Like I said this country makes me feel incredibly cynical, so sorry for the huge dose of negativity in this cluster of posts. But I couldn´t talk about the anti-Haitianism here without bringing up the other side of the coin, which is the terrible racial self-hatred here. Dominicans simply will not admit we are a black, African people. Our claims to the contrary are laughable. Most Dominicans would rather admit to being "indio", literally Indian, by which they mean to refer to the original Taino inhabitants of the Antilles than admit to being black. Therefore light-skinned mulattoes generally refer to themselves as "indio claro" and the darker-skinned refer to themselves as "indio oscuro." "Negro" or "prieto," the words for "black" are used exclusively for Haitians or to insult a dark-skinned Dominican. In addition, there are a innumerable other permutations to refer to variations of skin color, such as "trigueño", "cafe con leche", "jabao", etc. (wheat-colored, coffee with milk, untranslateable respectively). But, in my opinion, generally people recognize that there are four racial strata, white, light-skinned black, dark-skinned black and (black) Haitian in descending order of status.
What all of this leads to is a collective delusion and denial on the part of dominicans that is simply maddening. The darkest-skinned Dominicans who are most marginal to Dominican society, unfortunately, and in my opinion logically and by design, are the ones that feel the greatest need to reinforce the status differences between Dominicans and Haitians. Being here you are constantly bombarded with imagery, attitudes and sayings that reinforce that to be black is to be stupid and ugly and to be white is to be beautiful and smart. You constantly hear of "pelo bueno" (good hair) and "pelo malo" (bad hair). The vast majority of the women here straighten their hair in an attempt, however subconsciously, to attempt to look more European, more white. And although I understand that the attitude is pervasive and often afro-Dominican women are forced to straighten their hair in order to meet "professional" standards, I don't like it. This country needs a black pride movement.
The other annoying part of it all, is that the black self-hatred here makes this even more of a playground/paradise for white tourists. Cualquier trapo de gringa aqui es una reina. White men and women here are the most coveted sexual and marital partners, and when added with class and national power (that visa/green card) the romantic attractive potential of white tourists simply skyrockets. Again it is maddening because most of the white tourists here are not aware of how much they are valued for their lighter skin, and in doing so, most Dominicans reinforce the idea that they are not beautiful, not smart, not worthy. Que paisito!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Ignorance
I am Dominican. I am very proud of it. I don´t wish I was anything else. I just wish Dominicans weren´t so ignorant. It´s not that Dominicans are more or less ignorant than any other group of people (it may sound relativistic, but I think as a whole, I think societies tend to have the same balance of good and evil to them, and again it´s not like the United States is perfect, far from it) but I feel a greater sense of responsibility for the cultural attitudes and oppressive aspects of Dominican society. These are "my" people, so even though I have seen fucked up shit in lots of places, I don´t take it to heart like I the shit here to heart. And while I can´t blame the Dominican Republic for its poverty (even though the comprador class here is definitely part of the problem and deserves contempt) I can blame them for the terrible sexism and anti-black/anti-Haitian racism here (and lots not even get into the homophobia and classism). I knew that I couldn´t be in this country too long cause otherwise my head would explode. I knew that it was only a matter of time before I had to argue with some "so-dark-they-shine-purple" Dominican about how Haitians are not evil and destroying the Dominican Republic. The anti-Haitianism is simply out-of-control. During lunch last Thursday my cousin had the TV on and the news anchor was talking about how the Dominican Republic was suffering a "peaceful invasion" with over two million Haitians in the country. Clearly, the number was exaggerated. And again, it´s not like the United States isn´t an incredibly xenophobic and racist society, what makes the racism and xenophobia especially heinous here is that it is tied to a level of black self-hatred that I don´t think is known in the United States (or hopefully anywhere else, I pray that there is no greater group of self-hating black people on the planet, I can´t imagine a worse situation).
