Stigma in Paradise: Experiences of Young Haitian Im/migrant Men With Structural Violence, Occupational Health, and Social Capital in the Informal Tourism Sector of the Dominican Republic

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Authors Krause, Keegan C.

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STIGMA IN PARADISE: EXPERIENCES OF YOUNG HAITIAN IM/MIGRANT MEN WITH STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE, OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH, AND SOCIAL CAPITAL IN THE INFORMAL TOURISM SECTOR OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

by

Keegan C. Krause

______Copyright © Keegan C. Krause 2020

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the

CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2020

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THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE

As members of the Master’s Committee, we certify that we have read the thesis prepared by Keegan C. Krause, titled Stigma in Paradise: Experiences of young Haitian im/migrant men with structural violence, occupational health, and social capital in the informal tourism sector of the Dominican Republic and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Master’s Degree.

Linda B Green Linda B Green (May 8, 2020) May 8, 2020 ______Date: ______Linda Green

May 9, 2020 ______Date: ______Antonio José Bacelar da Silva

May 8, 2020 ______Date: ______Megan A. Carney

Final approval and acceptance of this thesis is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the thesis to the Graduate College.

I hereby certify that I have read this thesis prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the Master’s requirement.

Linda B Green May 8, 2020 Linda B Green (May 8, 2020) ______Date: ______Linda Green Master’s Thesis Committee Chair Professor of Anthropology, Affiliated Faculty in the Center for Latin American Studies

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Acknowledgments In the three years it took me to design and carry out this project, there have been many wonderful people from whose influence and support I have drawn, and without whom I would not have been able to finish.

I want to thank all of the young Haitian and Dominican men who opened up their lives to me, sharing their vulnerabilities, hopes, and dreams, and encouraged a critical engagement with this research and its role within the community. For the young Haitian men who agreed to be part of my research team, thank you for your time, energy, and expertise. Pou zanmi m yo k ap travay pou jwenn yon lavi miyò, sa se pou ou.

I owe a special thank you to my thesis advisor and committee chair, Dr. Linda Green, whose expertise and ongoing encouragement fostered critical scholarship in me while I designed and produced this project. I would like to thank my committee members Dr. Antonio Bacelar da Silva and Dr. Megan Carney, for their guidance and for reading this work, and providing critical theoretical support and feedback throughout the research process. I thank my committee as a whole for their kindness, patience, and guidance during my educational endeavors.

Thank you kindly to Dr. Douglas Taren, Dr. Paloma Beamer, and Dr. Sydney Pettygrove in the University of Arizona College of Public Health for your support and expertise in quantitative data collection and analysis, and community engaged public health. You all have been instrumental to the successful completion of this project. I would also like to thank Dr. Mark Nichter and Dr. Joel Correia, who at the very beginning of my graduate education offered key advice and crucial support as I began to shape and operationalize this project.

I extend a warm thank you to Professor Jaques Pierre for his keen linguistic pedagogy and his kindness and friendship as I studied Haitian Kreyol in Miami in preparation for my fieldwork. Thank you to Catherine De Laura for sharing your support and connections as I developed this project.

I would like to thank the respective entities that provided support for this research project, including the Center for Latin American Studies and the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona, the Tinker Foundation, the Michael Mikhael Global Health Fund, and the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship provided by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Florida International University

Finally, I must express my profuse gratitude to my family, who have always been a pillar of support in my life. To my best friend and life partner, Caitlin Meyer Krause, you have given me unwavering encouragement and support, read my drafts, assisted with design and analysis, all while completing your own graduate degree and supporting our family unit. You are as brilliant as you are kind and gracious. To my greatest teacher and loving son, Shepherd Krause, thank you for your kindness, curiosity, joy, and resilience as we have gone through this process together. You give me such great hope for the future. Thank you both for sharing your time and love while accompanying me on this journey.

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Table of Contents List of Figures ...... 6 List of Tables ...... 6 Abstract ...... 7 Prologue ...... 8 Chapter One: Introduction and Research Overview ...... 10 Research Overview ...... 12 Theoretical Orientation ...... 12 A Community-Engaged Research Approach ...... 13 Occupational Health ...... 14 Structural Violence and Political Economies of Health and Immigration ...... 14 Stigma and Anti-blackness as Anti-Haitianism ...... 16 Social Capital ...... 17 Thesis Organization ...... 17

Chapter Two: The History of Structural and Racialized Violence on the Island of Hispaniola ...... 19 Structural Violence and Anti-Haitianism ...... 19 Colonialism and Evolving Racialized Stigma ...... 20 Establishing Anti-Blackness as Anti-Haitianism ...... 22 Haitian Im/migration in the Early 20th Century and El Trujillato ...... 23 The Duvalier Dictatorship in Haiti ...... 27 The Changing Political Economy of Haitian Im/migration in the 21st Century ...... 28 Border Militarization and Resolution TC/0168/13 ...... 30 Language and Stigma in the Dominican Republic Today ...... 32 Modern Haitian Immigration and the Informal Tourism Sector Today ...... 33 Conclusion ...... 34

Chapter Three: Research Methodology and Timeline ...... 35 Field Sites ...... 36 Research Tools ...... 36 Participant Observation ...... 36 Notes on Participant Observation Methodology and Positionality ...... 37 Cross-sectional Occupational Health Survey ...... 39 Survey Participant Sample ...... 40 Semi-structured Qualitative Interviews ...... 42 Research Associates ...... 42 Research Timeline ...... 43 Conclusion ...... 44

Chapter Four: Understanding the Dominican Republic’s Informal Tourism Sector ...... 45 The Formal vs. Informal Tourism Sector ...... 45 Law No. 16-92: Dominican Labor Code ...... 47 Defining an Emic Informal Sector ...... 47 5

Local Business Promotion ...... 48 Ambulatory Entrepreneurship ...... 50 Research Sites ...... 52 Playa Vieja ...... 52 Playa Nueva ...... 54 The Industry of Pleasure ...... 56 Tourism Police ...... 59 Documentation Precarity in the Informal Tourism Sector ...... 61 Producing Youth as Subjects in the Pleasure Industry ...... 62 School, Free Lunch, and Sex on the Beach ...... 63 Rescate de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes en Situación de Riesgo ...... 65 Conclusion ...... 69

Chapter Five: Structural Violence, Vulnerability, and Occupational Health in the Informal Tourism Sector ...... 70 Comparing Occupational Health of Young Haitians and Dominicans in the Informal Tourism Sector ...... 71 Participant Demographics ...... 71 Age and Education ...... 71 Racialized Risk and Violence ...... 74 Job Security and Satisfaction ...... 76 Social Capital ...... 77 Food Security and General Health ...... 78 Sex Work and Sexual Health ...... 80 Synergistic Vulnerabilities ...... 82 Exploitation ...... 82 Geographic Isolation and Food Security ...... 85 Conclusion ...... 89 The Production of Haitian Im/migrants as a Disposable Workforce ...... 90

Chapter Six: Hope Opportunity, and Social Capital in the Informal Tourism Sector ...... 92 Social Capital and Resilience ...... 92 Language, Impression Management, and Opportunity in Tourism ...... 94 “Mache cheche pa janm dòmi san soupe” ...... 96 “I used to be a street chaser, now I am a dream maker” ...... 100 Una Gringa Linda ...... 103 Almendras, Dulce de Coco, and International Relations ...... 105 Conclusion ...... 107

Chapter Seven: Conclusion ...... 108 Limitations and Future Directions ...... 109 The “Nobodies” Seen by Everybody ...... 110 Specific Health Outcomes and Life Course Theory ...... 112 Healing but not Forgetting ...... 114

Bibliography ...... 115 6

List of Figures

Figure 1. Young Haitian men working in local business promotion ...... 49

Figure 2. Young Haitian men completing odd jobs, searching for regular pay ...... 53

Figure 3. CESTUR officers on patrol in the Dominican Republic ...... 60

Figure 4. Angelo teaching a youth group how to salt the rim of a margarita glass prior to mixing the drink ...... 64

Figure 5. Rescate de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes en Situación de Riesgo (Rescue of Children and Adolescents at Risk) ...... 67

Figure 6. Harris and McDade’s Conceptual Model of Biosocial Dynamics Across the Life Course ...... 112

List of Tables

Table 1. Demographics ...... 72

Table 2. Employment Categories ...... 73

Table 3. Reported Risks ...... 75

Table 4. Job Security and Satisfaction ...... 76

Table 5. Social Capital ...... 78

Table 6. Food Security ...... 79

Table 7. General Health ...... 80

Table 8. Reported linguistic abilities of Haitians and Dominicans in the informal tourism sector ...... 95

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Abstract

Haitian im/migrants have been exploited for their labor in the Dominican Republic for several decades. Neoliberal economic shifts of the late 20th and early 21st century have re-routed

Haitian im/migrants from the declining agricultural sector directly to tourist hubs and urban centers. The purpose of this research is to explore the experiences of young Haitian im/migrant men (ages 18- 30) with occupational health while working in the Dominican Republic’s informal tourism sector. I utilize a community engaged approach and mixed methods to explore ooccupation as a locus for health analysis, comparing the reported experiences of young Haitian and Dominican men. I place young Haitian men’s reported experiences with occupation-related health in the context of greater structural inequality that has been shaped by global neoliberal politics and perpetuated by hyper-national rhetoric, racialized documentation regulation, and the historical stigmatization of Haitian identities by the Dominican government. This project combines questions about the effects of structural inequality and racial stigma on human health, and the strategies young Haitian im/migrant men use to survive.

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Prologue Fieldnote Entry 1: May 28, 2019

I walked out of the airport to the familiar humidity and bright sunlight. I immediately recognized my neighbor from my time in the Peace Corps. He was an older Dominican man in his 70’s, wearing an unbuttoned chacabana, showing his white undershirt tucked into his iron- pressed slacks. I walked over to him to see if he would recognize me. It had been nearly 5 years since my wife, and I had moved away. He did recognize me, and we engaged in the same old pleasantries that we used to. I asked him if his taxi was available and elaborated that I was going to be staying for a while. His taxi was open, but he explained that his union had recently re- organized the ride-fair system and that they rotate customers, rather than first come first serve.

He hooked me up with a young taxi-driver in a black trucker hat. I introduced myself and gave him directions to where I would be staying.

On the road to my field site, the driver asked me about the giant wall that was being constructed on the US-Mexico border. He asked if it was real, and if it was made out of concrete.

I responded that yes, unfortunately it was real, and there were sections of it already across the border states. I continued that it has many different designs, all ugly (in my opinion) for many reasons.

The driver eventually shared with me that he grew up in a batey shared by Haitian and

Dominican folks. Batey-s are essentially shanty towns built around sugar plantations which proliferated in the 20th century, and while mostly populated by several generations of Haitian migrant workers and their families, today they are occupied by a mixture of poor Haitians and

Dominicans. We continued to talk about immigration, and the conversation eventually moved to

Haitian immigration to the Dominican Republic. He boldly explained to me that he thought it was much easier for Haitians living in the DR. I was intrigued by his view and asked him to 9 clarify what he meant. He explained to me that if a poor Haitian goes to the hospital, they don ‘t have to pay for any of the services, but if he were to go to the hospital as a Dominican citizen, he would need to pay all of his expenses without support from the government. He later went back to add, but you know they [Haitians] are coming over here with no support, there should be some basic security to help everyone.

Now knowing that he grew up in a batey, I asked him if he spoke Haitian Kreyol, and he said no, that he was socialized to speak Spanish in school and by his parents. As we spoke briefly about communication between cultures and the motivation to learn languages and communicate with the world outside of our own immediate surroundings, the driver expanded on his view of

Haitian immigrants. He told me that he saw the thought of Haitian immigrants living in the

Dominican Republic in two ways : 1) Haitians are super intelligent, and are able to learn languages extremely quickly, or 2) they are forced into situations in which they are required to learn and adapt in order to survive.

I begin with this excerpt because it was my first conversation entering into the field in the summer of 2019, and it portrays the nuanced understanding the Dominican public has with

Haitian im/migration. It is tinged with the rhetoric of the government and rumor, but also compassion and shared history.

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Chapter One Introduction and Research Overview

Displaced persons are especially vulnerable to a variety of structural and environmental risk factors contributing to poor physiological and psychosocial health outcomes (Kaiser et al.

2015; Keys et al. 2015; Bhugra and Becker 2005). Experiences of stigma, xenophobia, and racial discrimination (Gonzales and Chavez 2012; Simmons 2010; Willen 2007; Green 2011) are often compounded by political subordination, economic exploitation, and precarious documentation status (Castañeda 2013; Quesada et al. 2011; Green 2011; Bartlett et al. 2011) resulting in poor mental health outcomes (Kaiser et al. 2015; Carney 2015a; Salas et al. 2013; Velez-Ibañez

1996), disproportionate risk of hunger (Hadley et al. 2006) and increased prevalence of noncommunicable diseases (Montesi et al. 2016). Precarious documentation status directly affects economic stability in most contexts, leading to a reliance on unpredictable or seasonal informal employment that is often characterized by unregulated environments with increased risk of exposure to hazardous situations and ambiguous measures of employer liability (Jayaram

2010; Sousa et al. 2010). The risk of poor mental and physical health status is amplified with chronic exposure to political insecurity and racial violence that is a part of life for many displaced persons (Gonzales et al. 2013; Menjivar 2013; Salas et al. 2013; Gonzales and Chavez

2012; Viruell-Fuentes et al. 2012).

On the island of Hispaniola, with Haiti to the west and the Dominican Republic to the east, severe economic and human development disparities have influenced several generations of

Haitian im/migration to the Dominican Republic (Keys et al. 2015; Bartlett et al. 2011; Jayaram

2010). For decades, Haitians have im/migrated to the Dominican Republic in search of improved opportunities while supporting key sectors of the Dominican economy (Bartlett et al. 2011; 11

Jayaram 2010; Martinez 1995). Up until the late 20th century, generations of Haitian im/migrants worked as braceros1 in the Dominican Republic’s sugarcane industry. However, sweeping neoliberal economic reforms and the overall decline of the Caribbean sugar industry in the 1990s and early 2000s led to significant economic restructuring and the inevitable re-routing of Haitian im/migrant labor to other sectors of the Dominican economy (Jayaram 2010). Today, global tourism and foreign direct investment are redefining the Dominican economy, drawing most Haitian im/migrants directly to tourist hubs and urban centers (Jayaram 2010).

