forcing a much-needed debate, unfortunately, on this
tragedy, within—among the political circles of the Dominican Republic,
as well.
EDWIDGE DANTICAT:
Well, I think that’s always happened. You’ve always had people who have
been very sympathetic to this cause within the Dominican Republic.
Again, it’s important to stress that we are talking also about
Dominicans of Haitian descent, people whose families will be separated.
And sometimes this issue is always presented, sort of a Haitian
migrants—and there are Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, but
also this law will affect people, Dominicans of Haitian descent, or—who
can just be picked up because they have a Haitian-sounding name or
because they look Haitian or black. And so, I think it’s important that
this conversation is had. And the Dominican diaspora, along with the
Haitian diaspora, has also been very active and vocal, especially since
the law was passed, and continues to speak out, to bring attention to
this issue.
AMY GOODMAN:
Some have said the ruling is equivalent to if the United States
suddenly announced that everyone of Hispanic descent must be deported.
Do you think that that’s a helpful way to understand what’s happening
here? And also, how will this affect the Dominican Republic elections
that are coming up?
EDWIDGE DANTICAT:
Well, I think it’s—people are so ill-informed about the situation that I
think it’s—it is important for us to reach for the analogies that we
had. It’s as if the United States said, “Yes, everybody who has been
here since 1930, you have to prove you’re a citizen. You have to go back
to the place where you come from to get a birth certificate from
there.”
I think we also have to remember that this is
not the first time that we’ve had these deportations. There were
somewhat large-scale deportations in the 1990s, and they also happened
to coincide with elections in the Dominican Republic. And often as
elections are coming up, you know, and parties who are in power want to
keep their power, you always have in the Dominican Republic this
population that you can easily scapegoat. But this is the time that it’s
gone—this is the first time that it’s gone this far, where, as this
action is happening, it’s also a way of—it seems to be cleaning out some
voter roll—you know, the voter rolls and people who could possibly be
voting. And it’s something that we have seen before, but never on this
large a scale.
AMY GOODMAN:
What are you calling for? I mean, you’ve joined together with other
writers in fiercely condemning what is happening. What do you think
needs to happen now?
EDWIDGE DANTICAT:
I think what needs to happen now is, first of all, awareness. I thank
you for covering it, because the general U.S. media, in general, has
been very silent about it. And so, for people to really inform
themselves about what’s happening, to write to your congresspeople. And
also, we are subsidizing, as Americans, the sugar industry in the
Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic gets the largest ration of
sugar subsidies, and [inaudible] to the U.S. So, you are—we are all
implicated in this. So, make sure that this—that your voice is heard.
Make sure you call your congresspeople, because lives depend on it.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much, Edwidge Danticat, for joining us, acclaimed Haitian-American novelist. Her latest book, Claire of the Sea Light.
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