Not a Cockfight: Rethinking Haitian-Dominican Relations Author(S): Samuel Martinez Source: Latin American Perspectives, Vol

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Not a Cockfight: Rethinking Haitian-Dominican Relations Author(s): Samuel Martinez Source: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 30, No. 3, Popular Participation against Neoliberalism (May, 2003), pp. 80-101 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3185037 Accessed: 20/07/2009 13:59

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http://www.jstor.org Not a Cockfight RethinkingHaitian-Dominican Relations by Samuel Martinez

Michele Wucker's Whythe Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Strugglefor Hispaniola powerfully conveys the message that Haiti and the Dominican Republic are, like two fighting cocks, locked in an all-out struggle for preeminence. "The corneredrat, the cock in a ring, the boisterous young man:all of them fight to defend territory,"Wucker (1999: 238) writes, citing the ethologistKonrad Lorenz: "When a creatureis attacked,its options areto fightback or flee.... On Hispaniola,geographic, economic, andpolitical pressureshave intensifiedurges to aggressionand elaboratemechanisms for escape."Written in vivid, nonacademicprose, Whythe Cocks Fight has rapidlybecome the first-and for many,I suspect, the only-book that people turn to for informationabout Haitian-Dominicanrelations. What concerns me is not just the book's popularitybut the old ideas to which it gives new life. Wucker perpetuates two of the most questionable, if widely accepted,ideas aboutrelations between the two countries.The firstis thatthe citizens of Haiti and the Dominican Republic are consumedwith animosity towardtheir island neighbors. The second is thatthe two nationsare engaged in some sort of contest for control over the island of Hispaniola.These two assertions constitute the core of a "fatal-conflict model" of Dominican- Haitian relationsthat I aim to call into question in what follows.

Samuel Martinezhas done extensive ethnographicfieldwork with Haitianmigrants and return- ees in both the DominicanRepublic and Haitiand has publisheda book on this topic. Withfund- ing from the MacArthurFoundation-Social Science Research Council's Programon Global Security and Cooperation,he is now doing research comparing the modes of activism and knowledge productionpursued by internationalhuman rights NGOs and Haitian-Dominican rightsorganizations. A firstversion of this articlewas presentedat the conference"The Domini- can Republic:Caribbean Leadership, Trade, and Migration,"February 20, 2001, hosted by the Summitof the AmericasCenter, Florida International University, Miami, FL. The authorthanks Monica van Beusekom and the conference organizer,Iyonka Strawn.Funding for additional research in 2002 was provided by a grant from the MacArthurFoundation-Social Science Research Council's Programon Global Security and Cooperation.The contributionsof LAP reviewers Emelio Betances, Alex Dupuy, and HilbourneWatson are also gratefully acknowl- edged. All views expressed are the author's,as is responsibilityfor any errors. LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 130, Vol. 30 No. 3, May 2003 80-101 DOI: 10. 177/0094582X03252289 ? 2003 Latin AmericanPerspectives

80 Martinez/ RETHINKINGHAITIAN-DOMINICAN RELATIONS 81

The idea thatthe two nationsare fatedto be enemies is an old one. In spite of or perhapsbecause of its age, the fatal-conflictmodel has rarelybeen sys- tematically formulatedor even announcedor defended openly as a theory, even by its academic exponents.That none of the publishedreviews of Why the CocksFight has takenissue with Wucker'sgeneral message seems to confirm that many knowledgeable people consider the existence of an all-out conflict between the two nations to be a fact. Two recent scholarlybooks- Race and Politics in the Dominican Republic,by ErnestoSagas (2000), and Coloring the Nation, by David Howard(2001)-have given extended scru- tiny to Haitian-Dominicanrelations but are almost as one-sided as Wucker's in identifyingtheir interestsas lying not in Dominicanviews of Haiti generally but in anti-Haitianideology alone. Neither scholargives extended con- siderationto past and present instancesof cooperationand evidence of con- verging interests among the Haitian and Dominican people and their governments.Were the whole story to be told, the end productwould be a story so full of contradictoryemotions and impulses-oftenderness andvio- lence, love and hatred,incorporation and rejectionof the Haitian"other" that no theme as monolithic as "anti-Haitianideology" could contain it.