So far I have gotten into two arguments with Dominicans about the anti-Haitianism in the Dominican Republic. The first was last week when "el primo" was arguing that Haitians are lazy and all they do is "comer pan y beber refrescos el dia entero" (eat bread and drink soda all day). Of course that is a complete lie. I usually just let those comments slide, because I have realized that if I disputed every racist comment in this country I would have no time to sleep, eat or go to the bathroom. But that day I was feeling especially sensitive since I had spent the entire morning reading about Marxist economics on my cousin´s balcony as a group of Haitian men shoveled dirt and rocks to make cement and help some upper-middle-class Dominican like my cousin build another McMansion. Those men were anything but lazy, and I knew that they were working incredibly hard for pennies (no more than $3 a day). So I tried to explain to him that although immigration is a problem the real culprits are the Dominican individuals (many if not most Haitians in the Dominican Republic at this point work in construction, often of private residences) and firms that hire Haitian workers and pay them less than they would pay Dominican workers. Ultimately, there would be no Haitians in the Dominican Republic if the already weak labor laws were just minimally enforced (the same of course is true of the good ol´US of A). He conceded that I was right but then came with the even more racist argument that Haitians just want to unify the entire island which they have been trying to do since 1822 and that they simply want to impose their culture on us. Dominicans are just trying to protect their culture, he lamented. At that point, I just let it go. I knew the discussion was not going to go anywhere. I just hate the fact that so many Dominican immigrants can accuse other immigrants of doing the same thing that they are condemned for doing. In all of these discussions you can basically just subsitute Dominican for American and Haitian for Dominican, Mexican or shit, just say Haitian. The discourse would be the same. Just fill in the blank. Group X is lazy, brings crime, undermines our nation´s values and mores and is fundamentally different and inferior to us.
The second discussion occurred last night. I hate sounding so cynical, but the details are not necessary since the arguments about Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic almost always unfold in the same way. Dave and I tried to convince two of Dave´s friends that the differences between Haitians and Dominicans really are not that great, that we have much more in common. They insisted that we didn´t know what we were talking about since we were coming from abroad and didn´t understand all of the major differences. We argued that our "outside" perspective (shit, some parts of NYC may as well be part of DR at this point, Dominicans abroad are even allowed to vote in Dominican federal elections, and it´s not like there are a million of us in NYC or anything like that) allowed us to see that the differences truly were minimal. They insisted that they weren´t being racists that they merely wanted to protect Dominican culture. That they only opposed illegal immigration (cause when the police is rounding up Haitians for deportation here they really do check for legal status, yeah right). When Dave and I asked them to point to any major differences outside of language and religion between Dominicans and Haitians, they replied that there were major differences in customs. When pressed again to give ONE example, Dave´s friend said that Haitians had a fertility ritual where they rolled in the mud. He is not racist, however, he just wants Haitians to "stay on their side." It was clear that they weren´t going to be swayed to believe that Haitians are human beings, that they are not trying to "take over" our country based on some two-hundred-year-old grudge, and that Dominicans are treated the same way as Haitians in the US. By then I had had a couple of Presidentes and was just tired, so I decided to just put in both my pennies and fuck it if they didn´t agree with me then I was just going to lay it out there and say what I really believed. I told those fools that I was a socialist and I believed in a border-less world.
Then of course we got into the same debate about communism. The one where people tell you that communism is great on paper, but that in reality that shit doesn´t work because people are greedy and that I was being idealistic and really I should be happy with capitalism because it allowed me to own Armani glasses. After kicking myself for wearing Armani glasses, I made the argument that I would rather live in a world where everyone could have cheaper glasses, instead of some of us having Armani and others going blind. I told them I was going to Cuba and the argument continued to go in circles. Eventually Dave´s friend asked me if I would fuck a Cuban woman with a fat booty if she asked for my watch. It was his way of ending the argument. We could disagree about immigration, racism and communism, but in the end we were all men and could agree that women were just floating vaginas. Sexism is common ground. God bless the Dominican Republic.
So far I have gotten into two arguments with Dominicans about the anti-Haitianism in the Dominican Republic. The first was last week when "el primo" was arguing that Haitians are lazy and all they do is "comer pan y beber refrescos el dia entero" (eat bread and drink soda all day). Of course that is a complete lie. I usually just let those comments slide, because I have realized that if I disputed every racist comment in this country I would have no time to sleep, eat or go to the bathroom. But that day I was feeling especially sensitive since I had spent the entire morning reading about Marxist economics on my cousin´s balcony as a group of Haitian men shoveled dirt and rocks to make cement and help some upper-middle-class Dominican like my cousin build another McMansion. Those men were anything but lazy, and I knew that they were working incredibly hard for pennies (no more than $3 a day). So I tried to explain to him that although immigration is a problem the real culprits are the Dominican individuals (many if not most Haitians in the Dominican Republic at this point work in construction, often of private residences) and firms that hire Haitian workers and pay them less than they would pay Dominican workers. Ultimately, there would be no Haitians in the Dominican Republic if the already weak labor laws were just minimally enforced (the same of course is true of the good ol´US of A). He conceded that I was right but then came with the even more racist argument that Haitians just want to unify the entire island which they have been trying to do since 1822 and that they simply want to impose their culture on us. Dominicans are just trying to protect their culture, he lamented. At that point, I just let it go. I knew the discussion was not going to go anywhere. I just hate the fact that so many Dominican immigrants can accuse other immigrants of doing the same thing that they are condemned for doing. In all of these discussions you can basically just subsitute Dominican for American and Haitian for Dominican, Mexican or shit, just say Haitian. The discourse would be the same. Just fill in the blank. Group X is lazy, brings crime, undermines our nation´s values and mores and is fundamentally different and inferior to us.