Similar to other geographical im/migration labor contexts, Haitian im/migrants have been used as human capital to support the growing Dominican economy and as an ideological scapegoat by the Dominican government when convenient (Martinez 2015, 1995; Keys et al.

2015). A hyper-national Dominican identity and an anti-Haitian rhetoric have been perpetuated in tandem since the Trujillo dictatorship (1930-1961) and Balaguer regime (1960-1962;1966-

1978;1986-1996) and have used anti-black sentiments to stigmatize and “other” the Haitian identity (Sagás 2000). Haitian im/migrants are “needed but unwanted, indispensable to growing economies, yet deemed a threat to cultural and national identities” (Keys et al. 2015: 220).

Much research to date has focused on Haitian im/migration and health in the context of agriculture and rural livelihoods (Kaiser et al. 2015, Keys et al. 2015, Simmons 2010, Martinez

1995), with little focus given to Haitians working in alternative settings. While there has been substantial work done in the Dominican Republic’s informal tourism sector with Dominicans

(Padilla 2008; Kerrigan et al. 2006, 2001; Brennan 2004), health-related research projects that center on Haitian experiences with health and wellbeing in the context of occupation in the informal tourism sector are lacking.

1 Bracero is a term in Spanish often used for migrant agricultural workers. In this case, it refers to sugarcane cutters. 12

Research Overview

The purpose of this research is to explore the experiences of young Haitian im/migrant men (ages 18- 30) with occupational health while working in the Dominican Republic’s informal tourism sector. I utilize occupation as a locus for health analysis, and I place young Haitian men’s reported experiences with occupation-related health in the context of greater structural inequality that has been shaped by global neoliberal politics and perpetuated by hyper-national rhetoric, racialized documentation regulation, and the historical stigmatization of Haitian identities by the Dominican government. This project combines questions about the effects of structural inequality and racial stigma on human health, and the strategies young Haitian im/migrant men use to survive. In undertaking this project, I also hope to contribute additional context of im/migration within countries in the global south in order to engage directly with the global north via the globalized tourism economy. What does occupational health look like for

Haitians compared to their Dominican counterparts in the unregulated informal tourism sector of the Dominican Republic? How is structural violence and the stigma of anti-blackness manifest in the informal tourism sector and how is it embodied by young Haitian men? How do young

Haitian im/migrant men negotiate social capital to meet basic needs and improved futures in an environment characterized by anti-Haitianism and globalization?

Theoretical Orientation

I use a community-engaged and critical approach with the goal of bridging applied research in the health sciences with critical social theory, contributing to the growing movement of critical biocultural approaches to health and wellness. As Tom Leatherman and Alan H.

Goodman describe, this type of approach encourages an understanding of human biology and health as a sociocultural process, that “merge(s) critical and political-economic perspectives with 13 ecological and human adaptability perspectives” as they “emerge and intersect as part of a

‘biocultural dance’ ”(2011: 29-30). This thesis project does not collect or analyze biomarkers of health but uses primary epidemiological and ethnographic data in an attempt to understand patterns of structural inequality which portend psychosocial and biological health disparities in one im/migration and occupational context.

A Community-Engaged Research Approach

Using a community-engaged research approach involves key stakeholders in the formulation and undertaking of community-based research. Community-engaged research aims to align principles and orientations from the community in the research process with the goal of democratizing the research process and improving cultural appropriateness of research meant to serve a particular community (Balazs and Morello- Frosch 2012; Lindau et al. 2011). A key component of this project is its community engaged nature. In the formation of this research project, I collaborated with a local NGO which houses a job-training program for at-risk youth, ultimately partnering with a young Dominico-Haitian NGO employee along with two young

Haitian men who work in the informal tourism sector in my chosen field sites. The involvement of these young men is expanded upon in Chapter Three.

In formulating my initial community-engaged research orientation, I drew on what

Chandra L. Ford and Collins Airhihenbuwa (2010a) term Public Health Critical Race Praxis

(PHCRP). PHCRP establishes critical and reflexive foci for engaging in public health research, particularly emphasizing understanding racialization, structural determinism, intersectionality, knowledge production and self-critique while conceptualizing public health endeavors and the communities they engage (Ford and Airhihenbuwa 2010a). PHCRP also puts particular emphasis on “centering in the margins”, which encourages researchers to “shift a discourse’s starting point 14 from the majority group’s perspective, which is the usual approach, to that of the marginalized group.” (Ford and Airhihenbuwa 2010b: 32). PHCRP compliments a community-engaged and critical biocultural approach, emphasizing a critical approach to research design and applied praxis while also understanding race-based health inequities in the context of historical and structural mechanisms.

Occupational Health

Occupation is a crucial determinant of population health, and for most people occupation and occupational settings influence income, potential life opportunities, as well as exposure to social determinants of health (Bambra 2011a). Clare Bambra, a critical public health and social scientist further explains, “Work is a salient part of self-definition. It is often the basis of citizenship and social rights. At both the micro (e.g. work environment, unemployment) and macro levels (e.g. welfare state regulation and labour market structures), therefore, it plays a fundamental role in determining the prevalence and distribution of morbidity and mortality”

(2011a: preface). Occupational health is characterized and measured by psychosocial and physical exposures relating to health (Bambra 2011a, 2011b; CDC 2010), and adverse occupational exposures are usually “socially patterned”, where those of lower social and economic status often experience increased adverse exposures (Bambra 2011a, 2011b). Thus, utilizing occupational endeavors as a locus for health analysis offers one mechanism of exploring hierarchal and disproportionate structural patterns of population health.

Structural Violence and Political Economies of Health and Immigration

To understand the patterns of structural inequality and occupational health experienced by Haitian im/migrants living and working in the Dominican Republic, I use a lens of structural violence. The lens of structural violence is used to explicitly examine the creation and 15 perpetuation of inequality, and how inequality manifests in larger social, political, and economic mechanisms in the continuous marginalization of particular populations (Galtung 1969; Farmer

2004; Simmons 2010; Slack and Whiteford 2010). Physician-anthropologist, Paul Farmer, states more concisely, “The concept of structural violence is intended to inform the study of the social machinery of oppression” (2004: 307), and that analyses of structural violence and health must incorporate a synthesis of history, political economy, as well as biology (Farmer 2004).

Understanding sociopolitical processes through structural violence, is to explicitly acknowledge that certain populations are experiencing inequalities that are so embedded in the systems in which they live, it is often potentially so normalized that it is both simultaneously invisible and ubiquitous. Using a lens of structural violence to engage in a critical biocultural approach to health denotes how inequalities ultimately increase vulnerability and promote poor health outcomes and disease and can “manifest as chronic hunger and poverty, pollution and environmental degradation, military and police brutality, and unequal and inadequate housing, education, and health care” (Leatherman and Goodman 2011: 40).

Key to the lens of structural violence, is an understanding of intertwining political economies in which iterations of violence are bred and embedded. Political economy is the study of economic and political spheres (e.g. government, policy, trade, social investment, etc.) as mechanisms of production of certain sociocultural and structural societal phenomena (Bambra

2011a; Engels 2009; Navarro 1998; Brenner 1995; Doyal and Pennell 1979). In the case of young Haitian men im/migrating to work in the Dominican Republic’s informal tourism economy, synergies of political, economic, racial, and structural processes mesh to inform the political and economic nexus of im/migration and occupational health.

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Stigma and Anti-blackness as Anti-Haitianism

Sociologist Erving Goffman defines stigma as “an attribute that makes a person different from others in a social category, and it reduces the person to a tainted or discounted status”

(Goffman 2006: 134). That is, stigma is the result of a particular attribute which is conceptualized within a stereotype by a public to “discredit” those exhibiting said attribute

(Goffman 1963). In his seminal text, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity,

Goffman (1963) expands on three types of stigma: physical differences, character deficiencies, and that based on race, nation, or religion, each of which contributes to the effort of dehumanization of the stigmatized. To better understand the etiology of stigma experienced by

Haitians in the Dominican Republic, I draw on the concepts of anti-blackness and anti-

Haitianism.

Anthropologist João Costa Vargas, whose research brings to the fore the role of anti- blackness in systemic and structural societal inequities, particularly in the United States and

Brazil, defines anti-blackness as a “structural, long duration antiblack disposition that calls into question the possibility of full black integration and citizenship” (2012: 9). Anthropologists

Antonio Bacelar Da Silva and Erika Robb Larkins add that anti-blackness is a positionality which promulgates an asymmetrical access to humanity and constant threats to the lives of black populations (Da Silva and Larkins 2019). Anti-Haitianism is described by political scientist and historian, Ernesto Sagás, as “the manifestation of the long-term evolution of racial prejudices, the selective interpretation of historical facts, and the creation of a nationalist Dominican ‘false consciousness’” (Sagás 2000: 21). While these concepts both draw on a positionality utilizing racial turpitude to create and perpetuate a power-imbalance, it is crucial to understand that these two terms are not interchangeable, but rather in the particular context of Haitian and Dominican 17 relations, anti-blackness has played an integral role in the meticulous formation of anti-

Haitianism for over three centuries. That is, anti-Haitianism is rooted in anti-blackness but also expands anti-blackness to a stigma of Haiti as a nation encompassing not only to the color of skin, but language and culture as well (Sagás 2000).

Social Capital

Social capital, most notably associated with sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and James

Coleman and political scientists Robert Putnam and Francis Fukuyama, made its way into the academic lexicon in the late 20th century (Bourdieu 1986; Coleman 1988; Wall et al. 1998).

While today the term social capital is ubiquitously used to denote connections that afford support or certain access leading to some sort of benefit, the operationalization of the term in academic contexts varies. In this thesis, I draw from sociologist Nan Lin’s conceptualization of social capital, that it is “rooted in social networks” and defined as “resources embedded in a social structure which are accessed and/ or mobilized in purposive actions (Lin 2001: 12). Lin’s definition of social capital is operationalized into three components: the structural or embeddedness, the opportunity or accessibility, and the action-oriented or use of social resources. In this thesis, I draw on the concept of social capital to understand access to support networks and how young Haitian men form relationships in the informal tourism sector, and how this social capital may be leveraged to survive daily life and pursue improved futures.

Thesis Organization

This thesis is organized into seven chapters. While this chapter serves as an introduction and broad contextual overview of my research agenda, Chapter Two lays out the historical context of structural violence, discussing colonial, imperial, and neoliberal interactions which have informed racialized violence on the island of Hispaniola up to present date, including the 18 evolution of anti-blackness as anti-Haitianism and the modern political economy of Haitian migration and tourism. In Chapter Three, I provide a break-down of my methodology and research timeline. In Chapter Four, I provide an ethnographic overview of my field sites and the

Dominican Republic’s informal tourism sector. In Chapter Five, I present primary epidemiological and ethnographic data that bears witness to modern manifestations of structural and racialized violence and how synergies of vulnerabilities perpetually produce Haitians as exploitable and disposable workforce in the Dominican Republic’s informal tourism sector. In

Chapter Six I draw on additional ethnographic data to discuss the hopes and opportunity expressed by the young Haitian men who participated, emphasizing the survival and coping techniques employed by these young Haitian men, with a particular emphasis on language skills impression management and the cultivation of social capital in a globalized tourism economy.

Chapter Seven concludes this thesis with a brief synthesis of findings, research limitations and the potential to expand on this research in the future.

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Chapter Two The History of Structural and Racialized Violence on the Island of Hispaniola Structural Violence and Anti-Haitianism

Anthropological interventions in the literature of structural violence on the island of

Hispaniola are not new. Paul Farmer has expanded at length on the importance of using a lens of structural violence in clinical and public health settings, particularly while working in Haiti

(Farmer 1994, 2004). Medical anthropologist David Simmons writes about how structural violence is normalized through the expression of anti-Haitianism, which he describes as a “deep- seated cultural disdain for all things Haitian” and that “Anti-Haitianism has been operationalized through various legal, political, cultural, and economic practices that collectively serve to pathologize, marginalize, and generally disenfranchise Haitians living and working in the country” (Simmons 2010: 11). When examining the role of anti-Haitianism as a form of structural violence, it is crucial to understand that it is rooted in- and also a form of anti- blackness stemming from colonial and imperial control of both countries leading into the 20th century.

In an effort to incorporate a critical approach to the structural and racial inequities experienced in the Dominican Republic today, in this chapter I discuss the evolution of structural violence and anti-blackness as anti-Haitianism from the 15th century to present day. I discuss the role of colonialism in establishing anti-blackness as a means of social control leading into the

19th century, and the role of the US in establishing an iniquitous heritage of Haitian im/migration to the Dominican Republic, and the ensuing racialized violence largely perpetrated by the Trujillo dictatorship (1930-1961) and Balaguer regime (1960-1962; 1966-1978; 1986-

1996). I subsequently discuss the role of neoliberalism in the proliferation of structural inequalities and anti-Haitianism in the changing political economy of Haitian im/migration in the 20

21st century. I frame structural adjustment and austerity measures as structural violence which have acted synergistically with the production of modern anti-Haitian rhetoric, and in 2013 culminated in the enactment of resolution TC/0168/13. This edict retroactively denied

Dominican citizenship to anyone born in the Dominican Republic after 1929 (IACH 2015). I conclude this chapter discussing the current political economy of Haitian im/migration in the wake of increased foreign direct investment, rapid urbanization, and significant growth of the tourism sector.

Colonialism and Evolving Racialized Stigma

Under colonial occupation, the violent struggle to control Hispaniola as a foothold in the

“New World” lasted over three centuries. First, Spanish and later French colonists repopulated the island exploiting it of its human and natural resources. The aboriginal Taino populations were enslaved and parceled out through the Spanish encomienda2 system and put to work in gold mines and sugar plantations. When Taino populations dwindled, scores of enslaved Africans were brought to the island in the early 16th century in efforts to increase gold mining and the proliferation of sugarcane plantations (Guitar 1997).

During the following three centuries, forced ethnic intermixing was utilized as a biopolitical strategy by colonial powers, foregrounding racialized class ideologies based on white supremacy and anti-blackness. The Spanish in particular employed forced inter-racial relations with Taino women and later enslaved Africans (Moreno, Moya Pons, and Engerman 1985).