THE FATAL-CONFLICTMODEL

The fatal-conflictmodel has manyfewer dogmaticproponents than casual propagators,but althoughvaguely defined it has identifiablepremises: 1. Each country is fated to regardthe other as its main foreign nemesis, whether because of racially inspired animosity, misunderstandingsstem- ming from their culturaldifferences, or the need to carve out living room for its growing population. 2. The two nations are engaged in a total conflict in at least three ways: First,the conflict involvespeople at all statuslevels, fromthe political leadership and the commercialelite down to the peasantsand urbanlumpenprole- tariat.In other words, "nations"means not just the Haitian and Dominican states but their people. Second, instances of cooperationor mutual understanding between Haitians and Dominicans are rare and perhaps nonexis- tent.1Third, what is at stake is controlof the island of Hispaniola,with "control"being defined in such a way as to permit all attemptsat dominationor instancesof strugglebetween Haitiansand Dominicans to serve as evidence. 3. To the degree thatthe conflict involves people of all social statusesand is waged for dominationat the highest possible level, the survivalof the two nations as culturalentities ultimately hangs in the balance. The conflict is "fatal,"then, because it is not only predestinedbut a fight to the death. 82 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Far be it from me to suggest that there are no fundamentalconflicts between Haiti andthe DominicanRepublic. There is no way to painta happy face overthe graveproblems that divide the two countries.On the Dominican side, for example, openly racist expressions of hostility toward Haitians abound. Haitian immigrantshave been victimized and denied basic rights, including due process in deportationproceedings and citizenship even for those born in the Dominican Republic (Human Rights Watch, 2002). No numberof counterexamplesof acceptanceand influence of Haitiancultural practicesin the Dominican Republic can negate the fact that there is strong opposition to Haitianimmigration among some sectors of Dominican society.2Perhaps even more important,people of both nationalitiesbut especially manyDominicans believe themselvesto be utterlydifferent from and incom- patible with their neighbors from across the island. Acceptance of this idea generatesunwarranted pessimism and provides leaders on either side of the island with a ready-maderationale for not tryingharder to improverelations with theirisland neighbors. The fatal-conflictmodel also has importantnega- tive consequences for the Dominican Republic's standingin the world. The allegationthat Dominicans are implacablyhostile to all things Haitianis tar- nishing the Dominican Republic's image in internationalrelations, particu- larly when it is linked to explosive allegationsthat Haitianmigrant workers are enslaved on Dominican sugarplantations.3 While it is undeniablethat anti-Haitianfeeling and ideology are a central part of Dominican nationalism,insufficient research has been given to why and when anti-haitianismobecame so important.I cannotpretend to answer these questionsbut soonerconsider my taskhere to be clearingaway old mis- conceptionsand half-truths that through uncritical repetition have come to be takenas fact. I aim to show thatviewing the Dominican-Haitianrelationship as a fatalconflict has little foundationin what scholarsknow aboutthe historical compositionand the present-daybeliefs, values, and ways of life of people on either side of the border. Concerningthe historicalorigins of anti-haitianismo,it can be said with certaintythat the regime of the Dominicandictator Rafael LeonidasTrujillo (1930 to 1961) aggressivelypropagated anti-Haitian ideology througha vari- ety of means, includingthe schools, broadcastand print media, national com- memorationsand holidays, andparticipation in the all-powerfulruling party. Although anti-Haitianfeeling may not be the creationof elite discourse and certainlypredated Trujillo, it surely owes its prominencein Dominican culture and politics largely to government propagandaduring and after the Trujilloregime. At the same time, Trujilloand his successorsnot only permit- ted the recruitmentof bracerosfrom Haiti but broughtthis recruitmentand the sugar industry that it served under progressively greater government Martinez/ RETHINKINGHAITIAN-DOMINICAN RELATIONS 83 control (Martinez,1999). Official policy towardHaiti has thus been double- edged. Anti-Haitianpropaganda puts forwardthe Haitian immigrantas a scapegoat for problems in the Dominican political economy while state- sponsoredimmigration from Haiti has createda mass of malleablenonunion labor.4 It also bears noting from the outset that the fatal-conflictmodel approxi- mates Dominican perspectives more fully than it reflects Haitian perspectives. It is little exaggerationto say that for most Haitians the Dominican Republic might as well be on the other side of the planet or is at most that sugar-plantationnetherworld that swallows up the most desperateof Haiti's emigrants.5Few in Haiti, elite or working-class,perceive their countryto be engaged in a struggle for supremacywith the Dominican Republic or with any othernation. Most insteadsee theircountry engaged in a strugglefor sur- vival in which the DominicanRepublic plays only a minor,if largelyantago- nistic, part. Contraryto the fatal-conflict model, most Haitians probably underestimatethe importanceof the Dominican Republic to their country generallyand have little accurateknowledge of its place in the survivalstrate- gies of the hundredsof thousandsof their compatriotswho live across the border. Surely, the Dominican Republic has low visibility in part because those Haitianswho go to the DominicanRepublic are drawn from the poorest and least vocal segmentsof society. But whateverthe reasons,the Dominican obsession with Haiti is an unrequitedpassion: Haitians do not regardDomin- icans with anythinglike the same feeling as thatof Dominicanslooking upon Haitians.6 These observationsalone call into doubtthat the conflict between the two countries stems primarilyfrom ancient or quasi-instinctiveanimosities and raise questionsabout who the main partiesare and what interestsare in play. It would be inaccurateto say thatthe conflict involves the totality of the two nationsor even matchestwo partiesof equal strength.Instead, the conflict is at base about immigrationfrom Haiti, and the main partiesto it are the large mass of immigrantsand their advocates, Dominican and international, versus the political power holders who have an interest in making an issue out of "uncontrolled"immigration and the economic power holders who wish to secure cheaper,more easily disciplined labor from Haiti. The fatal-conflict model distractsus fromthese issues throughits exaggeratedemphasis on past instances of conflict and culturaldifferences between the two countries. I approachthese issues as a culturalanthropologist with more than three years of accumulated fieldwork in Haitian migrant communities on both sides of the island. The more I studythe Dominican-Haitianrelationship, the more I become awareof how many unansweredquestions surroundit, especially concerning Dominicans' varied attitudestoward Haiti, Haitians, and 84 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES blackness. One thing that does emerge clearly from my fieldworkis thatthe people of the two nations do not confronteach other in unmitigatedenmity but are bound togetherin a more complex weave of mutualfascination and repulsion,attraction and dislike, respectand fear.This does not mean thatthe tensions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic have easy answers. It does call for more careful study of just where the conflicts lie. Most of my essay is given overto questioningof the historicaland cultural premisesof the fatal-conflictmodel. Culturalexchanges between the eastern andwestern sides beganeven beforethe HaitianRevolution brought an end to slavery on the island and only acceleratedwith the independenceof each nationfrom Europeanrule (Baud, 1996:142). Examiningthe historyof their relationshipand comparingelements of the two nations'cultures, I conclude that the fatal-conflictmodel has been and can be sustainedonly by ignoring mountainsof evidence of past and presentunderstanding and collaboration between the two countries'people, who share so much culturallythat their beliefs, values, andways of life oughtto be-and I suspectoften are-a basis for mutualtrust and understanding rather than a source of suspicion and fear. Throughthis path, I hope also to identify some of the real points of conflict and sketch an alternative understanding of the Haitian-Dominican relationship.