The second discussion occurred last night. I hate sounding so cynical, but the details are not necessary since the arguments about Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic almost always unfold in the same way. Dave and I tried to convince two of Dave´s friends that the differences between Haitians and Dominicans really are not that great, that we have much more in common. They insisted that we didn´t know what we were talking about since we were coming from abroad and didn´t understand all of the major differences. We argued that our "outside" perspective (shit, some parts of NYC may as well be part of DR at this point, Dominicans abroad are even allowed to vote in Dominican federal elections, and it´s not like there are a million of us in NYC or anything like that) allowed us to see that the differences truly were minimal. They insisted that they weren´t being racists that they merely wanted to protect Dominican culture. That they only opposed illegal immigration (cause when the police is rounding up Haitians for deportation here they really do check for legal status, yeah right). When Dave and I asked them to point to any major differences outside of language and religion between Dominicans and Haitians, they replied that there were major differences in customs. When pressed again to give ONE example, Dave´s friend said that Haitians had a fertility ritual where they rolled in the mud. He is not racist, however, he just wants Haitians to "stay on their side." It was clear that they weren´t going to be swayed to believe that Haitians are human beings, that they are not trying to "take over" our country based on some two-hundred-year-old grudge, and that Dominicans are treated the same way as Haitians in the US. By then I had had a couple of Presidentes and was just tired, so I decided to just put in both my pennies and fuck it if they didn´t agree with me then I was just going to lay it out there and say what I really believed. I told those fools that I was a socialist and I believed in a border-less world.
Then of course we got into the same debate about communism. The one where people tell you that communism is great on paper, but that in reality that shit doesn´t work because people are greedy and that I was being idealistic and really I should be happy with capitalism because it allowed me to own Armani glasses. After kicking myself for wearing Armani glasses, I made the argument that I would rather live in a world where everyone could have cheaper glasses, instead of some of us having Armani and others going blind. I told them I was going to Cuba and the argument continued to go in circles. Eventually Dave´s friend asked me if I would fuck a Cuban woman with a fat booty if she asked for my watch. It was his way of ending the argument. We could disagree about immigration, racism and communism, but in the end we were all men and could agree that women were just floating vaginas. Sexism is common ground. God bless the Dominican Republic.
Whore Nation
Dave, two of his friends and I took off from Santo Domingo to Cabarete. We took a Caribe Tours bus to Sosua and then a guagua to Cabarete. Man, Cabarete. What can I say? The place is paradise. It has the white sand beaches, warm water and clear, sunny skies that the folks who created those annoying "Bahamavention" ads in the New York subways are trying to conjure. The place is truly beautiful. I hate it. Why? Because it presents global inequalities of nation, race, gender and sexuality in all of their sunny splendor. The whole place is run by and for rich white Europeans and North Americans. All of the hotels and bars are seemingly owned by expatriates (i hate that word by the way, cause it reminds me that in this world some of us get to be expats and others have to be immigrants). All of the inhabitants of the built-for-tourism-"development" town are either wealthier Westerners or Dominican and Haitian prostitutes. Cabarete is the kind of place where you see old white tourist men with deep tans and bear bellies having dinner or drinks with beautiful, young black women. Pretty much any woman of color that you see is a prostitute.