Increasing a population of mixed ethnicities in the colonies offered on-the-ground influence in populations of Taino and African slaves which could both quell potential uprisings and produce

2 The encomienda system rewarded Spaniards who exhibited particular conquistadorian traits by assigning land rights and subjugated Taino people as enslaved labor. Taino people were “protected” and converted to Christianity in exchange for their forced subjugation (Deagan 1985). 21 favorable allies to fend off encroaching French and English threats (Wucker 1999). The Spanish also drew on a racialized ideology of impureness to penalize and further subjugate colonists in mixed-ethnicity families when they saw fit (Wucker 1999). By the middle of the 17th century,

French buccaneers had progressed from the northern Tortuga island to the eastern mainland of

Hispaniola (Farmer 2006). In 1697 the island was split by Spain and France, and in 1804 the western portion claimed by France was taken in what some historians consider the largest and most successful slave revolt in history, making Haiti the first Black-led republic of the “New

World” and first independent nation-state in the Caribbean (Thornton 1991). Dominican historian Frank Moya Pons suggests that the political economy of enslavement looked significantly different in the French and Spanish-claimed territories, foreshadowing the success of the slave-revolt and contributing to the current formation of Dominican racial identities (Moya

Pons 1996). The French relied heavily on labor-intensive sugar and tobacco plantations which influenced a brutal hierarchy of slavery, while the Spanish depended heavily on cattle, and cattle herding requires significant cooperation, potentially leading to less hierarchal and mixed populations of European slave owners and enslaved Africans (Moya Pons 1996; Moreno, Moya

Pons, and Engerman 1985).

In 1822, Haiti took control of the eastern portion of the island under the command of

Jean-Pierre Boyer, promising to fend off future Spanish attacks and quelling disputes with

France, eventually agreeing to a debt of 150 million francs to account for France’s “lost” colonial resources in 1825 (Tavernier 2008). In 1844, when the Dominicans established the eastern two-thirds of the island as their own nation-state, an eventual threat of economic collapse led the Dominican Republic to request Spanish dominion once more in 1861 (Wucker 1999).

22

Establishing Anti-Blackness as Anti-Haitianism

It is during this crucial point in history that Caribbean scholars draw attention to the foregrounding of anti-blackness in the Dominican Republic, which would eventually manifest as antihaitianismo, or anti-Haitianism (Tavernier 2008; Howard 2001; Sagás 1993, 2000). As a newly established Black republic, the western hemisphere refused the legitimacy of Haiti’s independence until France formally withdrew threats of re-colonization efforts after payment. On the Dominican side, Dominican elites initiated efforts of formally distinguishing themselves from their black counterparts, infusing the Dominican Republic’s identity with “whiteness”,

Catholicism, and Hispanic cultural heritage, and the identity of Haiti with the characteristics of

“blackness”, practitioners of voodou, and African cultural heritage (Tavernier 2008; Howard

2001; Sagás 2000). This racial division is further evidenced by Dominican leaders appealing to the Spanish for economic stability, rather than continue under the auspices of ‘black’ Haitian rule. However, in 1861 the newly arriving Spanish officials surprised by the mixed-African demographic their new colony had taken, began to refuse political positions to dark skin and mixed Dominican residents (Wucker 1999). Those of mixed ethnicity living under Spanish rule once more were forced to embody the anti-black stigma produced by Spanish and Dominican elites, adapting the “indio” identity, which implied mixed ancestry with Taino, and decidedly not

African (Tavernier 2008; Torres Saillant 1998; Sagás 1993).

In his book, Race and Politics in the Dominican Republic, political scientist and historian

Ernesto Sagás describes the role of anti- blackness in early formations of Dominican identity post Haitian occupation: “In this (re)definition of ‘race,’ the black and the mulatto masses had but two choices: to ‘lighten’ themselves by assuming the indio identity and Hispanic culture, or 23 to be ostracized and excluded from the national mainstream” (2000: 66). Reminiscent3 of Michel

Foucault’s concept of docile bodies, Sagás, explains that Dominican leadership expanded upon an anti-blackness as anti-Haitianism that would eventually infest all sectors of Dominican society, propelling through the 20th century under Dominican leadership, particularly the

Trujillo dictatorship and Balaguer regime, utilized as “an ideological weapon to subdue the black and mulatto Dominican lower classes and maintain their political quiescence.” (2000: ix).

Haitian Im/migration in the early 20th Century and El Trujillato

During the 20th century Haitian and Dominican relations were influenced by a new imperial force. The United States’ occupation of both sides of the Caribbean island shaped the new political economy of Haitian im/migration to the Dominican Republic, as well as set the stage for decades of Haitian and Dominican dictators, and eventual economic restructuring of both countries (Horn 2014).

In efforts to establish dominant geopolitical control throughout Latin America and the

Caribbean, Teddy Roosevelt’s administration first commandeered the Dominican customs operations in 1905, and ten years later, US troops invaded Haiti and subsequently the Dominican

Republic. Under US occupation, the US was eager to ensure that Haiti made good on their payments to France and England4. The US facilitated this payment by encouraging significant

US multinationals to invest in new sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic, and rapidly establishing infrastructure to enable a constant flow of Haitian braceros, or agricultural workers, to fill the labor gaps of the increasingly dynamic sugar industry. Formal contracted bracero

3 In his book Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault describes how those in power utilize perpetual ideologies to create “docile bod[ies] ...that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved” (1975:136). That is, that it is conformed to discipline, readily moldable, and as Sagás suggests of the Dominican and Haitian populations living in the Dominican Republic, quiescent. 4 In 1904, Roosevelt insisted that Western Hemisphere territories complied with their debts to stave off future threat to the territorial precedence the US had established under the Monroe Doctrine. These debts were also crucial for war expenditures by France and England during WWI (Wucker 1999). 24 agreements between Haiti and the Dominican Republic persisted for most of the 20th century, ending in 1986.

Haitian migrants were settled in barracks-like communities colloquially termed batey-s which dotted the peripheries of state-owned sugar plantations. Historically, batey residents have endured the worst living conditions in the Dominican Republic, characterized by a chronic lack of access to infrastructure, education, basic health services, sanitation, potable water and micronutrient-dense food (Collier et al. 2017; Crouse et al. 2010), all of which has been exacerbated by ongoing militarized surveillance and state-sponsored anti-Haitianism (Simmons

2010).

While the Dominican elite’s penchant for anti-Haitianism was already well established prior to US occupation, a critical interpretation of US involvement in Hispaniola affairs leading up to the departure of military forces in 1924 reveals an insidious role in orchestrating the environment which would produce nearly a century of structural and racialized violence and stigma for Haitian populations living in the Dominican Republic (Horn 2014). The US not only constructed and brokered the infrastructure for cheap Haitian labor that the Dominican economy came to depend on, but it revamped and militarized the Haitian National Guard during the 8-year military occupation paving the way for what is locally termed el Trujillato.5

A young Rafael Trujillo was recruited and trained for leadership by the US armed forces, eventually establishing himself as the leading general of the newly US-trained Dominican military. In 1929, just five years after the US forces shoved off Hispaniola’s shores, Trujillo successfully facilitated a coup d’état while then president Horacio Vásquez was in Baltimore,

5 “El Trujillato” translates to “Trujillo era”, which is commonly used in the Dominican Republic to denote Trujillo’s reign which lasted from 1929 to 1961, and dramatically reshaped gendered and racialized Dominican identities (Horn 2014). 25

Maryland for an emergency medical operation (Wucker 1999). Trujillo’s violent dictatorship spanned three decades until he was assassinated in 19616. During his brutal reign, Trujillo emphatically promoted a violent and ultra-nationalist rhetoric designed to stigmatize and differentiate the national Dominican identity from that of neighboring Haiti, in what Caribbean scholar Silvio Torres-Saillant, describes as "a nation-building ideology” in which "anti-

Haitianism becomes a form of Dominican patriotism”(1994: 54-55; located in Johnson 2003).

In 1937, Trujillo’s new form of anti-Haitianism was manifested in a brutal massacre of over 20,000 Haitians living near the Dajabón river, which runs along the Haiti-Dominican

Republic border, by Trujillo’s Dominican military in what would become known as the Parsley

Massacre7 (Johnson 2003; Sagás 2000; Torres-Saillant 1994). The massacre was so named because Dominican soldiers would ask the border-dwellers to pronounce the Spanish word for parsley (perejil), murdering by machete anyone who pronounced the word with a Haitian Kreyol accent8. This was a tactic in Trujillo’s mind, that would cover up the military’s murderous role for lack of bullets as forensic evidence.

Haitian migrant labor played an important role leading up to the Parsley Massacre and

Trujillo’s lasting anti-Haitianism as pro-Dominican platform. Namely, the Great Depression had severely affected the global sugar market, and with a dwindling sugar cane economy, the 56,657 documented Haitian braceros (and unknown thousands of undocumented workers) counted by the Dominican government in 1935 (Díaz Santana 1975), were framed by Trujillo as being a drain on Dominican resources (Wucker 1999). Tenuous border relationships in the years leading

6 There is significant evidence linking the assassination of Trujillo to the US Central Intelligence Agency. 7 Masak nan Pesil in Kreyol and Masacre de Perejil in Spanish 8 Speakers of Haitian Kreyol often pronounce the Spanish “R” sound with the francophone “L” sound, ironically which has become widespread in Dominican youth culture as well with the word “menor” being pronounced as “menol”, likely with etiological underpinnings from shared Haitian culture and increasing influence of Dominico- Haitian musical artists. 26 up to 1937, including a withdrawal of US forces from Haiti in 1934, prompted Trujillo’s absurdly violent ego to make a bloody political statement to the western hemisphere that he was in full control (Wucker 1999). Scholars have also suggested that Trujillo’s anti-Haitian sentiments were born out of his own internal struggle with a mixed Dominican and Haitian descent (Horn 2014). In fact, Trujillo went to great lengths to promote anti-blackness, enlisting prominent Dominican scholars to design and disseminate anti-Haitian propaganda constantly, with particular emphasis on Haitian violence and the 19th century Haitian occupation of the

Dominican Republic (Tavernier 2008). Leading up to World War II, Trujillo also opened up

Dominican borders and donated land to Jewish European refugees with an effort to “whiten-up” the culture and increase his tax revenues (Wucker 1999).

Unfortunately, the anti-Haitianism of el Trujillato did not die with him in his blue 1957

Chevrolet Bel Air in May of 1961. While devastatingly petty, unpredictable, and violent, Trujillo had successfully established a significant following with his hyperbolic personification of

Dominican masculinity (Horn 2014) and a viewpoint that he had successfully reshaped an independent Dominican economy, did what needed to be done, and erected significant (often phallic) infrastructure. Trujillo also had cultivated a reputation for being a prolific dancer and a

“ladies’ man” which in today’s terms would be considered a serial rapist. Trujillo heavily re- shaped the Dominican national identity over his 30 years of power, and subsequent generations of Dominican elite, continued to capitalize on the lasting vestiges of el Trujillato, reinvigorating anti-Haitianism in all of its forms when it fit their needs (Martinez 2003). In what remained of the 20th century, the Balaguer regime (1960-1962; 1966-1978; 1986-1996) was most notably responsible for the nefarious continuation of state-sponsored anti-Haitianism, re-initiating bracero programs with Haiti, but also actively rounding-up and geographically isolating all 27

Haitians to batey communities to work the sugarcane fields (NACLA 2015; Torres-Saillant

1994). In 1969, when Haitian braceros organized and went on strike to compel the Dominican government to recognize fair labor treatment and land-rights, President Balaguer responded with a prompt order to napalm the rural hamlet of Palma Sola (Jayaram 2010).

The Duvalier Dictatorship in Haiti

History written of Haitians in the Dominican Republic often reflects the events outlined above, however equally important to understanding Haitian trauma and movement in the 20th century is the US occupation and the rise of the Duvalier dictatorships in Haiti. The US occupation in Haiti paralleled that of the Dominican Republic in many ways, including the revamping of the military system in order to “stabilize” the country. However, as historian

Marvin Chochotte (2017) points out, the restructuring of the Haitian military to first segregate and then subjugate rural Haitian peasants in a new forced labor carceral system went further in

Haiti than in the Dominican Republic. Observers at the time compared US tactics in Haiti to the

US South under Jim Crow (Chochotte 2017). Up until 1934, the US supervised iniquitous persecution of often darker skinned peasants living in rural Haiti, including criminalizing vagabondage as a tactic to decrease mobility in efforts to quash potential peasant revolts

(Chochotte 2017).

When the US military occupation relinquished its brutal grip on Haiti in 1934, the country was ripe for a subsequent authoritarian system. The US’s chronic suppression of poor rural Haitians was simultaneously met with the production of a strong Haitian nationalism which romanticized the struggles of the poor black rural Haitians by the “demoralized rural military elite” (Chochotte 2017: 69). Eventually in 1957, François Duvalier ran for president and won 28 based on a noiriste 9 populist platform, leveraging his background as a rural physician to gain intense support from the rural poor. The Duvalier dictatorship, which included his son, Jean-

Claude Duvalier, spanned from 1957 to 1986. Once elected, Duvalier systematically restructured the Haitian military and formally announced his dictatorship and title as “president-for-life” in

1964. In opposition to the Trujillo dictatorship, the Duvaliers worked to embrace a pro-black

Haitian national identity. However, the pro-black identity embraced by the Duvalier dictatorship, unfortunately fed into the anti-blackness that the Balaguer regime was propagating at the same time in the Dominican Republic. Furthermore, the violence and economic recklessness of the

Duvalier dynasty contributed to a failing economy and precarious living situations for most

Haitians, which gives additional context to Haitian im/migration up until the 21st century.

The Changing Political Economy of Haitian Im/migration in the 21st Century

Leading into the 21st century, the political economy of Haitian im/migration began to change. Since the 1960’s many generations of Haitian immigrants had settled in the Dominican

Republic and in many communities Haitian and Dominican identities and cultures had fused together. The overt violence of el Trujillato and early Balaguer had stymied, and international attention to human rights and labor issues on the batey-s had increased. However, the deeply rooted racialized violence had pervaded the very structures of Dominican society and economic imperialism had re-entered the lives of both Haitians and Dominicans in the form of neoliberalism. The violence experienced by Dominico-Haitian and Haitian im/migrants had not dissipated, but rather become more structurally embedded.

The waning sugar industry in the 1970’s and 1980’s had already prompted significant neoliberal structural reforms pushed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World

9 Noiriste refers to a racialist political movement that flourished in Haiti post US-occupation, emphasizing African heritage and the need for authentic black leadership (Chochotte 2017) 29

Bank. Structural adjustment included decentralization of the national sugar holdings, opening up the economy to increased foreign direct investment, and measures of austerity (Jayaram 2010).