HISTORY

The idea that"the problem" between the two countriesbegan with Haiti's early-nineteenth-centuryattempts at political domination over the entire islandhas wide currencyin the DominicanRepublic. On theirway in to Santo Domingo fromthe AeropuertoInteracional Las Americas,the video crew of the PBS documentaryseries Americas filmed its cab driveroffering the following-apparently spontaneous-explanation for the existence of antiblack prejudice among Dominicans: "We deny that we are mulatto. Blacks aremarginalized and treated badly in this country.There is a complete denial of blackness in this country.All this hatredof black people began in 1822, when the Haitians invadedthe Dominican Republic. They wanted to take over the country.This hatredstarted to grow in our nationalconscious- ness, becausethey wantedto trampleus" (WGBH, 1993). Forwords like these to be spokenby a cab driverseems to give strongsupport to JamesFerguson's (1992: 15) contentionthat "the alleged mistreatmentof the formerSpanish colony by the Haitiansis still considereda justifiablereason for anti-Haitian feeling and national security concerns in today's Dominican Republic."7 Similarly, LarmanWilson (1973: 19, my translation)begins his essay on Martinez/ RETHINKINGHAITIAN-DOMINICAN RELATIONS 85

Dominican and Haitian foreign policy by attributingprimary causal impor- tance to "thelegacy of the violent historyof the islandof Hispaniola,"including "attitudesbased on racial concerns":"Whereas Haiti obtained its independence from a European power, the Dominican Republic obtained its independencein 1844 after22 years of Haitianoccupation. The harshnessof the Haitianoccupation, later exaggeratedand incorporatedinto Dominican folklore, produced in that predominantlymulatto country a hatredtoward blacks and a fear of Haitian'Ethiopianization.' " Some writersare even more directin positing thatthe events of over 150 years ago still have a directinflu- ence on the feelings of Dominicanstoday: "The harsh Boyer dictatorshipleft a legacy of deep Dominican loathingand distrustof theirHaitian neighbors" (Plant, 1987: 10). "The accumulatedprejudice and hatredof two centuries andan ingrainedanti-Haitian instinct... runsthrough every sectorof Domin- ican society" (Ferguson, 1992: 91). Similar opinions are voiced not just by scholars and ordinarypeople but by highly placed government officials. According to Haiti's foreign minister, Fritz Longchamp,"There's [still] a deep-seatedsuspicion between the two countriesbecause of whatthe Domin- icans perceive has been done to them by Haiti and vice versa" (Navarro, 1999). Many historicalfacts are at variancewith this consistentand overwhelm- ing emphasis on acts of war, treachery,and brutality.Thanks largely to the work of the revisionist generation of Dominican historians and historical sociologists of the 1970s, including FrankMoya Pons, RobertoCassa, and FranklinFranco, we possess a handfulof highly detailed,authoritative alternative readings of the Dominican past. Contraryto what is propoundedby official Dominicanmedia and accountsof Haitian-Dominicanrelations written in the fatal-conflictmode, Haiti did not in fact invadethe East in 1822 but was instead invited to enter. In the days immediately following Niunezde Caceres'sproclamation of the independentstate of "HaitiEspaniol," mayors and popularjuntas in a numberof towns in the interiordenounced independence without abolition as an "antisocialmeasure" and appealedto Haiti's Presi- dent Boyer to intervene(Franco, 1993: 176-177; Moya Pons, 1972: 34). The Haitians, for their part, enteredthe East not out of greed or distrustof their Spanish-speakingneighbors but primarily to bolster their eastern flank against the threat of attack by France or another Europeanpower (Moya Pons, 1972: 22-23). Once in power,Haitian government was of course not universallypopular in the Spanish-speakingEast. Dominicanswere sharplydivided over unifica- tion with Haiti and in theirperceptions of Haitianrule. It is, even so, significant that only a small minority,made up of the Catholic clergy and white criollo landowners,stood from the first in oppositionto Haiti (Franco, 1993: 86 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

182-184). The restof the populationseemed initiallyto regardHaitian rule as the lesser of two evils. When we think aboutthe sources of widespreadsup- port for political integrationwith Haiti, it cannotbe forgottenthat the Haitian army twice liberatedAfro-Dominicans from slavery, in 1801 and again in 1822. It is almost never mentionedthat, for nearly 20 years of their 22-year reign,the Haitian"occupiers" held powernot with theirown troopsbut solely with regiments recruitedamong the Spanish-speakingblack, mulatto, and white men of the easternpart of the island (Franco, 1993: 181). On the cul- turalfront, attempts to impose use of the Frenchlanguage in primaryschools and official documents inspiredresentment in the East (Moya Pons, 1972: 86). Yetwidespread discontent with Haitianrule was not immediatebut arose primarily after 1836, when a major global economic downturnmade the weight of taxes imposedby the Haitiangovernment seem less bearableto the residentsof the East (Franco,1993: 189-191). Up until thatpoint, blacks and mulattosin the East regardedHaitian rule as an improvementupon the Span- ish colonial governmentthat had precededit and consideredit preferableto living underan independentbut white-dominated state. The Haitiansnot only abolishedthe loathsomeinstitution of slaverybut brought about greater pros- peritythrough land reformand the opening of ports in the East to legal com- merce with othernations (Franco, 1993: 186-188). It is significantthat even after Dominican independence,in 1844, certain Afro-Dominicanstook up arms out of fear that slavery would be reimposedafter the Haitiansgave up power (Franco, 1977: 161; Moya Pons, 1974: 21). The point is clear:the periodof unificationwith Haiti, so often identified as the founding moment of the Haitian-Dominicanconflict, was neither an "invasion"nor an "occupation,"nor do the historical facts concerning this period sustainthe notion of a fatal enmity between the two countries.Unfor- tunately,accounts written in the fatal-conflictvein perpetuatethe myth that the two states and their people have always been at odds with each other. Thus,the fatal-conflictmodel standsin the way of correctingthe anti-Haitian bias that generationsof Dominicanshave had etched into the minds by their country's schools and official informationmedia. The fatal-conflictnarra- tives of historyof today echo the extremepessimism of Dominicanhistorians and social observers of the era of Trujillo, including Joaquin Balaguer, Emilio RodriguezDemorizi, and ManuelArturo Pefia Batlle. Much could be written about the enduring and generally unremarkedinfluence of these state-authorizedhistorians of the Trujilloera on today's receivedideas about Haitian-Dominicanrelations. Their totally negative appraisalof relations with Haiti and theirsense thatthe two nationswere fatedto be enemies from the very momentthe islandof Hispaniolaceased to be unifiedunder Spanish rule to this day constitute the default template for writing the history of Martinez/ RETHINKINGHAITIAN-DOMINICAN RELATIONS 87