Dave´s friends were trying to meet women, and we realized soon that would be impossible in Cabarete. All of the local women were only too happy to approach us and "hang" out, but for a price of course. And most of the white female tourists we encountered apparently thought that we were male prostitutes. Dave and I met a group of five Norweigian women in Cabarete to learn kite-surfing, and they had the nerve to question us on our nationalities after we insisted that we really were Americans. I even showed one of them a copy of my passport, but she insisted that I spoke with an "accent." This from a woman from Norway, for whom English was clearly a second or third language. I was incredibly insulted. Once again, the color of my skin, my "background" deemed me less than. As a person of color, as a Dominican, I could not have been anything but a "sanky-panky," a male Dominican prositute. Later that night we did meet a cool group of American women, black and white, and discussed some of these issues, but I was still bitter about the experience. It reminded me that in this world there are countries that whore themselves to others. These Norweigian women could come here and make their racist assumptions and there was nothing I could do to stop them. There was no way for Dominican women to go to Norway and stereotype Norweigian men as hustlers and prostitutes. The Dominican Republic needs euros and dollars, and now that sugar is worthless the only thing left to sell is ourselves. Either way we have to get that foreign exchange, be it by exporting people (emigration) or through tourism, and either way we remain dependent on the economies of the core countries for our "development." If they have money then we get some of the crumbs, and if they don´t then they pass more restrictive immigration laws and the resorts remain empty.
Dave´s friends were trying to meet women, and we realized soon that would be impossible in Cabarete. All of the local women were only too happy to approach us and "hang" out, but for a price of course. And most of the white female tourists we encountered apparently thought that we were male prostitutes. Dave and I met a group of five Norweigian women in Cabarete to learn kite-surfing, and they had the nerve to question us on our nationalities after we insisted that we really were Americans. I even showed one of them a copy of my passport, but she insisted that I spoke with an "accent." This from a woman from Norway, for whom English was clearly a second or third language. I was incredibly insulted. Once again, the color of my skin, my "background" deemed me less than. As a person of color, as a Dominican, I could not have been anything but a "sanky-panky," a male Dominican prositute. Later that night we did meet a cool group of American women, black and white, and discussed some of these issues, but I was still bitter about the experience. It reminded me that in this world there are countries that whore themselves to others. These Norweigian women could come here and make their racist assumptions and there was nothing I could do to stop them. There was no way for Dominican women to go to Norway and stereotype Norweigian men as hustlers and prostitutes. The Dominican Republic needs euros and dollars, and now that sugar is worthless the only thing left to sell is ourselves. Either way we have to get that foreign exchange, be it by exporting people (emigration) or through tourism, and either way we remain dependent on the economies of the core countries for our "development." If they have money then we get some of the crumbs, and if they don´t then they pass more restrictive immigration laws and the resorts remain empty.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Que paisito
No he llegado a Africa. Unfortunately life intervened. Pero si he llegado a un pequeno rincon de Africa llamado la Republica Dominicana. Now, I have not been to all of the black countries of the world (I wish I could, but there is no way I can get that much more money from Harvard) but I can say with Harvardian arrogance, that there is no greater group of self-hating black people on the planet than Dominicans.
I arrived in Santiago last Tuesday. I remember when coming to the Dominican Republic was an event. We would arrive late at night and there would be a bus full of relatives to pick us up. For days afterward my sisters and I would sit in our grandmother's living room and our relatives would simply stare at us, as if they couldn't believe that we really existed. They would monitor our every move and follow us around the house. I guess now with (corporate-led) globalization the world really has gotten smaller. This time around a visit here felt damn near routine. My one cousin picked me up (no entourage this time) and we drove the fifteen minutes to my grandmother's house. Once there every one acted like they had seen me a week or two ago instead of almost two years ago. It was nice, but since I had been gearing myself up for awkward stares and questions it was a slightly disconcerting.
Moca seemingly never changes. Everyone complains about how terrible the economic situation is. Everyone is fatter. Everyone is working the same jobs as before. The pace of life remains SLOW. When I went to get a shape-up on Thursday, there was no one in the barber shop. The barber was actually next door having a beer. Que pueblecito!
After three night and two days in Moca, I was ready to leave. It´s a comfortable existence, reading for several hours a day, getting stuffed with food, talking with the my grandmother and aunts and hearing them complain all day about how women nowadays are just no good and are willing to leave with their boyfriends without a chaperone (of course, they never mention how the men have never been held to the same moral standard, the dog-like behavior is simply expected here) and sleeping a lot. Now that "development" has allowed for greater material wealth more people in my family have inverters securing the electricity supply and more of them have running water and toilets. Still if I stayed I would never do anything more exciting than a trip to the local internet cafe so I had to go.
Friday morning I took of for Santo Domingo. I was glad to see that the vans that took me from Moca to Santo Domingo in 2005 have been replaced by nice, Greyhound-style buses. The bus ride was comfortable and cheap ($4, beat that Chinatown bus!) but of course they had to turn the air-conditioning up to the point where all the passengers where shivering in their T-shirts. Though I must admit, that I do miss the vans that used to make the trip before. Riding in those was always an adventure. There was no schedule, the bus would leave only when filled, and they meant filled. My favorite part was that after cramming in with at least twenty passengers into a 12-passenger van, the driver would still stop to pick people off the side of the highway. I could never imagine a bus driver picking people off I-95 between NYC and DC.