Simultaneously, the advent of high fructose corn syrup led to the United States disinvestment in the Caribbean sugar economy, and the mechanization of sugarcane processing replaced significant Haitian migrant labor (Jayaram 2010). By 1999, the majority of the Dominican state- owned sugar holdings were privatized, and an increase in foreign direct investment and the burgeoning tourism industry expedited the transition of the Dominican economy from sugar to tourism. By 2001, overall production of sugarcane had decreased by half its strength in 1981

(Jayaram 2010; FAO 2009).

The impact of neoliberal policies, like the structural adjustment programs experienced in the Dominican Republic, have been shown to significantly affect the public health and general access to services and the social determinants of health (Pfeiffer and Chapman 2010). This economic transition had marked effects on the Dominican Republic’s social welfare system.

While the structural adjustment and austerity measures systematically restructured access to vital social services, particularly education and healthcare, the wealth gap throughout the country also increased. For the several generations of Dominican-born Haitians living in rural batey-s, these neoliberal adjustments meant severely increased precarity (Cohen 2006). Any public services previously provided in batey-s near state-owned sugar plantations were left in the hands of private corporations with little to no oversight. The disinvestment in the sugarcane industry also meant a disinvestment in Haitian agricultural labor and a continued anti-Haitian rhetoric which placed economic failings and lingering social issues on Haitian communities (Martinez 2003). 30

In 2010 David Simmons published the results of a mixed methods ethnographic study of structural violence experienced by Haitians living in batey-s between 2002-2005, not long after structural adjustments were finalized throughout the country:

Although it is possible to make some distinctions between bateyes, the differences are best understood as variations in the degree of poverty and deprivation rather than its presence or absence...However, generally speaking, levels of service development and infrastructure are low and the institutional presence of both government and non- government agencies is limited. Likewise, livelihood opportunities are limited, as are economic linkages, including access to markets. Not surprisingly, these avoidable forms of human impairment - i.e., structural violence - have particular implications for the overall well-being of poor Haitians living and working in the country (2010: 12).

Simmons goes on to describe the geographical segregation of Haitian’s experience which is further enforced by the national police.

For example, police or national guard checkpoints between some bateyes and clinics or hospitals hinder the movement of many Haitian-looking people as they are stopped and asked to produce up-to-date passports and visas or cédulas (national identification cards). (2010:13)

According to Simmons, the consequence for not having proper documentation or sufficient money to pay a bribe is forced deportation to Haiti or imprisonment (Simmons 2010).

Border Militarization and Resolution TC/0168/13

Decreased demand for agricultural work and the significant economic restructuring inevitably re-routed Haitian migrant labor to other sectors of the Dominican economy. Young

Dominico-Haitians and new Haitian im/migrants looking for work began to travel directly to the urban centers to work in construction and later domestic services. Previously mostly geographically isolated to rural batey-s, an increased “public” presence of Haitian populations in

Dominican cities gave rise to new forms of anti-Haitian rhetoric by politicians and the

Dominican elite. In 2006, under President Leonel Fernández, the Dominican Republic also began to militarize its borders with the support of the United States. Journalist Todd Miller describes 31 the formation of CESFRONT or Cuerpo Especializado en Seguridad Fronteriza Terrestre

(Specialized Border Security Corps), as the import of what may be considered a new brand of the

US’s military industrial complex based on border militarization. By 2009, the Haitian-

Dominican border was patrolled by multimillion dollar black-hawk helicopters and fatigue- wearing, assault rifle-toting CESFRONT agents who had reportedly received significant training from the US Customs and Border Patrol (Miller 2013).

Shortly after Dominican border militarization and the presidential succession of Leonel

Fernández by Danilo Medina in 2012, the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic enacted resolution TC/0168/13 on September 23, 2013. This resolution retroactively denied

Dominican citizenship to anyone born in the Dominican Republic after 1929 who could prove that at least one parent was of Dominican nationality, decidedly naming anyone not meeting this criterion as undocumented transient workers (IACH 2015).

This resolution was largely in response to a 2012 census of immigration to the Dominican

Republic carried out by the European Union, the United Nations and the National Office of

Statistics which found a total of 668,145 im/migrants of Haitian origin, of which only 11,000 were legally registered (Cerna 2014). While this was the natural progression of the Dominican

Constitution, which had been re-interpreted or changed increasingly since the era of the Balaguer regime in order to subjugate Haitian populations. This time around, the ruling stripped the national identity from the majority of those living in batey-s and formally excluded the majority of batey-dwelling populations from accessing national health care, public education, and formal employment, which was already scarce in these communities. Under president Medina, thousands of Haitians and Haitian-appearing people were rounded up and deported en masse

(Ariza 2017). While harsh international pressure has encouraged the Dominican government to 32 re-evaluate these decisions, and offer a system for Dominican-born Haitians to get proper documentation, the militarized round-ups have held steady, and Haitian-appearing people in the

Dominican Republic are often arrested, extorted by officials and employers, and deported- dropped across the border often with nothing but the clothes on their backs (Dominican Today

2019).

Language and Stigma in the Dominican Republic Today

Skin color and language still contribute to modern stigmatization of Haitian populations living in the Dominican Republic, and the stigmatization of language-use just as much as skin color, should be understood as anti-blackness in the context of anti-Haitianism. Haitian Kreyol,

Haiti’s national language has historically been used as a tool of stigmatization as an integral part of anti-Haitianism that was cultivated during el Trujillato (e.g. Masak nan Pèsil discussed above) and perpetuated in some political arenas since (Simmons 2010; Howard 2001). In addition to sharing a militarized border approach, the nationalist movement in the Dominican Republic that stigmatizes the Haitian identity via language is also reminiscent of the conservative nationalist agenda in the United States that uses language shaming to stigmatize and disenfranchise im/migrants for use of their native language, often times Spanish (Chavez 2013). Today in the

Dominican Republic, skin-tone and other phenotypical characteristics that are often attributed to ethnic origin are not always outwardly defining (although still contributing) factors of how one’s identity is perceived by the public. However, the use of Haitian Kreyol in public settings may quickly initiate public stereotyping (Simmons 2010; Howard 2001). This is most evident in public transportation, where racial slurs can often be heard said under the breath, directly to the chofer so that the whole bus or car may hear, or directly to Haitians, who are often travelling to and from work on the public transit system (personal observations). 33

Modern Haitian Im/migration and the Informal Tourism Sector

Haiti is modernly characterized as having a volatile political system and struggling economy, which contributes to modern Haitian im/migration to the Dominican Republic. Haiti experiences severe income inequality, maintaining a high GINI coefficient (61 in 2012) and an estimated 70 and 80 percent of Haiti’s population living at some level of poverty (PNUD 2014).

Haiti’s extreme economic disadvantage is exacerbated by environmental precarity and constant political turmoil. The 2010 earthquake devastated Haiti’s economy and infrastructure, killing well over 200,000 people and displacing an estimated one million more (CDC 2014) while producing economic costs amounting close to the country’s current GDP (Cavallo 2010). A resulting cholera outbreak reportedly prompted by poor hygienic practices of international aid workers put intense pressure on an already incapacitated healthcare system and claimed over

9,000 Haitian lives (Frerichs 2016).

Haiti also receives an over-abundance of international food aid which has undermined

Haiti’s agricultural sector (Cohen 2013; Schuller 2012; Kenny 2011; Zanotti 2010). In March of

2018, a corruption scandal emerged, which accused the president Jovenel Moise’s administration of misusing billions of dollars of funding earmarked for social spending. The fund was created by a Haiti-Venezuela Petrocaribe oil alliance, which offered Haiti 25 years of deferred payment, also providing financial resources to support social welfare. The oil shipments from Venezuela which ended in March of 2018, eventually produced country-wide fuel shortages. The eventual removal of government fuel subsidies in July 2018, led to skyrocketing fossil fuel prices and kerosene, widely used throughout Haiti, increased by 50% overnight, resulting in mass protests in the streets and political turmoil which has continued well into 2020 (Nugent 2019; Human

Rights Watch 2020; Chery 2020). 34

Today, poor economic prospects and food insecurity has resulted in frequent migration of

Haitians to the Dominican Republic to find work in the country’s relatively lucrative tourism- based economy (GDP 81.3 billion $US: World Bank 2019b). Haitians often move directly to the established tourism hubs, either working in construction or the informal tourism sector. It is estimated that anywhere between 500,000 to 1,000,00010 Haitians live and work in the

Dominican Republic today, and personal remittances received in Haiti make up an estimated

32% of the country’s GDP (World Bank 2019c).

Conclusion

Anti-Haitianism, and other legacies of structural violence are still experienced by

Haitians im/migrating and living in the Dominican Republic today. While a significant portion of the local tourism economy is supported by informal and unregulated Haitian labor, the

Dominican government still holds the Haitian identity captive on several levels, leveraging anti-

Haitian stigma to produce increased difficulty for legitimate visas (Bartlett et al. 2011), extorting day-laborers of their hard-earned money, and engaging in mass deportations in the case of economic scrutiny (Martinez 2003). These acts by the Dominican government represent clear evidence of how anti-blackness is used to create asymmetrical access to humanity, maintaining an atmosphere characterized by constant threat to the lives of black Haitian populations (Da

Silva and Larkins 2019). Haitians working in the informal sector often experience synergistic structural barriers which promotes severe precarity, including difficulty with documentation, racial violence, extortion, poor job security, poor food security, poor mental health, and poor access to safe social capital.

10 These estimates are so inaccurate because the number of Haitians who currently live in the Dominican Republic are obfuscated by poor census data, historically ambivalent and documentation systems, and frequent back and forth migration. 35

Chapter Three Research Methodology and Timeline

This project is the culmination of research undertaken for the fulfillment of my Master of

Public Health and Master of Arts in Latin American Studies degrees at the University of

Arizona. Hence, the methodology of this project reflects a community-engaged applied public health approach that also utilizes ethnographic methods, which of course, are not mutually exclusive. In organizing this project, I worked directly with a local non-governmental organization (NGO) that serves the young people working in the informal sector in both of my field sites. A portion of this project has been used to create an occupational health assessment for a job training program for at-risk youth housed by this NGO working in the Dominican

Republic’s informal tourism sector.

I use a quantitative epidemiological comparison of reported occupational experiences between young Haitian and Dominican men in the Dominican Republic’s informal tourism sector to bring to the fore the structural disparities that have been normalized in daily experiences promoting several deleterious social experiences for young Haitian men. I draw on qualitative interviews with several of these young Haitian men to expand on the reported experiences with work, im/migration, health and food insecurity, bearing witness to the current and potential psychosocial and physiological health effects. This research plan was submitted and approved as “minimal risk” by the University of Arizona Institutional Review Board on May

23, 2019 and the in-country research was overseen by a Dominican NGO which serves the communities in which the research was completed. In order to maintain confidentiality, I have chosen to use pseudonyms for all participants and locations. 36

I discuss the methodology section of this thesis with depth and reflexivity to a) promote an attempt of public health critical race practice, by continuously engaging in a reflexive understanding of my positionality as a white-male engaging in research designed to address racialized health disparities, and b) expand for readers, on the specific efforts taken to produce a community-engaged project alongside stakeholders who experience the vulnerabilities described by this thesis.

Field Sites

The dynamic nature of im/migrant populations working in the tourism industry calls for multi-sited ethnography to better observe the social, political, and economic factors endemic to respective spatial realms occupied by im/migrant populations. I chose two beach sites in the

Dominican Republic which are heavily influenced by the tourism industry and located roughly

20 kilometers apart, also located near a larger urban city and several rural batey-s. I use pseudonyms for these two beach-towns (Playa Vieja and Playa Nueva) to further protect the identities of my research participants and the populations they represent. I had previously lived and worked in both of these locations for over two years, which provided me with significant contacts and a baseline cultural contextual understanding. These sites are described in detail in

Chapter Four.

Research Tools

Participant Observation

The cornerstone of this project was built on participant observation. H. Russell Bernard describes participant observation with phrases like , “going out, and staying out, learning a new language…and experiencing the lives of the people you are studying as much as you can...stalking culture...establishing rapport and learning to act so that people go about their 37 business as usual when you show up” (Bernard 2006: 348). Throughout late May of 2019, and the months of June and July, I spent nearly every day, all day and much of the evening, engaging and observing what Cindi Katz describes as “the fleshy, messy, and indeterminate stuff of everyday life” (2001:711) of young men working in the informal tourism sector. My use of participant observation in this context was to witness and record firsthand experiences young

Haitian men have with structural and racialized violence in informal occupational settings. I spent time in the occupational and home settings of participants, documenting the interactions between young Haitian men with their co-workers, supervisors, tourists, taxi-drivers, shop attendants, and police, with a particular emphasis on cultivation of social capital related to daily survival. Observations were recorded utilizing jottings via smartphone (which is much less conspicuous these days than a pen and paper) and copious field notes were recorded using an organized field note grid through Microsoft Word nightly.

Notes on Participant Observation Methodology and Positionality

It was during my first day of participant observation in Playa Nueva that I met Junior, a young Haitian man who worked as a restaurant promotor and would eventually become a research partner. After nearly six hours of conversation on a slow cool evening, Junior showing off his very good English language skills and me frantically attempting to improve my Haitian

Kreyol, we exchanged contact information and agreed to speak more throughout the next week.

The restaurant Junior worked at became my “home base” for participant observation, Haitian

Kreyol language practice, and research participant recruitment at Playa Nueva. I spent many days at the restaurant, ordering a few soft drinks while studying my Haitian Kreyol, and taking copious observational notes of the experiences the young Haitian staff had with the Dominican and European supervisors, tourism police, tourists, and other beach-workers. We had a mutually 38 beneficial arrangement: I was explicit about my need to understand the occupational settings in which many young Haitian men engage (all of the restaurant promoters at Junior’s restaurant were Haitian men) and Junior wanted to practice his English, and asked that I assist (passively) with encouraging foreign tourists to sit at his restaurant, increasing his potential daily earnings.

I was fortunate enough to set up a similar situation in Playa Vieja with Wally. Wally worked in the same position as Junior but in a very different economic and cultural context. I would sit with Wally until a potential tourist would approach, and he would quickly jump up to engage, pointing at me drinking Coca-Cola from a glass bottle as proof of the restaurant's quality. It was with Wally at Playa Vieja that I was able to spend the most time in conversation and participant observing the more common experience of Young Haitian men who worked in the informal tourism sector.