Haitian-Dominicanrelations.8 Suffice it here to add thatthe anti-Haitianhis- toriographyof the Trujillo era differs even so from today's fatal-conflict model to the degree that scholars of today tend to regardboth sides, Haitian and Dominican,with "totalnegativity" while the anti-Haitianthinkers of old attributedmalevolent intent only to the Haitians.Thus even observerswho are overtly sympatheticto the Haitian cause can write in the fatal-conflict mode. Whatholds truefor most interpretationsof the periodof directHaitian rule over Santo Domingo holds also for the prevailingwisdom concerning the entire subsequenthistory of Haitian-Dominicanrelations. History written accordingto the fatal-conflictmodel gives privilegedplace to the sheddingof blood andtears, and it ignoresevidence of mutualunderstanding and collabo- rationbetween the two nations, as occurredwhen Haiti gave supportto the Dominicans'final strugglefor independencefrom Spain,in 1865. Lastly,the fatal-conflictmodel gives an appearanceof simplicity and immutabilityto a complex relationshipwhose lines have been redrawnrepeatedly over the course of the past four centuries. Recent historical studies of the Haitian- Dominican borderlands suggest, for example, that the social boundary between the two nations has not always been so clear as it seems today, the Dominican urban elite of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries showing as much disdain for and racismtoward the Dominicansof the fron- tier zone as it did towardthe Haitians living there (Baud, 1993; Derby and Turits, 1993).

THE "HAITIAN CARD"

After making a requiredstop in the 1822-1844 period, virtually every exposition of the fatal-conflict theory (except for those whose authorsare openly hostile to Haitianimmigration) makes a second obligatorystop at the political crucifixionof the late Jose FranciscoPefia G6mez. Accounts of the 1994 and 1996 Dominican presidentialelections illustrate how the many lights and shadowsof Dominicanattitudes toward Haitians and blackness are smoothedout into a monochromaticanti-Haitianism and racism by observers writingin the fatal-conflictmode (Howard,2001: Chap.7; Sagas, 2000:105- 115; Wucker, 1999: 161-162, 188-195). During his campaign for the Dominican presidency, Pefia's Haitian ancestry made him the target of openly racist slurs and innuendoes of hidden disloyalty to the Dominican Republic. It is virtually established fact that this smear campaign swung enough votes against him to cost him the election of 1996. He may in fact have won in 1994; evidence of balloting irregularitieswas so widespreadthat 88 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

President Balaguer was obligated after the election to accept a two-year ratherthan a four-yearterm of office. Even as Pefia'stravails are gone over again and again in popularand academic treatmentsof racism Dominican-style,it is neverpondered how Pefia came within a hair'sbreadth of winning the presidencyin 1994 and 1996 in spite of the virulenthate campaignwaged againsthim. Who are these nearly 50 percentof Dominicanswho were so unperturbedby Pefia'sblackness and presumed Haitian ancestry that they voted to place the country's highest political office in his hands? I know of only one scholar (Torres-Saillant, 1998: 133) who has paused to ask the obvious question:considering that a nearmajority of Dominicanvoters chose el haitiano (the termby which Peiia was widely referredto on the streetsof SantoDomingo) to be theirpresident, does anti-Haitianismreally have so powerfula hold on Dominican imagina- tions as most observersseem to think?9In most accounts,Pefia's plight is evidence of a feeling of repugnancefor Haitiand Haitians so strongthat the mere labelingof someone or somethingas "Haitian"is enoughto send all Domini- cans scurrying.Clearly, the reality is more complex, and a balancedaccount may be possible only once the sourcesof Pefia'ssupport, including the virtual cult of personalitythat his supportersbuilt up aroundhim and preserveeven afterhis death,are givenjust as serious studyas the terribleracism and xeno- phobiathat he enduredin life.10It is nonethelesstroubling that reporters, col- umnists,political cartoonists, and other opinion makers joined in the Haitian- bashing,with no apparentmisgivings abouthow theirracism and xenophobia might be coarseningthe Dominican democraticprocess. Yet there is reason to doubt that the majorityof Dominicans accorded much respect to these mediaracists and Haitianophobes. While it cannotbe doubtedthat there were many people for whom Pefia'sHaitianness and blacknesswere a majorcon- cern, they probablydo not amountto more than the 20 percent or more of Dominican voters who made up Pefia's hard-corebase of electoral support (Howard,2001: 162-163). AlthoughPefia's downfall illustrates the lingering importanceof the "Haitiancard" in Dominicanpolitics, it does not provide unambiguousevidence of a nearly universalrepulsion among Dominicans against all things Haitian. Thereis also considerableevidence thatlarge segmentsof the Dominican population,perhaps especially those who have frequentdaily contact with Haitians, do not reject all things Haitian. Even though the Haitians who reside in the sugar company compounds and work camps (bateyes) are largely segregatedfrom the mainstreamof Dominicansociety (Dore Cabral, 1987), few live entirelywithout meaningful contact with Dominicans.In all but perhapsthe most remote camps, Haitiansand Dominicans live in close proximity and mingle constantly in their daily affairs. In the Batey Monte Martinez/ RETHINKINGHAITIAN-DOMINICAN RELATIONS 89

