Culture of the Dominican Republic

In a compelling story featured yesterday in the a correspondent elaborates on the long-time friction that has come to a tipping point between the people of African descent who identify as Dominicans, and the people of African descent who identify as Hatian.

According to the story, approximately 250, 000 Haitians will be made stateless, which will give Dominicans free reign to deport the Haitians who are in the Dominican Republic. Apparently, this has been an issue that started as early as 1822, after Haiti invaded and conquered the DR, thus freeing the slaves there in the process. Ninety years later, in 1912, the policymakers of the Dominican Republic mandated that there be a limit on how many “Black skinned” people could enter their country.

Fast forward to 2015, and the Dominicans are making a push to remove the Haitians from this area. The Dominican government has announced that it plans to give nationality back to those Haitians who were born in that nation, so long as they enroll with a civil registry. In reality, many other media outlets are only focusing on the political aspects of the Dominican/Haitian fallout. However, we as Melanoid people must be cognizant of the fact that this conflict stems from a place of self-hate and the Dominican Republic’s citizens’ willingness to identify with the European slave-owning Spanish who colonized the island.