While two and a half months may not meet temporal standards for what may be considered a proper amount of participant observation, I postulate that my previous employment in these sites, even working directly with some of the men who agreed to participate in this research, has offered me additional insight and time in these contexts, and significant legitimacy with local Dominican and Haitian beach workers. This contributed to a normalization of my presence and a certain amount of mutual social trust within some interactions or lack-thereof. For example, I worked directly with many of the Playa Vieja beach workers on a coral restoration project in 2014-2015. Walking into this field site, I would greet and be greeted by several Haitian and Dominican beach workers and engage in nearly half an hour of pleasantries before making it to my usual perch at a local restaurant. If I was sitting in an area not usually designated to tourists, or if I was approached while speaking in Kreyol, and someone I did not know 39 questioned my presence, someone nearby would usually quickly point out that I was “solo un gringo que trabaja con los corales” (just some gringo who works with the coral reefs).

My positionality as a white male from the United States is also crucial to point out while discussing my experiences as a field researcher in these contexts. There is no doubt that my ethnicity, gender, and citizenship status have enabled certain access in these field sites that others do not experience. I was also able to engage young men in these settings in a way that those who do not identify as male, or as a father/ parent for that matter, may have the ability to do.

Cross-sectional Occupational Health Survey

Cross-sectional surveys are designed to take a “snapshot” of a specific population, in a specific setting, at a specific point in time, “and usually measures the exposure prevalence in relation to the disease prevalence” (Aschengrau and Seage 2014: 143). I used a cross-sectional occupational health survey for this project in order to capture the physical and psychosocial health-related exposures in informal occupational settings in the tourism sector. This tool is meant to explore Haitian experiences but also compare reported exposures between Dominicans and Haitians. In addition, portions of this survey were designed to understand use or availability of social capital as it is potentially related to reported health outcomes.

This survey was created based on the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) National

Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) Quality of Work Life Survey (QWLS)

(CDC 2010) and the Latin American Caribbean Food Security Scale (ELCSA) (Comité

Cientifico de la ELCSA 2012).While the NIOSH QWLS is a United States-based survey which has not been validated in other cultural and linguistic contexts, the ELCSA has been validated in several Latin American and Caribbean countries, including Haiti (Perez-Escamilla 2008). This project utilizes these surveys for data collection; however, it does not attempt to conform 40 subsequent analysis to provide a comparative quantitative assessment or validation. Rather, the purpose of adapting these surveys for this research context was to create tools with community members that attempt to measure experiences informed by structural and racialized violence.

This tool was created and translated into Spanish prior to entering the field to comply with University of Arizona IRB protocols. Upon entering the field this tool was significantly revised and culturally adapted into Spanish and Haitian Kreyol with local project partners, and subsequently piloted in both languages and adapted once more for final use. The final survey consisted of 83 questions, including administrative variables filled (e.g. language of survey, time of day, location of survey etc.). Finalized survey questions were organized into eight categorical data blocks: Demographics, Work Basics, Risk, Job Security, Job Satisfaction, Personal Health,

Food Security, and Social Capital. Surveys were loaded into a University of Arizona secured

Qualtrics XM account, and the offline feature was used to collect surveys in the field on an

Apple iPhone 5S. Each evening the surveys were uploaded to the University of Arizona’s password protected Qualtrics account and deleted from the iPhone 5S.

Survey Participant Sample

Anthropologist Kiran Jayaram has worked extensively with Haitian im/migrant populations living in the Dominican Republic’s capital of Santo Domingo in the first decade of the 21st century (2010). Through his extensive ethnographic and mixed methods research, he found that while Haitian im/migrants living in Santo Domingo come for a variety of reasons, they are all related to improved opportunity and most engage in the informal sector for economic support (2010: 38). Jayaram also confirmed rough demographics of modern Haitian im/migrants in the Dominican Republic with an earlier study by Dominican social scientists led by Ruben

Silie that reported that 72% of this population were males, 73% were between the ages of 20 and 41

40 years old, 72% had lived in the country less than 11 years, and most had low levels of formal education (Jayaram 2010: 39; Silie et al. 2002). Using Jayaram’s research to establish an initial target sample of young men for the IRB, I further operationalized the characteristics of this sample with my research associates in the field. As a team we agreed with a target sample of young men between the ages of 18 to 30 years of age, which constitutes the majority of the informal workforce in the tourism sector (Jayaram 2010; Silie et al. 2002). In order to compare the experiences of young Haitian men to that of young Dominican men, we decided on a total sample size of 60 men who identify as Haitian (n=30) and Dominican (n=30). The survey was ultimately completed with 31 Haitian-identifying individuals and 29 Dominican-identifying individuals.

Consent was acquired at the beginning of each survey, and participating individuals were compensated RD$100.00 pesos for their time. This amount was agreed upon by discussion with project partners in the Dominican Republic prior to entering the field and confirmed with my research associates upon piloting the survey. I found it important to compensate community participants for their time, particularly while potentially taking them away from their work, and while carrying out research in the context of occupational health. All interviews were completed in Spanish or Haitian Kreyol and the duration of interviews ranged from 12 to 22 minutes, excluding outside interruptions.

Stratified snowball sampling was used to recruit participants for the cross-sectional survey. Individuals who approached me while working in order to promote their goods or services were also included. Quantitative survey data was analyzed using StataIC 15 and stored on an encrypted portable hard drive.

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Semi-structured Qualitative Interviews

Semi-structured qualitative interviews were completed with Haitian men (n=9) working in the informal tourism sector. Interviews were recorded with seven of these participants. I utilized purposive sampling for the semi-structured interviews, drawing from the sample of young Haitian men who had previously participated in the surveys. I utilized an interview guide consisting of open-ended questions concerning seven overarching themes: im/migration, employment, occupational health, racism and stigma, personal health, social capital and food security. Interviews were conducted both on the beach in secluded and private areas to maintain privacy and safety for participants.

Qualitative semi-structured interviews were transcribed using the MAXQDA transcription function, and subsequently coded in MAXQDA.

Research Associates

For the purposes of this project, I was able to acquire funding to hire and train three community members as research associates with whom I collaborated. This process was integral to creating a community-engaged approach that Research associates were trained using the

Community PARTners training developed by the University of Pittsburgh and approved by the

University of Arizona Human Subject Protection Program (PittCTSI 2019). While all data was collected directly by the PI, at least one research associate was consistently present during survey data collection. Research associates played a vital role in recruitment, translation, and piloting of the program, often acting as cultural brokers and contextual experts. Qualitative interviews were collected by the PI only due to the sensitive nature of some questions and to maintain privacy and anonymity.

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Research Timeline

Summer 2018: I formally began the planning of this research in the fall of 2017 and received a

Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship to study intensive Haitian Kreyol at Florida

International University in Miami for seven weeks in the summer of 2018. This course was supposed to culminate in a two-week trip to several cities in Haiti for applied language practice and short-term cultural immersion. However, this portion of the trip was cancelled upon mass civil unrest breaking out in several cities throughout July due to a corruption scandal concerning embezzlement of funds earmarked for social spending by Haitian president Jovenel Moise’s administration subsequent ceased fuel subsidies and skyrocketing fossil fuel prices.

I was still able to make a scoping visit to my field sites in the Dominican Republic in July of 2018, and initiated research planning for the coming summer with my Dominico-Haitian friend, Lebron, and the organization with which he was now working and with which I would be collaborating. I spent significant time engaging in participant observation and having informal interviews with Dominicans and Haitians working in the formal and informal sector in both of my field sites. Even though my formal research was a year away, I was able to network with several potential participants and exchange contact information, most often through WhatsApp and Facebook. It was during this trip that I first met Wally, a young Haitian man who worked as a promoter for a Canadian-owned restaurant on Playa Vieja. By sheer chance, I would find

Wally again in the summer of 2019, and he would become a paid research associate for the summer.

Academic Year of 2018-2019: During the academic year preceding my full research summer, I spent significant time organizing my research prospectus, formalizing plans with the executive 44 director of the NGO with which I would be collaborating and checking in with my in-country contacts.

Summer of 2019: I arrived in the Dominican Republic in late May, and immediately began participant observation. In the first week of June I hired and trained three local research associates and translated and piloted the cross-sectional occupational health survey. Quantitative interviews were completed throughout the remaining weeks of June and finished in mid-July.

Qualitative interviews were completed in late June and throughout the month of July.

Conclusion

This project utilizes a mixture of epidemiological and ethnographic data collection, while working directly with stakeholders to format and organize research tools, as well as the use of the data collected. While this thesis is written with extended ethnographic detail, one significant portion of this project was presented to a local NGO who provides training and services to at-risk youth in the informal tourism sector, with all participating research associates as co-authors. The project design and tool formulation were initiated by me in the US before entering into the field, however a significant portion of time and resources were utilized to engage and compensate local stakeholders to transform these materials into a truly useful tool for their respective community.

The NGO with which we worked was able to incorporate findings from this project to improve their educational and training programming, particularly the incorporation of local union education and worker’s rights curriculum.

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Chapter Four Understanding the Dominican Republic’s Informal Tourism Sector

Even though the majority of the Dominican Republic’s formal tourism economy is represented by European and US foreign direct investment, the Dominican tourism industry represents the potential for significantly improved opportunity for young Haitians. In 2017, there were over six million tourist arrivals to the Dominican Republic, compared to the 470,000 tourists arriving in Haiti (World Bank 2017). Even though most Haitians working in tourism are engaging in the informal economy, many of the young men I spoke with expressed that the opportunity experienced in the Dominican Republic was worth the risk of leaving home. Others expressed serious trauma resulting from experiences with severe anti-Haitianism during their time in the Dominican Republic, but the dream of improved employment and the allure of cultivating a romantic relationship with foreign tourists keeps them coming to the beach each day. In this chapter, I discuss modern Haitian im/migration to the Dominican Republic’s tourism sector, and using my ethnographic data, I operationalize the informal tourism sector, and I provide a brief contextual overview of the informal sectors in my field sites: Playa Vieja and

Playa Nueva. In the following chapter, I use primary data to discuss the racialized and structural disparities experienced by young Haitian men working in these sites.

The Formal vs. Informal Tourism Sector

The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates that direct tourism made up 17.2% of the Dominican Republic’s economy in 2018, and 16% of the country’s total formal employment

(WTTC 2019). However, most individuals who live and/or work in tourist hubs in the

Dominican Republic engage in the informal tourism sector. In 1973, Anthropologist Keith Hart, established a taxonomy of employment opportunities in Nima, Ghana which is still drawn on 46 today to distinguish between formal and informal economic activities. According to Hart, informal economic activities are characterized as either licit or illicit and are apart from contracted public and private sector wages, and transfer payments such as pensions and social security payments (1973: 69). Today the International Labor Organization also establishes the informal economy as employment lacking a formal contract and access to social services (ILO

2019). Ethnic and women’s studies scholar, Amalia Cabezas, describes how the proliferation of foreign owned and operated resort-style hotels contribute to gendered and racial hierarchies in the Dominican Republic’s formal sector, pushing most to the informal sector (2008). Resorts are often secluded and guarded by several guachimán11, and non-tourists (often translated to non- white) are quickly turned away12. While Dominican women tend to make up most of the workforce in formal tourism jobs in resorts and hotels, they are usually absent from supervisory roles, and experience significant vulnerability and gender discrimination (Cabezas 2008).

Dominican men on the other hand are more often “displaced and excluded from employment and meaningful participation” (2008: 29). Many of the top management jobs in hotels and resorts are held by multilingual European or US foreign im/migrants, and light-skinned multilingual

Dominicans.

At this point it is critical to articulate that while this thesis is framed to discuss how colonial legacies of anti-blackness and economic meddling create synergies of structural precarity for Haitian im/migrants in the Dominican Republic, these same mechanisms also create precarity for Dominicans as well, and the structural violence of tourism and globalization has

11 Derived from the English word “watchman”, guachimán are security guards who are often hired by hotels and foreign owned enterprises, and often carry an unloaded shotgun with one or two rounds in the pocket. 12While there is no doubt that access is quickly restricted by racial profiling, many resorts and private residences also separate those who “belong” from those who don’t with bright visual wrist bands, and at the very least a sort of electronic keycard. 47 been expanded upon by several scholars since the 1960’s (see Fanon 1963; Britton 1982) and particularly in the Dominican Republic in the early 21st century (see Cabezas 2009; Padilla

2007; Brennan 2004). It is best understood then, that Haitians who are working in the informal tourism sector also experience these gender and racialized hierarchies, but more often than not, occupy the bottom rung. For the purposes of understanding the differences in this hierarchy of inequity, I have included both young Dominican and Haitian men, all of whom are engaging in the same or similar informal positions.

Law No. 16-92: Dominican Labor Code

Law No. 16-92, which is considered to be the Dominican Republic’s labor code does not distinguish between the formal and informal economy quite as objectively (CRD 2010). While the law defines distinct regulations on age13, work hours, minimum wage, and holiday salary, two distinct portions produce precarity for informal workers, particularly Haitians. Technically any verbalized agreement to work is considered a “contract”, giving certain employee rights to all workers under “contract” agreements (CRD 2010). However, the law gives room for an employer to prove no contract or verbal agreement was made, leaving this law open to wide interpretation and abuse. Furthermore, this law also mandates that 80% of an establishment’s employees are of Dominican nationality, which encourages wide use of “informal contracts” to avoid tax implications and legal obligations to informal workers (CRD 2010).

Defining an Emic Informal Sector

For the purposes of this research I found it crucial to work with a local team of

Dominican and Haitians in order to define the emic, or local cultural understanding, of “informal

13 14-year-olds may work in non-risky/dangerous environments, otherwise 16 is the legal working age (R.D.) as amended G.O. 10561, Enero 26 del 2010,16 (CDR 2010)

48 employment” and thus defining the parameters of our sample population. In accordance with my three research associates, the criteria established were that a) workers were engaging in activities which contributed to the tourism economy, money, b) those without a written contract and undocumented remuneration, or, independent entrepreneurial endeavors that were not regulated and taxed by a national or local governing body (not including unions) and c) had continuous engagement with tourists to earn money.

Anthropologist Kiran Jayaram, who has done extensive work with Haitian populations living in the Dominican Republic’s capital of Santo Domingo, delineates two broad categories that characterize Haitian’s working in the informal sector of Santo Domingo: those selling

“tangible commodities (food, phone cards. etc.) and those selling their labour-power” (2010: 39).