Coca on the Ingenio Consuelo estate, where I lived doing ethnographicfieldwork for 12 months, the two groups are bound togetherby ties of reciprocal aid between households, cooperationat work and at leisure, and mixtureof the two ethnicities through intermarriage.It is remarkablehow much less common it is to hear haitiano said in an insultingmanner there than in those neighborhoodsin the capitalcity of Santo Domingo in which fewer Haitians are to be seen. The evidence is equivocal,but severalwriters (Howard, 2001: 35; Murphy,1991: 139-140; Newton, 1980: 94) confirm that the more frequently Dominicans interactwith Haitiansas neighborsand coworkers,the less likely they are to voice anti-Haitiansentiments."1 My experience sug- gests that in any one of several hundredwork camps and urban slums one would find Dominican residentswho speak of their Haitianneighbors with respect and even affection. What, then, of opinion surveys (Equipo ONE-RESPE, 1994: Chap. 5; Howard, 2001: 35; Sagas, 2000: 78-88; Vega, 1993: 36) that find that a majorityof Dominicans hold strongprejudices against Haitians?This find- ing is not necessarily anomalous. First, most Dominicans do not have frequent egalitarianexchanges with Haitians,and thus those who are in a posi- tion to enjoy cordial relations with Haitians are simply not the majority. Second, it is often observed that people's general appraisalsof a group or institutiondiffer from their attitudestoward known, particularindividuals or examples of these groups or institutions,as when North American parents say that public education is in shambles even as they insist that the public schools their childrenattend are just fine. In like manner,one and the same personmay expressboth negativefeelings aboutHaitian immigration generally and positive feelings about the Haitianswho live next door or down the streetor alleyway. It is hardto say which is more significant,the generalper- ceptions of Haitians capturedby the decontextualizedquestions posed by opinion surveysor theirpersonalized and context-specificviews on the same topic. But the incommensurabilityof these sources mattersless in my opinion than the need for more context-specific informationto round out our understandingsof what Dominicans of differentbackgrounds really think about Haitians. Muchthe same can be said aboutDominicans' attitudes toward blacks and blackness.Even as a numericallysizable minorityof Dominicansvoices bla- tantly racist sentiments,it is common for people of lower-incomegroups to identify themselvesand their loved ones as "blacks"in song and folklore.For examples one need look no fartherthan the lyrics of the bachata,the popular song-dance genre that provides an omnipresentauditory accompaniment to life in the Dominican Republic's urbanslums and ruralwork camps. In her groundbreakingmonograph on bachata, DeborahPacini Hermandez(1995) 90 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES defines it socially andhistorically as the music of the ruralproletariat and the urbanworking classes. Until recent years dismissed as unspeakablyvulgar by the Dominicanmiddle and upper classes, bachata'spotential as an archive of the voices of los de abajo remainsalmost entirelyuntapped by scholars. In bachatait is commonfor the singeror his beloved or bothto be "black." According to Pacini Hermandez(1995: 135), "the commonly used terms negro/a,prieto/a, moreno/a-all terms for black or darkmen or women clearly situated the singers, their mates, and, by extension, their audience within an Afro-Dominican social context." Martinez Pacini Hernandez (1995: 135-36) cites verses fromBolivar Peralta's "Espero por mi morena"as evidence that this singer regardsdark women as "preferableto indias and blondes because they betterunderstand their men-who, by implication,are also dark."In this song, Peraltaexpresses affection for andpraises the beauty of women of all colors-white, brownand black-but expressesa final pref- erencefor the blackwoman with whom a greaterunderstanding is possible.12 Such popularcelebrations of blacknesssuggest thatscholars stand to gain by more closely studying the subjective formulationsof identity of those Dominicanswho have darkskin and stand low in the social hierarchy.Only thus may we achieve an understandingof the social constructionof race that is less one-sided and monolithic than the often repeated observation that Dominicansconsider themselves not blackbut ratherone or anothershade of brown (Charles, 1992: 151; Sagas, 2000: 36-37).

A CLASH OF CULTURES?

At the symbolic surrenderof the keys to the city of SantoDomingo to Hai- tian PresidentJean-Pierre Boyer, in 1822, Niunezde Caceres warned,"The word is the instrumentof communicationamong men, and if they do not understandeach other throughthe organof speech, there is no communica- tion; and thus you see here a wall of separationas naturaland insuperable as ... the Alps or the Pyrenees"(Rodriguez Demorizi, 1975: 17, my translation). These have gone down as prophetic words in Dominican history. Accordingto fatal-conflicttheorists, the differencesin language,values, and worldviewbetween the two nationsare so vast thatthey add up to a "clashof cultures."Ferguson (1992: 8) writes, "Witha radicallydifferent history, language, and set of culturaltraditions, Haiti inspires fear and dislike among many Dominicans."Although the evidence about the social isolation of the Haitianimmigrants and the allegedly unmitigatedhostility of most Domini- cans towardthem is at best contradictory,the culturalbarriers to understanding between the two peoples have to be taken seriously. Martinez/ RETHINKINGHAITIAN-DOMINICAN RELATIONS 91

Yet even the languagebarrier pointed to by Niunezis perhapsnot so insur- mountable as many suppose. Hundredsof thousands of Haitian men and women have spent months or years working on the Dominican side of the border.Most of them have learnedat least the rudimentsof the Spanishlan- guage. Farfewer Dominicans speak Kreyol, and this clearly is an obstacle to mutual understanding.But, then again, just how many Dominicans speak Kreyol is a question that has no easy answer. Few Dominicans have under- takenformal study of the language,but this does not give an accuratecount of those who speak it. In the sugarwork camps it is not at all rarefor childrenof Dominican parents to grow up speaking a fairly fluent Kreyol along with their parents' Spanish. They are an exceptional, perhaps unique, group among Dominicans, but they do number in the thousands or even tens of thousands. The ironic truthmay be thatpeople at the bottom of the social laddersur- mount the linguistic barrierwith much greater ease than their countries' highly educated elites. Loanwords,with which each country's language is dotted, attest that understandingacross the linguistic boundaryis not only possible but fairly frequent.Were the loanwordsin each languageto be sys- tematically collected, classified, and situated in their historical and social contexts, an as-yet untold history of peaceful contact, cross-cultural exchange,and overlappingexperiences between the Haitianand the Domini- can people might be unearthed. Religion must surely be one of the leading domainsof lexical borrowing, at least on the Dominican side of the border(Torres-Saillant, 1998: 132). For Hispanophilicand Haitianophobicthinkers among the Dominicanbourgeoi- sie, the devout adherenceof Dominicansto RomanCatholicism and the pas- sionate devotion of Haitiansto vodiuare like oil and water:they cannot mix (Saez, 1988; Sagas, 2000: 59-64).13 Yet, according to MarthaEllen Davis (1987) and Carlos EstebanDeive (1992), a Dominicanizedform ofvodou is practicedthroughout the country,with beliefs and practices clearly derived from the Haitian religion, albeit in somewhat simplified forms. Many Dominicansupernatural beliefs andpopular religious festivalsand rituals are recognizablyHaitian in contentor even in name. And it is not only the lower classes who practice baquinis, prilles, and montaderas and believe in galipotes, bacds, zombies, and luases. Even the notoriously anti-Haitian heads of stateRafael Trujilloand JoaquinBalaguer are rumoredto have gov- erned in consultationwith Haitian spiritualleaders. Whether or not these rumorsare true is less importantthan that Dominicans widely acceptthem to be true.A reporton Balaguer'sepisode of ill health in January1999 filed by televisionjournalist Dario Medranocaptured the following words of encour- agement being shouted by a burly party sympathizer from the sidewalk 92 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES outside Balaguer's Santo Domingo compound:"iAsi no [inaudible]nada, Balaguer!Tu fuiste bautizadoa nivel de redoblanteen Cabo Haitiano. iSon rumores!iSon rumores,Balaguer!" The precise meaning of being "baptized a redoubler in Cap Haitien" is not clear to me-it perhaps refers to the speaker'swish or even predictionthat Balaguer would returnfor a thirdtime to the presidency(hence, "redoubling")in the upcoming2000 elections. But clearly,for this sympathizerat least, it did not seem in the least bit inappropri- ate to proclaim for anyone to hear and in the presence of TV news cameras that Balaguerenjoyed the protectionof Haitianspirits, a blessing gained for him in Haiti (viz., Cap Haitien) itself. Languageand other forms of symbolic action point to historical experi- ences beyond religion thathave been sharedby people acrossthe island. For example, highly similarterms on either side of the Haitian-Dominicanbor- der,convite and konbit, denote essentially the same practiceof festive, collective agriculturalwork. The Almanaquefolkl6ricodominicano describes the convite orjunta as follows (Dominguez, Castillo, and Tejeda, 1978: 118, my translation):