When the bus arrived to Santo Domingo I immediately remembered the controlled chaos (paradox or oxymoron?) that is a Third World (don´t hate on the word, I still think it has much relevance and is better than all of the other euphemisms, like "developing" which imply that shit is actually getting better and that the measure of humanity should be the incredibly-fucked up United States of America, and what else should we say "dirt-poor country," maybe "peripheral"?) metropolis. No one obeys traffic laws and simple rules like lanes and redlights simply aren´t followed here.
My cab ride to Dave Bayne´s place in El Portal was a case in point. My cabdriver backed up into traffic at least three times when he learned that he couldn´t turn left a couple of times because of construction for the Santo Domingo subway. He cut several people off and cursed out at least three other drivers in the course of 45 minutes. Then of course near the university (UASD) he saw one of his girlfriends and gave her a ride supposedly in the same direction as I was going. Then to top it all of, he ripped me off on the price. I knew it was too much, and when I protested he said that the price of gas was really expensive and the economic situation was rough. I gave him the money anyway. Que paisito!
I arrived in Santiago last Tuesday. I remember when coming to the Dominican Republic was an event. We would arrive late at night and there would be a bus full of relatives to pick us up. For days afterward my sisters and I would sit in our grandmother's living room and our relatives would simply stare at us, as if they couldn't believe that we really existed. They would monitor our every move and follow us around the house. I guess now with (corporate-led) globalization the world really has gotten smaller. This time around a visit here felt damn near routine. My one cousin picked me up (no entourage this time) and we drove the fifteen minutes to my grandmother's house. Once there every one acted like they had seen me a week or two ago instead of almost two years ago. It was nice, but since I had been gearing myself up for awkward stares and questions it was a slightly disconcerting.
Moca seemingly never changes. Everyone complains about how terrible the economic situation is. Everyone is fatter. Everyone is working the same jobs as before. The pace of life remains SLOW. When I went to get a shape-up on Thursday, there was no one in the barber shop. The barber was actually next door having a beer. Que pueblecito!
After three night and two days in Moca, I was ready to leave. It´s a comfortable existence, reading for several hours a day, getting stuffed with food, talking with the my grandmother and aunts and hearing them complain all day about how women nowadays are just no good and are willing to leave with their boyfriends without a chaperone (of course, they never mention how the men have never been held to the same moral standard, the dog-like behavior is simply expected here) and sleeping a lot. Now that "development" has allowed for greater material wealth more people in my family have inverters securing the electricity supply and more of them have running water and toilets. Still if I stayed I would never do anything more exciting than a trip to the local internet cafe so I had to go.
Friday morning I took of for Santo Domingo. I was glad to see that the vans that took me from Moca to Santo Domingo in 2005 have been replaced by nice, Greyhound-style buses. The bus ride was comfortable and cheap ($4, beat that Chinatown bus!) but of course they had to turn the air-conditioning up to the point where all the passengers where shivering in their T-shirts. Though I must admit, that I do miss the vans that used to make the trip before. Riding in those was always an adventure. There was no schedule, the bus would leave only when filled, and they meant filled. My favorite part was that after cramming in with at least twenty passengers into a 12-passenger van, the driver would still stop to pick people off the side of the highway. I could never imagine a bus driver picking people off I-95 between NYC and DC.
When the bus arrived to Santo Domingo I immediately remembered the controlled chaos (paradox or oxymoron?) that is a Third World (don´t hate on the word, I still think it has much relevance and is better than all of the other euphemisms, like "developing" which imply that shit is actually getting better and that the measure of humanity should be the incredibly-fucked up United States of America, and what else should we say "dirt-poor country," maybe "peripheral"?) metropolis. No one obeys traffic laws and simple rules like lanes and redlights simply aren´t followed here.
My cab ride to Dave Bayne´s place in El Portal was a case in point. My cabdriver backed up into traffic at least three times when he learned that he couldn´t turn left a couple of times because of construction for the Santo Domingo subway. He cut several people off and cursed out at least three other drivers in the course of 45 minutes. Then of course near the university (UASD) he saw one of his girlfriends and gave her a ride supposedly in the same direction as I was going. Then to top it all of, he ripped me off on the price. I knew it was too much, and when I protested he said that the price of gas was really expensive and the economic situation was rough. I gave him the money anyway. Que paisito!
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