My own research confirms similar categories in the informal tourism sector, however discussing these categories with my research associates, we decided that the categories of local business promotion and ambulatory entrepreneurship were more appropriate.

Local Business Promotion

Outside of the large resorts, smaller tourism businesses line the streets and beaches of most tourist communities. Most of these businesses are either restaurants, bars, night clubs, art/ souvenir shops, or tour/excursions/water sports shops. Many of these are foreign-owned, and locally managed. Apart from the employees who work inside of these shops, there are often individuals hired to engage with tourists on the street, promoting the store. On the beaches in particular, these promoters most often work for restaurants or water sports/ excursion businesses.

These workers usually speak several languages and earn a commissioned percentage of the sales from the individuals they are able to coax into the establishment. Their linguistic competencies and precarious documentation status are often capitalized on by Dominican business owners. 49

Those working in promotion earn between 5% to 20% of their daily sales, being paid nearly always under the table without formal contracts.

While the Dominican government has systematically produced a dual-rhetoric of hyper- nationalism and anti-Haitianism, its synergism with globalization to produce an economy based on a growing tourism market has systematically placed many young Haitian men (and women) as the majority workforce for tourist-based local business promotion, and subsequently Haitians are serving as significant cultural representatives of what is projected by the Dominican tourism industry to often culturally ignorant tourists. A walk through many Dominican tourist hubs will prove that a significant portion of those initiating contact with potential patrons are Haitian.

Figure 1. Young Haitian men (in multicolored shirts) working in local business promotion

While this type of work requires diverse linguistic skills and enough capital to get to and from work, there is less upfront investment needed to participate. Some businesses may even supply a uniform to employees and in the case that they are promoting a restaurant, meals may be included as well. That said, these individuals are less mobile and are beholden to the 50 geographic isolation of their particular area of work. Paraphrasing the words of my research associate, Junior, this can be a good and a bad thing: When you are seen working every day, contributing to the economy, not causing problems, people get to know you and you establish relationships in these areas. So, you may be less susceptible to deportation. However, because you are in the same place every day, people who may have a problem with you also know where to find you, and in the case of documentation precarity, you may be at increased risk.

Ambulatory Entrepreneurship

Ambulatory entrepreneurship is a popular employment option in all sectors and regions of the Dominican Republic. During the day, trucks full of produce, kitchenware, and other miscellaneous items pass through the neighborhoods with fast and catchy advertising reverberating through giant speakers. People with carts full of paletas, pica pollo, empanadas and even sometimes hot dogs pass through the streets as well. These entrepreneurs are often seen near bus stations or moving in and out of slow traffic at busy intersections. Some beaches even have unionized vendors who are locally credentialed, selling cigars, wood carvings, jewelry and braiding hair or giving massages. Ambulatory Haitian entrepreneurs on the beaches are most often seen carrying large plastic buckets of assorted fruit, home-made dulces (sweets) and shelled peanuts, or carrying Styrofoam trays with assorted sunglasses, phone cases, phone chargers, and belts.

This type of work has very different risks and rewards than local business promotion. To initiate this type of business, one young Haitian explained to me that you need significant start- up capital to put a down payment on all of the goods that you will sell. You also need enough money to travel each day to tourist hubs or larger cities to find enough clients. However, you may not need to be as fluent in Spanish or English to be successful as long as you have a 51 linguistic grasp on the relevant currency values. The young man went on to say that this type of business endeavor can be quite lucrative if you have enough strength to carry these things around each day in the sun. In fact, as one young Haitian approached me with his wares, I initially declined to purchase anything, however he did agree to participate in my survey. He spoke broken Spanish and broken English, and most of our conversation unraveled in a mixture of

English, Spanish, and Kreyol. As I was using my smartphone to collect the survey data, after we were finished, he quickly pointed out that I did not have a phone cover, and that working on the beach was risky (exposure to sand and water). He quickly sold me on a new screen protector for my phone screen. As we sat in the shade of an umbrella at a local restaurant, he quickly and skillfully examined my phone, cleaned it with a sterile wipe, and meticulously placed a new protective plastic phone screen on my smartphone. Depending on the ambulance ability of each individual, this type of activity may not require a tourist setting to be successful, as many local

Haitians and Dominicans are also patrons of these entrepreneurs. After the young man upgraded my phone, I saw that he had moved down the line of restaurants sold and applied phone screens to three Dominican waiters at separate restaurants, and another Haitian vendor purchased a phone charger from him.

This type of work, however, can be limiting, as some beaches with a strong union presence may not allow outside vendors of any sort, and those Haitians who are dealing with documentation precarity run a certain risk when vending in these areas. Those who carry their business investment with them physically are also open to theft and extortion. A young Haitian man named Nicolas who came to the Dominican Republic when he was 13, and speaks fluent

Spanish discussed with me how police and Dominican business owners sometimes extort him of his goods so that he can continue to engage with potential clients in these settings. He sells nuts 52 and home-made sweets called dulce de coco. As we were talking, he saw the local tourism union boss walking toward us, he asked me to watch his plastic tub full of peanuts and sweets as he dashed behind a nearby restaurant to hide until this boss had passed us by.

Research Sites

Playa Vieja

The beach at Playa Vieja is picturesque. It is the quintessential idealization of a

“Caribbean Vacation”. Crystal clear blue water laps onto the silky sand. Striped umbrellas dot the beach just past the natural tree line. Competing stereo loudspeakers fill the air with Bob

Marley and Romeo Santos along with the mixing aromas of saltwater, grilled fish, and the occasional whiff of cigar and marijuana smoke. Playa Vieja’s established coral reef and clear waters brings tourists from all over the world to enjoy the beauty and cheap amenities. The beach is surrounded by older abandoned hotels, and a few still functioning resorts, sometimes resembling European beaches with cliff-side architecture. This beach and the tourist-supported community surrounding it are also known for heavy sex-tourism traffic, and while the beach closes in the early evening the streets are alive well into the evening with pulsating mixtures of reggaetón, bachata and Dominican and US pop music. In the past the sex-tourism market has targeted European travelers, but in recent years the influx of African American men from the east coast of the United States has drastically changed the culture, and many bars lean towards catering to this clientele. Dominicans who have lived in the US for some time are more fluent in this culture and may open up their own business or work for the increasing demographic of US immigrants opening small bars and restaurants in the area. There is a rich history of political corruption and failed foreign direct investment in this community, and the geographic 53 stratification of tourist dwellings and local homes is staggering. There is even severe socio- economic stratification within the neighborhoods themselves.

Many young Haitian people come to Playa Vieja to find work, and while some have been able to find steady work as local business promoters, others arrive to Playa Vieja each day to find few opportunities (Figure 2). Regardless of steady work or not, Playa Vieja is a risky place for Haitian people without secure documentation, and many young men discuss how “caliente”14 the beach is for them, as police are constantly arresting and deporting Haitian men in the area.

One young Haitian man who comes to Playa Vieja each day to look for work described the constant pressure from the police:

It is very, very ugly right now. Every day the police are fucking with people [Haitians] in the street. When I leave the house or go to the beach, I have to look up and then down the street to make sure there are no police, so they don't arrest me and take me and send me back across the border to Haiti.

Figure 2: Young Haitian men completing odd jobs, searching for regular pay.

14 Caliente, literally translated to “hot”, is often used to describe an area in the context of danger, whether it be from police, gang violence, or general constant precarity. 54

Playa Nueva

Playa Nueva is also picturesque of an idealized Caribbean vacation but has a drastically different culture of tourism compared to Playa Vieja. The tourism industry in Playa Nueva is relatively new compared to Playa Vieja, and foreign owned resorts and luxury condos are still being constructed along the beach. While Playa Vieja is known for its crystal-clear waters and opportunities for scuba and snorkeling, Playa Nueva’s open bay with ample wind has made it a popular destination for wind-related watersports tourism, bringing scores of tourists from Europe and the United States each year. This has influenced the type of tourism and foreign investment that distinguishes Playa Nueva as what many repeat tourists call “bohemian”. A more secluded nearby surf beach also brings competitive surfers to the community at the right time of the year, contributing to a unique style of Caribbean surf culture.

The popularization of wind and water sports at Playa Vieja has offered a unique opportunity for locals to capitalize on the local ecology to make a living. On any given day, several dozens of tourists and locals can be seen out on the water. That said, it takes significant capital to be able to purchase one’s own equipment, not to mention resourcing equipment to rent out to tourists. Many of the young people working in this setting work for foreign owned businesses, which makes up the vast majority of beachside businesses in Playa Nueva. In the case of kitesurfing, young people earn roughly 20% of each session they teach, which usually costs a tourist around $100 per hour. Some young men who are not part of a formal kite-school pool their resources together and charge only $30.00 an hour. While these young men technically make more money per hour, they receive far less business and are subject to constant harassment from the foreign-owned schools, and sometimes the Tourism Police. 55

Another significant difference between Playa Vieja and Playa Nueva, is that Playa Nueva is home to a formalized union of ambulatory entrepreneurs. These individuals receive an official tourism identification card and member number and can be discerned by non-unionized members by their blue button-down shirts, with a union patch sewn to the chest. Individuals who make it into this union tend to be older, Dominican, and carry around wooden boxes full of hand-carved jewelry made of silver and larimar. A group of Haitian women also work in this group, but tend to sell services like beachside massages, hair braiding, and manicures/ pedicures.

Most young Haitian men working at Playa Nueva can be seen at the upscale beach-side restaurants working as promoters, or on the street-side coaxing potential patrons into one of the many souvenir shops. There are also non-unionized ambulatory entrepreneurs passing with their large Styrofoam trays of sunglasses and phone accessories, or buckets of empanadas.

Playa Nueva represents a markedly different type of risk for young people engaging in the informal tourism sector. Compared to Playa Vieja, very few, if any, young people are seen coming to the beach to try and find work on a daily basis, and most people seen engaging in the informal sector already have some type of employment. This means that anyone who may be perceived as “out of place” by tourists or business owners will likely find themselves dealing with the POLITUR (tourism police). The nightlife on the beach is also quite different: many restaurants stay open well into the night, and a few night clubs on the beach attract an eclectic mix of party goers to the beach on any given evening. Many of the young men who work in water sports or promotion during the day, also may engage tourists in the evening, looking for romantic relationships or offering other services (licit or illicit) as part of the pleasure industry.

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The Industry of Pleasure

Several anthropologists before me have engaged with the Dominican Republic’s tourism industry of pleasure (see Cabezas 2009; Padilla 2007; Brennan 2004), and even in the geographic locations where I worked. However, few take the time to understand the specific and modern experiences of young Haitians in this industry. While discussing the informal sector of tourism or pleasure, the lines of illicit and licit endeavors often blur, and these two categories are not mutually exclusive in all contexts. Regardless of nationality, working as a restaurant promotor or ambulatory entrepreneur puts workers in contact with many dynamic people each day. Some may engage in sex work and some may sell or simply act as the connection for drugs (most often marijuana or cocaine) on the side.

Sex work is technically not illegal in the Dominican Republic, however organized brothels and pimping are (illegal). Engagement in sex work is particularly nuanced, and while some may negotiate an upfront cost for an evening, sometimes up to $100 an hour, others provide what has been referred to as the “sweetheart” experience (Jayaram 2010). Analogous to the US culture of the “girlfriend/boyfriend” or experience or more recently “sugar babies”, this work usually includes longer stays with a single tourist, in which that tourists reciprocates a romantic experience with several evenings of lodging in an upscale hotel, expensive dinners, gifts, or even school tuition or rent payment (Padilla 2007; Brennan 2004). One middle-aged

Haitian man working as a restaurant promotor, whom I often referred to for questions of this dating culture, explained that he, in fact, had a fiancé and a girlfriend at the moment, both of whom were living in the United States and came to visit for a few weeks several times a year.

During these extended “dates” he would often rent a car to use and move into a nicer apartment/hotel. 57

The extent to which sex work is experienced and viewed in Playa Vieja and Playa Nueva is gendered and categorically different. While Playa Vieja is very well known for the streets being packed with women engaging in sex work in the evening, the culture of sex work taking place in Playa Nueva takes a more subtle form. Many of the young men who work promotion or as water-sports instructors often moonlight as sanky panky-s. As my research associate, Lebron explained to me:

Well, the definition, so that you know what a sanky panky is, is a person who works on the beach, usually with water-sports and lives a life, well, like for example if there is a male or female foreigner (usually tourist) that they like, they can live with this person, help this person to get to know a part of the culture of the country. And, they share with them sex, alcohol, etc.. but, remember that there are several types of sanky, because there are others who do not do water sports, and only look to conquer the love of a foreign woman with the goal of finding a better future, of marrying them, and moving to their country to live and all of that. Others, do partake in water sports, looking for women and the women are attracted to them for their physical looks, like their dark skin, toned bodies, and hair (often dreadlocks with bleached tips) their flow and style...better said like “hippy”, and all of that. The other part of this is acting as a facilitator for (illicit) goods, like marijuana, if the tourist doesn’t know about the country. Also, a sanky makes the lives of tourists happier, going to night clubs, having sex, doing drugs. But there are many different types of sanky, there are others that only look for a future, creating a family with this person in another country etc…15

Clearly, defining the sanky panky identity is extremely nuanced, various, and complicated, and while I engage with and have several friends who consider themselves sanky panky-s I want to establish that the definition that I share in this thesis is that only of my experiences with these

15 “Bueno, la definición, para que sepas lo que es un sanky panky, es una persona que trabaja en la playa, generalmente con deportes acuáticos y vive una vida, bueno, como por ejemplo si hay un hombre o una mujer extranjera que les gusta, pueden vivir con esta persona, ayudar a esta persona a conocer una parte de la cultura del país y de todo el mundo. Y comparten con ellos sexo, alcohol, etcétera. Pero recuerden que hay varios tipos de sanky, porque hay otros que no practican deportes acuáticos y solo buscan conquistar el amor de una mujer extranjera con el objetivo de encontrar un futuro mejor, casarse con ellos y mudarse a su país para vivir y todo eso. Otros, practican deportes acuáticos, buscan mujeres y las mujeres se sienten atraídas por su aspecto físico, como su piel oscura, cuerpos tonificados y cabello como cocolo su flujo y estilo ... mejor dicho como "Hippy", y todo eso. La otra parte de esto es actuar como facilitador de bienes (ilícitos), como la marihuana, si el turista no conoce el país. Además, un sanky hace que la vida de los turistas sea más feliz, ir a clubes nocturnos, tener relaciones sexuales, consumir drogas. Pero hay muchos tipos diferentes de sanky, hay otros que solo buscan un futuro, creando una familia con esta persona en otro país, etcétera.”