Whena peasantis goingto roof his house, plant his crops, or collect his harvest, etc.,and does not have the means to pay,he inviteshis neighbors and friends to carryout the task in question between them all without receiving any monetary remunerationfor this. Theorganizer of the"convite" or "junta" is responsiblefor [providing] food anddrink for the participants. Beautiful work songs are sung there, and at meal- timeinstruments are also played.

The konbit has been more frequently described and commented on by Haitianist scholars (Herskovits, 1937: 70-76; Metraux, 1951: 69). Their descriptionsof the custom matchwhat has been writtenabout the convite in the Dominican Republic. It is almost certainthat the custom developed first on the Spanishside of the islandand latertraveled, along with its name, to the French/Haitianside.14 Just as JuanaMendez became Ouanaminthewhen this town shifted from the Spanish to the Haitian side of the borderand bolita became bolet when Haitianreturnees from Cuba brought home theiracquired passion for playing the lottery, so convite became konbit when Haitians adoptedthe custom of inviting largenumbers of neighborsfor a day or half- day of collective labor in the fields, accompaniedby food, drink,and song. Beyond loanwords/practices,the peasantheritage has furnishedboth peoples with a rich set of metaphorsfor evaluatingand coping with the uprooting of the peasantryand its migrationto the cities. Similar gendered agrarian metaphorson the two sides of the borderexpress the dissatisfactionof subal- ternswith the price exactedof them in economic insecurityby theirsocieties' Martinez/ RETHINKING HAITIAN-DOMINICAN RELATIONS 93 capitalist, urban-dominateddevelopment regimes. When, for example, Antony Santosrefers to a beautifulwoman's sexualitythrough the metaphor of a parcelof land in his hit bachata "Laparcela," he unconsciouslyechoes a Haitian aphorism, "Chak fanm fet ak yon kawo t--nan mitan janm-ni" ("Everywoman has a carreau of land ... between her legs") (Lowenthal, 1984: 22). The lyrics of"La parcela"not only employ metaphorsthat reso- nate across the Haiti-DominicanRepublic borderbut project values that I thinkHaiti's peasants and recent rural-urban migrants would readilyendorse. In this song, Santos breathlesslyadmires how beautifuland well-tended his neighbor'sparcela (parcel of land) is, and begs her, a pretty morena (dark girl), not to sell it to a developer.15 Bachata has been denouncedas misogynist, and it may well be. The lyrics of "La parcela"certainly objectify woman. But astute and well-informed interpreterscould have an interpretivefield day by readingthe competitive andtroubled man-woman relations sung aboutby bachaterosas allegoriesof a largersocial malaise. Reflected in its uncertaintythat the city woman will continueto exchangeher sexual fidelity for herhusband's vow of lasting sup- portthere is a sense in "Laparcela" and uncountedother bachatas that in the city the orderof life is not as it should be. Not just nostalgia for the country life but alienationfrom the city's more highly commercializedhuman relations is conveyed in Santos's plucky plea that his beautifulneighbor sell her "land"to him, a humble"farmer," rather than putting it out for more lucrative, if sterile and ultimatelyunsustainable, commercial development. She might get "a million"by placing her sexual assets on the open market,but she will not get the kind of knowing and caring treatmentthat a good husbandcan give. Haitian migrant sugarcane workers tap into a similar vein of protest, veiled as disparagementof women, when they referto the DominicanRepub- lic as apeyi bouzen("hookers' country"). I have developedthe argumentelse- where that,far from claiming that all Dominicanwomen areprostitutes, these migrants may be expressing the fear of having prostitutedthemselves in swapping their Haitian livelihoods rooted in independentcultivation of the soil for more lucrative,if riskier,work for wages on the Dominicanside of the border(Martinez, 1995: 88):

Haitianslook down on the prostitute notjust for being immoral. They condemn heralso for exchanginguse of her"natural" assets for ephemeralgain rather thantrading these for a commitmentof lastingsupport. In like manner, the Hai- tianbracero knows that, no matterhow hardhe works,he will gainlittle or nothingin long-termsecurity by remainingon the sugarestates. Only by returninghome to Haiti can he converthis Dominicanmoney into assets of his own. 94 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