58 men, augmented with only a few direct conversations from those who sankipanquear, and should not automatically be attributed to all young men who engage in sex work, nor all men who work in water sports, nor all men who are looking for tourists as romantic partners. It is however a specific term used by local Dominicans and Haitians living in the Dominican Republic as a particular sub-cultural self-identifier. But it does not necessarily define all young men searching for romantic opportunities that may result in a visa or life in another country. For example, another young Haitian man, named Junior who actively spoke to me about his daily goal of coming to the beach to find an “American girlfriend”, but certainly does not identify as a sanky panky, nor would others identify him as one, as he is a very conservative evangelical Christian.

According to Junior,

A sanky panky young man who is sometimes looking for a girl just for the night. That girl, or that person, gives the sanky money to spend with them just for that night. A sanky panky is a person that goes to the disco and looks for dates for money.

At Playa Nueva, many of the sanky panky-s that Junior refers to can be seen at a couple of neighboring bars that cater to the young tourist crowds. In the evening there is a volleyball net set up, and often interactive dance games projected on a screen in the open-air bar overlooking the surf. The younger men who work in water sports who pass time here often court young tourists who are on vacation with their families. Perhaps having met during a kite-boarding lesson during the day, young tourists often treat these young men to free drinks as they swoon over them, practicing their many foreign languages.

The sexual identities of sanky panky-s are also complex, and while in the Dominican

Republic queer identities are often outwardly denounced, the sexual habits and identity of those who are working in the sex tourism industry can be more fluid than what is acknowledged by mainstream Dominican society (See Padilla 2007). 59

In the same way someone engaging in similar activities as a sanky panky may not be considered a sanky panky, those who may embody the style and looks of a sanky panky may indeed still be referred to as a sanky panky, perhaps jokingly by their peers or merely as a style qualifier. Long, dreaded or braided hair, with bleached tips is a sanky panky style staple, but it also happens to be a style that is widely popular in the afro Carib surf culture as well.

Tourism Police

There are several divisions of the police force in the Dominican Republic. As described in Chapter Two, CESFRONT, the equivalent of Dominican border patrol, is largely stationed along the Dominican-Haitian borders and in the airports, in charge of day-to-day immigration politics. The Policia Nacional (national police) is the largest division, spread throughout the country to navigate day-to-day crime. The CESTUR (Cuerpo Especializado de Seguridad

Turística) or tourism police, was created in 1975 with the rise of tourism, and since have transitioned from working solely in the airports, to being strategically placed throughout the country’s tourist hubs. Charged with protecting the tourist populations and local businesses, most tourist towns, these officers are readily seen patrolling slowly on foot, or driving ATVs (all- terrain vehicles) or motorcycles in the sand. Figure 3 depicts CESTUR officers at work. The

CESTUR division is often lauded in national and local news as heroic guardians of tourists, for things like retrieving a Swiss tourist’s wallet with their visa and thousands of dollars in cash

(Listin Diario 2019).

While the duty of these officers is to protect and serve tourists, this also means that they are charged with preserving a certain atmosphere for tourists and enforcing the “rules of the beach” which may be explicit or implicit. During the day, CESTUR casually roam the beaches, often receiving free refreshments from local businesses, sometimes taking complaints from

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Figure 3: CESTUR officers on patrol in the Dominican Republic. Photos taken from tourism-review.com

tourists, perhaps about a lost wallet or a drunken scuffle the night before, sometimes flirting with them as well. They actively engage in moving what may be seen as poverty or risky situations for tourists from the beach areas during the day, and often post outside of the dance clubs and bars at night, keeping a watchful eye on the goings on.

CESTUR agents also keep tabs of the informal tourism sector, as my research associate

Wally explained, “They [CESTUR] usually know which people have been there working for a long time, and who is new. If someone looks out of place, they will tell them to leave or call the

National Police to arrest them.” The CESTUR also enforce the formal and informal rules established between businesses on the beach. For example, in Playa Nueva, there are strict rules as to where and how you can promote a restaurant or speak to potential clients. If a client is determined to be poached from the area considered to be that of another restaurant, the promoter, most often Haitian, will likely be arrested and subject to a fine. I saw this firsthand, as a veteran

Haitian promoter, Jacques, working at a seafood restaurant approached a large group of US tourists, who were walking slowly by the restaurants which preceded his. Jacques had already convinced two of the group to come to the seafood restaurant where he works, but the rest of the group lagged behind and sat at the neighboring Italian restaurant not having seen their two 61 friends had already entered the seafood restaurant. When Jacques crossed the invisible line in the sand that separated his seafood restaurant from the neighboring Italian restaurant to explain in fluent English that the rest of their group had already gone inside his restaurant and were sitting at the bar waiting for them, the promoter and waiter at the Italian restaurant engaged Jacques in quite a verbal assault in Spanish and Kreyol. It also just so happened to begin raining profusely that day, and the large group of US tourists, totaling around 12 ended up trapped in the seafood restaurant for several hours, eating and drinking copiously. The pay-out for Jacques ended up being roughly US$50.00.

When I returned to the restaurant the next day, my research associate, Junior, who worked with Jacques, told me that Jacques had been arrested by CESTUR for poaching clients from the neighboring Italian restaurant. Jacques was kept in jail for three days, eventually returning to the seafood restaurant to work the same day he was released. I was told later, by

Jacques and another employee at the seafood restaurant, that the owner of the Italian restaurant paid CESTUR to arrest Jacques, and the Russian owner of the seafood restaurant refused to assist

Jacques, as he was paid under the table and she did not want to formally acknowledge him as an employee and incur a fine. Jacques later told me that he was very fortunate to have an up-to-date visa, or he would have likely been deported.

Documentation Precarity in the Informal Tourism Sector

Like in many immigration situations, there are several levels of residential/ citizenship documentation, and the precarity of an individual's documentation status varies accordingly. The documentation status of Haitians working in the informal sector ranges widely, from not having even a Haitian birth certificate, to having a current Dominican visa and work permit, with several scenarios in between. Many young men come to the Dominican Republic with a temporary travel 62 or tourism or travel visa, while others come with no documentation and only the clothes on their backs. Even for those who do have visas, the Dominican government makes it particularly difficult to maintain proper paperwork. Travel visas are the easiest to obtain, however one cannot obtain a work permit on a travel visa. As young beach workers Jude and Junior explained to me, even with a travel visa, which can cost up to US$300, you have to travel back to the nearest port of entry each month to pay $25 for immigration control to check your paperwork. If you do not travel and pay, you may get deported, and before coming back into the country you will have to submit back-payment for all previous missed payments. This is difficult for many, who are paid under the table, and often choose between paying rent, or paying for their visa. Those who have missed payments or who do not have documentation reported often having to pay-off police in order not to be arrested and deported. Others experience increased scrutiny of already obtained legal paperwork. As one young Haitian man explained to me,

There is a lot of risk, a lot of risk. Without papers trying to make it not to come to give the country a bad reputation. But they come here like ok, so, I know a guy who is like 38 years old and he has seven children and he is well-educated, but he has no opportunity to feed them in Haiti. So, when I was coming down here, he was one of them who actually said that they would not let him go through because there was a misspelling on his visa. they make him get off the bus, he has to go re-buy another visa to be able to come here. He had to go do the process all over again because they made a mistake in his name.

Producing Youth as Subjects in the Pleasure Industry

Tourism has come to represent a key component of survival for many Haitian people living in the Dominican Republic, and training to embody the performative roles that the industry of pleasure demands of its subjects can begin at a very early age. While many young

Dominicans are exposed to tourism through family businesses, many poor Haitian children living near tourist areas are actively trained to engage in the industry and or actively detained for doing just that. To close this chapter, I draw on two ethnographic examples of structural agendas that 63 influence Haitian youth (recently immigrated or Dominican-born) who are living near tourism economies. My hope is that by presenting a juxtaposition of these two entities that formally take charge of children’s training and experiences as it is related to tourism, it will offer additional contextual understanding of the experience of Haitian youth as they mature into the age group that I have included in my study, and discuss in the subsequent chapter.

School, Free Lunch, and Sex on the Beach

I met Angelo one day while taking public transportation from Playa Nueva back to Playa

Vieja. He was talking with another teacher about the condition of the basketball courts at his community, as another passenger entered the guagua16. I was pressed closer into them making room for the incoming passenger, and as we were nearly sitting on each other laps, as is the usual arrangement in the packed public transportation system in the Dominic Republic, we struck up a conversation. Angelo was the executive director of a very small NGO-funded school in a nearby batey which provided extended day school services to many of the poor young Haitian children living in the area. Angelo quickly invited me to visit, and I eagerly took him up on his offer. We set up a visit for the next week. When I arrived, I was quickly led into the small three-room schoolhouse, which was packed full of over 40 kids aged 3 to 17, most of them Haitian. The children were divided into these three rooms by age, roughly making a preschool room, an elementary school room, and a middle-school/high-school aged room. Angelo greeted me enthusiastically at the door, and immediately brought me in to show off in front of his students, and to show his students off to me. He asked that I introduce myself in Spanish and Kreyol, to show as he stated, that Haitian Kreyol is indeed a legitimate and internationally spoken language.

I was then herded into the elementary school room, where I spent roughly twenty minutes

16 A guagua is a colloquial term used for a van or bus, nearly always referring to one of the public transportation units used all over the country. 64 playing an alphabet game with the students who were cramped into two wooden benches. When

I emerged back into the main salon, where Angelo was teaching the older children, I was shocked to see the words “sex on the beach” written in English on the dusty chalkboard. I sat down near some of the students, as Angelo continued his lesson on tending bar, and finding work in the tourism industry. Angelo produced several additional drawings, accompanied by a mixture of Spanish and English vocabulary on the board behind him. The students, who ranged from 10 to 17 years old, periodically shouted the names of the mixology tools Angelo sketched on the board. The photograph in Figure 4 shows Angelo using a plastic cup and salt from the school’s small kitchen to demonstrate how to properly rim a glass with salt before making a margarita as students pay close attention.

After the mixology lesson, Angelo’s wife and the two other teachers began to pass out plates of sweetened oatmeal, and Angelo and I sat outside in the galleria to talk. Angelo explained to me that he is providing a vital skill to these children so that they can enter into the tourism industry, and find jobs, hopefully and eventually making it out of the poor batey in which they lived.

Figure 4. Angelo teaching a group of youth how to salt the rim of a margarita glass, prior to mixing the drink.

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Angelo was also looking for advice about grant writing and finding international funding, so that he could provide more free meals and educational training, including forming community sports teams and art lessons. While I offered all of the knowledge about international development, educational grants, and foreign investment in social welfare programs, I kept thinking about how this particular situation fits in with the structural violence and globalization that affects the young men I was working with in the informal tourism sectors. While offering relevant skills in the most prominent sector of the local economy, was this premature exposure?

Are these children being groomed to be the next generation of pleasure providers, acting as the key commodity in the Dominican Republic’s comparative advantage in the evolving tourism sector? Do the parents of these children know that they are learning these skills? Would this ever happen to a community of all Dominican children? Or, is this type of training prudent, offering practical experience to the next generation, so that they may grow past the informal sector?

Rescate de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes en Situación de Riesgo

The tourism police also have an initiative that, on paper, is supposedly working to mitigate vulnerability experienced by youth working in the informal tourism sector. However, what is written on paper, what is presented to the public, and what happens on the beach and behind the locked doors of the new CESTUR “schools” may in fact be quite different things. The program, Rescate de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes en Situación de Riesgo (Rescue of Children and Adolescents at Risk) is a cooperative initiative between the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Education (MINERD), and the CESTUR, which was initiated to serve and protect youth who are living and working in the informal tourism sector. In a July 2019 publicity meeting between

MINERD and CESTUR, described the new program as a way to “ protect children and adolescents detected in their [respective tourist zones] which helps to protect them from sexual 66 and commercial abuse and exploitation, an act penalized by Law 136-03 and Articles 396 and

410 of the Children and Adolescent Code.” (Hoy Digital, July 17, 2019).17

I was first acquainted with this program in mid-June (2019), while interviewing a young

Haitian man named Evenson working at Playa Vieja. Evenson was 18 years old and had recently come to the Dominican Republic to find better work. When we finished the survey, Evenson told me about the “escuela de la policia” to which he spends several afternoons a week at. Evenson was still learning Spanish, and I was still learning Kreyol, so we eventually pieced together with the help of my research assistant, that Evenson was attending a school put on by CESTUR to teach young people working at the beach English, and provide daily snacks for those who were hungry. Intrigued, I asked if I could accompany Evenson to the school that afternoon, and he agreed enthusiastically. We walked through the community of Playa Vieja, and after about 20 minutes of walking we arrived at the end of a cul-de-sac, where what appeared to be a newly built home was refurbished into a make-shift jail. On the front of a newly built gate was a formal

CESTUR sign announcing youth initiative (Figure 5). There was an armed guard at the door, as we walked up. We were immediately let in, and Evenson walked right past a room full of school desks to an adjoining room with a large whiteboard and plastic tables organized into a square in the middle. A young Haitian woman with an infant sat at one of these tables, slowly bouncing her infant on her knee. To my right, in the galería were two young Haitian boys whispering together and playing with a folded-up piece of paper. The atmosphere was difficult to read, but it appeared to be a school, but with the intensity of extra security. While the bars on the window

17 “El ministro Peña Mirabal resaltó la labor que realiza el CESTUR para proteger a los niños, niñas y adolescentes detectados en sus zonas de responsabilidad, lo cual contribuye a cuidarlos del abuso y la explotación sexual y comercial, acto penalizado por la Ley 136-03 y los artículos 396 y 410 del Código de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes.” (Hoy Digital, July 17, 2019). 67 and locked front door were not uncommon in many middle-class Dominican households to fend off burglaries, the armed CESTUR officers who ran the place seemed off-putting.

Figure 5: The program, Rescate de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes en Situación de Riesgo (Rescue of Children and Adolescents at Risk) is a cooperative initiative between the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Education (MINERD), and the CESTUR.

As Evenson sat next to the woman with the infant, I was directed, without any verbal communication, to a back office where a tall middle-aged Dominican CESTUR agent sat behind a computer at a desk in the middle of the room. He stood up quickly and greeted me, offering me the chair directly across from him. He asked how he could help me, and I explained to him that I was a student working with a local NGO on an education initiative for youth working in tourism.