FINAL OBSERVATIONS

Thereis little thatI can addto whathas alreadybeen said by scholarsabout the social andpolitical role played by anti-Haitianideology since the time of Trujillo (Cassa, 1976; Cordero, 1975; Fennema and Loewenthal, 1987; Franco, 1973; Sagas, 2000). Since the ethnic cleansing of the Dominican frontierregion in 1937, anti-Haitiancampaigns have been repeatedlycon- jured by Dominican politicians as a diversionarytactic. While Trujillomay have played the Haitiancard to diverthis people's attentionfrom the threat posed by U.S. neoimperialism,the Haitianimmigrant today is more likely a scapegoat for the declining purchasingpower of wages. For example, the deportation campaign launched against undocumented Haitians by the incoming administrationof Leonel Femnndezin 1997 seemed calculatedto gratifythe right wing of his unstablegoverning coalition but was even more obviously aimedat divertingpopular attention from a rangeof social andeco- nomic demandsfor which his administrationhad no immediateresponse. One largerlesson to be drawnfrom suchpolitical manipulationof the Hai- tian issue is who the partiesto the Haitian-Dominicanconflict really are and what the struggle is about. There is a struggle taking place on the island of Hispaniola, but that struggle focuses on the specific issue of immigration. What is being struggledfor is not the island but control over the immigrant populationon one side of it. The assertionsof certainright-wing xenophobes aside, Haiti and Haitiansare no more contestingDominicans for controlover Hispaniolathan Mexico and Mexicans are contestingAmericans for control over North America. Nor does the struggle involve two parties of equal strength,much less engage the two nationsin theirtotality against each other. Ratherit is a matchthat pits immigrants,with no defenses but theirwits and their large numbers,against the security apparatusof the host state and the politicians and other opinion makerswho seek to score points against their political adversariesby raisinga scareabout uncontrolled immigration. More a game of cat-and-mousethan a cockfight, the struggleis one in which only one partybears deadly weapons and only the survivalof the weakerparty is at risk. Yet in this game the point is not to eliminatethe mouse butto prolongits pursuitindefinitely. Doing away with the mouse would be counterproductive to the cat's largerends, for a dead mouse would leave the cat with no one to blame for things going wrong in the house and no spectacle of pursuitwith which to divertthe attentionof the residentsfrom the dwindlingstocks in the larder. The greaterpart of my essay has been given over to arguingthat history and culture are not the main sources of tension between the two countries. While it would be an overstatementto say thatHaitians and Dominicansare Martinez/ RETHINKINGHAITIAN-DOMINICAN RELATIONS 95 two "ethnicgroups" within a single island society, the two culturesoverlap too much and have borrowed too freely from each other's practices and beliefs to be regardedas unambiguouslydistinct societies. In any event, dis- cussion of the Haitian-Dominicanrelationship should no longer fail to call attention to the significant cultural overlap and history of continuous exchange across the island. Does this give reason for optimism concerning the prospects for improvingrelations between the two nations? Not if one considers recent examples of other social groups-Hutus and Tutsis or Croats,Serbs, and Bosnian Muslims-who share significantlymore cultur- ally than Haitians and Dominicans but even so have killed each other en masse. Yet I thinkit is still importantto be as accurateas we can in specifying what divides the island of Hispaniola into two social entities. Dominicans' anti-Haitianfeelings stem more from elite-produced anti-Haitianpropa- ganda, reinforcedby the resentmentbuilt throughdecades of labor market competition with cheaper and more easily disciplined immigrantworkers, than from fatal incompatibilitiesof language,race, and culture(Vega, 1993: 31). Focusing on the culturaldistance between the two nations distractsus from the root causes of their conflict. My second recurrentconcern has been how little we truly know about ordinaryDominicans' attitudestoward Haiti and Haitians. Standing in the way of developinga new understandingof racismand nationalidentity in the Dominican Republic is our woefully incompleteknowledge of the dialectic of repulsionand fascination with which Dominicansregard Haitian culture, a dialectic of which anti-Haitianismis just one pole. Much of what is not known could be discoveredby going beyond surveydata and analysis of elite texts to plunge into the ephemeraof the everydaylives and the at times intri- cately encoded subjective formulations of experience of the Dominican masses. Informationconcerning all these things is there for the taking, as freely availableas the air aroundus. It is to be found notjust in such obvious folkloric Africanisms and Haitianismsas palos drummingand the Lenten gaga festival but in the popularculture that most Dominicans inhabitdaily. Yet, like air, this informationis evanescent and resistantto being fixed on paper. Scholarly understandingof these issues will remain inadequateso long as evidence of the kind that I have drawnupon only anecdotallyhere is not more systematicallygathered from sources as diverse as bachata lyrics, what supporters shout outside the walls of Joaquin Balaguer's Santo Domingo compound,and the continuingadoration of the late Jose Francisco Pefia G6mez by hundreds of thousands of Partido Revolucionario Dominicano supporters.In the streets, alleyways, work camps, and villages that working-class Dominicans share with Haitians are to be found little- studied perspectives on the Haitian-Dominican relationship. Prolonged 96 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES firsthandstudy in these places would reveal hithertounsuspected complexi- ties and might yield strongly differing interpretations.Yet I would venture thatthe more scholarsdelve into the contradictorylived realities and formulations of experience of the Dominican masses, the less satisfying we will find ideas aboutDominican identity derived from elite texts. We may also yet be surprisedto find thatmost working-classDominicans adapt more easily to the challenges of social change and show greatertolerance of racial and ethnic complexity than do their more affluent compatriots.

NOTES

1. Many individuals and organizationsare working to promote harmonyand justice for Haitian immigrants and Haitian-Dominicans. A short list includes the Centro Cultural Dominico-Haitiano,the Movimiento de MujeresDominico-Haitianas, the Movimiento Socio- Culturalde los TrabajadoresHaitianos, the Centrode Reflexi6n Encuentroy SolidaridadONE RESPE, the CentroPuente, and the Catholic Church'sPastoral Haitiana. 2. I thankLAP reviewerHilbourne Watson for bringingthis point to my attention. 3. In 1990 and 1991, advocatesof the immigrants'rights even presentedofficial testimony to the U.S. Congressin favorof imposing tradesanctions on the DominicanRepublic. In recent years the plight of the Haitianbraceros and their Dominican-bornchildren has also been taken up with greatfeeling by Haitianexpatriate groups, at times lumpingit with disparateother causes as a symbol of Haiti's global subordination.Consider the following statementof invitationto the Haiti SupportNetwork's event of November 9, 2000, "FromPhilly to Haiti: The Struggle for Sovereignty"(as posted to the Haiti-L listserv): This summer, the anti-neoliberal Lavalas Family party of former president Jean- BertrandAristide swept nationwide parliamentaryand municipal elections in Haiti. Unhappywith the results,Washington is tryingto discreditthose elections and to derail presidentialelections set for November,which Aristide is expected to win. In the neighboringDominican Republic, Haitiansare being roundedup, beaten, and deportedby authorities.Tensions are growing and Dominican troops, led by U.S. Special Forces, remainmassed along the border,poised for invasion. Meanwhile,Haitians in the U.S., like AfricanAmericans and other oppressed communities, are victims of growing police brutalityand unfairincarceration. Some even face execution,like BorgellaPhilistin, a Haitianon Pennsylvania'sdeath row alongsidepolit- ical prisonerMumia Abu-Jamal. Haitians are joining in the fight-back,for which Mumia has become a living, world-renownedsymbol.

The programconsisted of speakers and "a video on the situation of Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic." 4. I thankLAP reviewers Alex Dupuyand Hilbourne Watson for theirsuggestion that I more explicitly discuss the political economy of Haitianimmigration at this earlypoint in my article. 5. There are signs that people in the lower strataof Haitiansociety are looking towardthe Dominican Republic with increasing worry and hostility, as when rumors of an impending Dominican military invasion ran throughHaiti in 1999 and 2000 (Haiti Progres, 1999). But, otherthan among migrantworkers, international higglers, andborder-dwellers, the prominence Martinez/ RETHINKINGHAITIAN-DOMINICAN RELATIONS 97 of the DominicanRepublic is nothingcompared with thatof the United Stateseither as a destina- tion for emigrantsor as a potential foreign threator benefactor.When the sociologist Sabine Manigat(1997: 97, 121), in the course of a survey on urbanization,asked a group of Port-au- Prince residents about migration,they rarely mentioned the Dominican Republic but focused instead on the United States, Canada, and Europe. This disregardof their island neighbor is sharedby Haiti's intelligentsia.On the basis of extensive study, Berardo Vega (1993: 40, my translation)writes, "Little has been written by Haitian intellectualsabout Dominican-Haitian relations, and what exists has usually been limited to the theme of the braceros"(also Castor, 1983: 10). Generally,the Haitiansin the DominicanRepublic enter into the Haitianmedia spot- light only when others choose to speak for them, as PresidentAristide did so forcefully before the United Nations GeneralAssembly just days before being deposed in 1991. 6. As if in tacit recognitionof this asymmetry,only 10 of the 99 pages of firsthanddescrip- tion and life stories in Wucker'sbook are set in Haiti;the rest are set in the DominicanRepublic or among Dominicans in New YorkCity. 7. What Dominicans know about the events of the nineteenthcentury is filteredprimarily throughthe prism of the anti-Haitianhistories propagated extensively throughofficial channels since the Trujillo-ledmassacre of Haitian immigrantsin 1937 (Candelario,2000: 100-104). These accountsdepict Haitianintentions and actions as entirelyaggressive and Dominicanpos- turestoward Haiti as always intransigentlyresistant to Haitiandomination. I still find it remark- able how frequentlyworking people, especially men over the age of 50, can give detailednarra- tives of Haitianatrocities and duplicity duringthe Dominican wars with Haiti of the early and mid-nineteenthcentury. It must remain an open question whether these events would be so salient in the historical consciousness of ordinaryDominicans had the "memory"of them not been so persistentlyand widely promotedby Dominicanprimary school textbooks,the Armed ForcesRadio, and other official informationmedia (Gonzalez Canalda and Sili, 1985:24-26). 8. Importantanalyses and original works of these anti-Haitian intellectuals include Balaguer (1983), Balcacer (1989), Gonzalez et al. (1999), and Vega (1990). I thank Emelio Betances for providingthese references. 9. While not citing the case of Pefia, Baud (1996: 140-141) questions "how seriously ... everydayanti-Haitianism should be taken,and whether it has been a constantcomponent of popularculture." "As far as we can deduce fromcurrent research," he continues,"no militant popular anti-Haitianismhas existed or exists in the DominicanRepublic." Baud (1999: 176, my translation) writes morerecently, "Although anti-haitianismo is presentin the workingclasses, [among whom] depreciativecomments about Haitiansare not rare,I think that for many these opinions play an insignificantpart in their lives." Sagas (2000: 147 n. 12), in contrast,explains enduring mass supportfor Pefiaby contendingthat his followers did not consider him Haitian. 10. In the 2000 presidentialelection, so strongly did supportfor Pefia endurethat posters with his image were almost as common a sight on the streetsof SantoDomingo as picturesof the actualpresidential candidate, Hip6lito Mejia. On inaugurationday, PresidentMejia and his vice president,Milagros Ortiz Bosch, made a very public pilgrimage to Pefia's grave, where they made a solemn oath to Peia thatneither the filth of corruptgains nor the blood of innocentciti- zens would ever taint their hands. 11. Howard(2001: 39) cites the reportof one Dominican social scientist that expressionof anti-Haitianfeeling neither diminishes nor increases with frequency of contact with Haitian immigrants,and Dore Cabral(1995) reports survey data supportingthe idea that lower-class Dominicans are more anti-Haitianthan upper-classDominicans. 12. The verses from "Esperopor mi morena"may be found in Pacini Hernmndez(1995: 135- 36) but cannot be printedhere because permission could not be obtained from the copyright holder. 98 LATINAMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

13. The DominicanConstitution even identifies"the diffusion of the cultureand the religious traditionof the Dominicanpeople" along the lengthof the country'sborder with Haitito be a pri- ority of "supremeand permanentnational interest" (Corielle, 1980: 320, my translation). 14. Already more than half a centuryago, James Leyburn(1966: 199 n.6) concluded,"The word 'coumbite' was apparentlyborrowed from the Spanish part of the island, and from the Spanishword convidar,convey. In Colombia 'convite' means exactly what 'coumbite'means in Haiti:a gatheringof peasantsto work in common, or else a cooperativesociety for mutualagri- culturalself-help." A Spanish colonial origin for the konbit/convitewould be in keeping also with historicalcircumstances. When the ancestorsof today's Haitianswere still miredin the living nightmareof industrialslavery, people on the Dominican side were more free to develop technicalknowledge and social institutionsaround "proto-peasant" farming, ranching, and log- ging activities.Circumstantial linguistic evidence in favorof an east-to-westdiffusion of the custom is that the hypothesizedtransformation of convite into konbitis in keeping with a broader phonologicalpattern of lexical borrowing,in which the word-finalvowel or syllable of the Span- ish source term is generally droppedas the word enters the Krey6l lexicon. 15. "Laparcela" is foundon the audioCD, GrandesExitos de AntonySantos, Platano Records 5108 (2000).

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