As the officer launched into explaining the program that had just initiated here that month (June),

I noticed a stack of manila folders with pictures of youth paperclipped to the top corner. The officer explained that they are putting together several initiatives to keep kids out of trouble, including free breakfast, English classes, job training, and sports programs. As he was finishing up his rehearsed explanation, he saw me glance at the stack of folders, and quickly put them away in a metal filing cabinet on the other side of the room and motioning to me that he would walk me out. He cordially thanked me for coming and asked me to put him in contact with the organization with which I was working, for potential future collaborations. I thanked him for his 68 time, and quickly departed, taking a quick photo of the sign in front as I made my way back to the beach.

I ran into the same officer a few weeks later as he was recruiting a couple of Dominican youth on the beach to participate in a sports program. As some of the parents were listening, I took the opportunity to ask him some additional questions about the program. He explained to me that it was an effort to help clean up the beaches, and that children can get involved “por la buena o por la mala”, which I took as a way of saying they are either caught engaging in illicit activity, or they self-inscribe to participate. I asked about documentation status, and whether that mattered, framing the question in a way that suggested the fact that many young people,

Dominican and Haitian, are dealing with documentation precarity at the moment. The officer quickly dismissed the question, with a “no, no, no importa”. Then as a couple of young Haitian men walked by, he immediately broke the conversation with me to interrogate them, asking them if they work there every day and at what establishment. Eventually satisfied with their answers, he refocused his gaze on me, and a young mother to whom he was paying extra attention. “Tu ves?” or “You see?” he said to both of us, referring to the young Haitians passing quickly down the beach.

Reflecting back on this situation, I once again am limited to my outsider and biased perspective. I wish I had more time to engage with the community members who took part in this program. At first glance, this came off as a tactic to catalogue all of the young Haitian people who were working at the beach, which was disguised as an educational and public health safety initiative. When I asked the young Haitian men at Play Vieja about it, they also saw this as a systematic ploy to get rid of all of the Haitians at the beach. However, in retrospect, this may also be a situation specifically designed to keep young people who are caught-up in dangerous 69 activity safe, while also building health bonds with the community. Similar to my experience with Angelo at his school, I was left morally conflicted. Was the isolated geographic location of this new “police school” purposeful? And if so, is it for the safety of the people they serve, similar to a domestic violence safe house? Or, is it to keep the youth the service hidden away from the tourists that they are charged with protecting? I knew Evenson did not have papers, but he had been participating in the school for a couple of weeks now, without any issues of deportation. In fact, he seemed to like the program a lot. One thing is for sure, this program is not outwardly discouraging youth to participate in the informal sector, but rather castigating them, cataloging them, and training them further in English to be able to further engage.

Conclusion

The tourism industry is very complex, and it has been integrated into several levels of

Dominican society and culture, particularly in coastal areas. In this chapter, I have provided a brief ethnographic overview and operationalization of the informal tourism sector in my field sites of Playa Vieja and Playa Nueva with the goal of offering a glimpse into the socio-cultural context in which the young men who participated in my project live. I have also offered ethnographic details from my fieldwork to provide additional contextual understanding of how participation in the tourism industry is inculcated in Haitian youth who are living near these areas. In the following chapter, I use primary epidemiological and ethnographic data to discuss the racial and structural disparities experienced by young Haitian men who are actively working in these sites, and the potential health outcomes these disparities portend.

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Chapter 5 Structural Violence, Vulnerability, and Occupational Health in the Informal Tourism Sector

Structural violence is a useful lens to study the “machinery of social oppression” in which

“violence is exerted systematically” but not always consciously by societal actors (Farmer 2004:

307) due to “normalization and regularization” of iniquitous systems, policies, and practices

(Simmons 2010). Prioritizing an orientation using structural violence allows the synthesis of several contributing societal and structural factors under one overarching concept of violence when discussing clearly racialized and hierarchal vulnerabilities.

In this chapter, I utilize epidemiological and ethnographic data collected from May- July of 2019 to offer an understanding of the occupational health related disparities stemming from structural and racialized environmental exposures experienced by young Haitian men working in the informal tourism sector, using their Dominican counterparts as a point of comparison18. This comparison is used to “center on the margins” and bring to the fore the statistically significant representation of these disparities reported by these two groups who are engaging in the same informal sector.19 I conclude this chapter with a discussion of how many of these vulnerabilities

18 As stated in Chapter Four, this thesis does not intend to suggest young Dominican men are not experiencing structural and racialized vulnerabilities. On the contrary, my data, shows young Dominican men in the informal tourism sector do experience relative vulnerabilities, but report significantly less than Haitians. 19 While interpreting these data, I also recognize my positionality as a white male who is a United States citizen has affected how the data was collected and likely the participant responses, and that the quantitative conclusions I draw here are still subjective to the context in which these data were collected. It is for this reason I have hired and collaborated with three local research associates to assist in the data collection and interpretation while drawing on the Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP) approach. PHCRP establishes critical and reflexive foci for engaging in public health research, particularly emphasizing understanding racialization, structural determinism, intersectionality, knowledge production and self-critique while conceptualizing public health endeavors and the communities they engage (Ford and Airhihenbuwa 2010a). For a review of this orientation, please refer to the introduction in Chapter One. For detailed methods and research timeline, please refer to Chapter Three.

71 reported in the quantitative data act synergistically in the production of Haitians as “disposable people” in the larger scheme of the political economy of im/migrant health.

Comparing Occupational Health of Young Haitians and Dominicans in the Informal Tourism Sector

Participant Demographics

A total of 60 young men (31 Haitian and 29 Dominican) participated in the cross- sectional survey, and 9 of the young Haitian men agreed to participate in semi-structured interviews to elaborate on experiences of occupational health, tourism, and im/migration. Table 1 below illustrates the demographic breakdown of survey participants. The reported employment categories of the participants are illustrated in Table 2. All participants can be considered to engage in local business promotion (55%) or ambulatory entrepreneurship (63%), both of which are not mutually exclusive. The sample size was not large enough to stratify responses by occupation, however it is stratified by reported ethnicity: 48% of participants reported

Dominican ethnicity (including two Dominico-Haitian participants) and 52% reported Haitian ethnicity. Tables 2-8 are presented as stratified data, due to the significant differences in reported experience in most variables. P-values correspond with the use of a Pearson’s Chi-Square test, which tests for “goodness of fit” of the reported distribution of each variable.

Age and Education

As seen in Table 1 there are stark differences in age, level of education, previous job training, and number of children between Haitian and Dominican participants. This sample also suggests that Dominican men working in the informal tourism sector are more likely to be younger than their Haitian counterparts. In contrast, the ages of young Haitian men in the sample are more evenly distributed between 18 and 30 years of age (Table 1). Compared to Dominicans, 72

Haitian men were also more likely to have children (45% vs. 34%), have less job training (42% vs 69%) and lower levels of education (Table 1).

Table 1. Demographics n % Total 60 Ethnicity Dominican 27 45 Dominico-Haitian a 2 3 Haitian 31 52 Language of Survey Spanish 44 73 Kreyol 16 27 Have Children Dominican 1-2 children 9 31 3+ children 1 3 No children 19 66 Haitian 1-2 children 13 42 3+ children 1 3 No children 17 55 Age Dominicans 18-24 24 86 25-30 4 14 Haitians 18-24 18 58 25-30 13 42 Had Previous training Dominican 20 69 Haitian 13 42 Education Dominican 8th and below 9 31 Any high school 18 62 Any college 2 7 Haitian 8th and below 19 61 Any high school 12 39 Any college 0 0 a Dominico- Haitians considered themselves to be Dominican and held Dominican paperwork and included in the Dominican sample. 73

I suggest that participant age in this context can be viewed as a structural determinant that is tied to generational wealth, social capital and family connections: many of the young

Dominican men who took part in the survey were indeed working in the same sector as the young Haitian men but were more likely to be working in a family business. As two young

Dominican brothers who work all-day renting umbrellas and lounge seats at Playa Nueva explained, they work directly for their father who owns the seats, and while they are paid a salary, it is not necessarily based on commission, and regardless of their daily rentals they also still live with their families and enjoy significant support at home including meals, access to water, electricity, etc. without any extra financial expectations. Haitian men, on the other hand are less likely to have these connections and are dependent on their daily commissions and must continue in these positions for much longer than Dominicans for whom this may just be a youthful phase of employment.

Similarly, young Dominican men were more likely to engage in jobs that require more initial capital, like working as a kite-boarding instructor which requires access to watersports training, funds to purchase or borrow expensive aquatic gear, or motoconcho, which requires the capital to purchase or lease a motorcycle (Table 2). Most Haitian men were split between some type of business promotion or working as ambulatory venders.

Table 2. Employment Categories Dominican Haitian Total n % n % n % Promotiona 4 7 14 23 18 30 Vendor b 9 15 11 18 20 33 Waitera 2 3 1 2 3 5 Kite Surf a, b 10 17 1 2 11 18 Parking/ Security - - 1 2 1 2 Musician a, b - - 1 2 1 2 Motoconcho b 4 7 2 3 6 10 a considered business promotion b considered ambulatory entrepreneurship

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Racialized Risk and Violence

Occupational risk is manifest in a variety of ways. As seen in Table 3 risk variables included in this survey range from number of accidents/work injuries in the last year, to exposure to social violence20. While the entire sample population reported particularly high levels of several risks experienced in the informal sector, Haitians reported more experiences with risk in each category. Occupational risks for Haitians come in the form of explicit violence and discrimination, but also in daily microaggressions and elevated environmental exposures. As

Table 3 illustrates, the reported risk of being detained or interrogated by police (86% vs 31%) or experiencing racial discrimination at work in general (81% vs 17%) is significantly different for

Haitians and Dominicans. Being threatened at work (58% vs 17%) and sexually harassed (58% vs 17%) at work were also reported three times more by Haitians compared to Dominicans and

Haitians also tend to work longer hours in positions that require longer periods of sun-exposure

(Table 3).

While these experiences are unpacked with more contextual depth later in the chapter, a brief explanation here is warranted. Haitians in the informal sector are constantly interrogated by police, racially prodded by Dominican and foreign business owners, as well as threatened by other Dominican workers and beachgoers. Haitians are often accused of “crossing restaurant lines” or “stealing customers”. This is particularly problematic for young Haitian men who speak nearly fluent English and are able to communicate rapidly and effectively with many tourists, compared to their non-English speaking Haitian and Dominican counterparts. The story of

Jacques, the Haitian restaurant promotor from Chapter Four, is a prime example of how Haitians

20 Social violence refers to both the direct verbal racial and sexual harassment, threats, discrimination, and increased exposure and social association with illicit activities such as sex work or selling drugs. 75 are more likely to experience run-ins with the Police on a daily basis and have little power or leverage to negotiate their situation.

Table 3. Reported Risks Dominican Haitian Total Variable p valuea n % n % n % Injured at work 1-5 timesc 0.005b 5 17 12 39 17 29 Injured at work 5+ times 0.005b 1 3 7 23 8 13 Sexually harassed at work 0.010b 6 21 12 39 18 30 Reported physical risk 0.884 18 62 20 65 38 63 Reported social risk 0.196 12 41 18 56 30 50 Job more stressful than 0.154 15 52 20 65 35 58 usual Threatened while at work 0.001b 5 17 18 58 23 38 Work in Sun 1-5 hours a 0.036 b 11 38 5 16 16 27 day Work in Sun 6-12 hours a 0.036 b 12 41 23 74 35 58 day Worked 5 days a week or 0.033 b 2 7 2 7 4 7 less Work 6 days a week 0.033 b 8 28 8 26 16 27 Work 7 days a week 0.033 b 19 66 21 68 40 67 Discrimination at work 0.001b 5 17 25 81 30 50 Detained or interrogated 0.004b 9 31 21 86 30 50 by police while at work a Based on Pearson’s Chi Square Test b P-value is ≤ 0.05 c In the last year

Haitians also experience frequent verbal abuse. Nearly every day I spent at the beach with these young men, I would hear derogatory remarks towards their personhoods. One day while sitting with a young Haitian peanut vendor, a young Dominican girl came up and asked him for a dulce de coco treat that he had in his plastic tub. He asked if she had money, and when she replied no, he offered her some anyway without hesitation. Seconds later, her mother yelled across the beach at her to get away from him, that he was “sucio” or dirty.

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Job Security and Satisfaction

Most of the sample size reported poor job security, however young Dominican men reported significantly more overall job satisfaction than Haitians (Table 4). Dominican men were also more likely to report being able to cover their bills with the money they make (62%) compared to Haitian men (10%) (Table 4). However, these are still very low aggregated numbers for both sample populations. While not statistically tested for, I suggest that a significant portion of the job security variables are connected with levels of social capital and union association. As shown in Table 4, Haitian men were much less likely to be part of or access to a union.

Moreover, the Haitians who did report being part of a union were not direct members themselves but were employed informally by a Dominican business owner who was part of a beach worker union. Dominicans were also much more likely to report the ability to advance or be promoted in their current line of work (90% vs 45%) and are proud of their current position (90% vs 58%).

Table 4. Job Security and Satisfaction Dominican Haitian Total Variable p valuea n % n % n % Secure job 0.054 18 62 10 32 28 47 Lost work in the last year 0.008b 7 24 18 58 25 42 Union member 0.073 15 52 9 29 24 40 Salary palls bills 0.001b 18 62 3 10 21 35 Receives competitive pay 0.010b 18 62 9 29 27 45 Can advance in current job 0.001b 26 90 14 45 40 67 Feels in control of future 0.201 25 86 21 68 46 77 Proud of current job 0.006b 26 90 18 58 44 73 a Based on Pearson’s Chi Square Test b P-value is ≤ 0.05

Haitian men living and working in both sites frequently asked about the rates of pay in other tourist hubs, which are quantitatively and contextually variable. In Playa Nueva, a restaurant promotor should make a base salary and earn 10 to 20 percent of the overall 77 expenditure of the clients they bring in. This varies widely from restaurant to restaurant, and some young Haitian men reported making only 5 percent of the total expenditure of their clients, without any base pay.

The upside for Haitians working in Playa Nueva are that the restaurants receive more business throughout the week, are more expensive, are open in the evenings, and are safer.

Compared to Playa Vieja, there are nearly three times as many restaurants and shops, the beach empties out around 5:00 pm, the restaurants are less expensive, and there are fewer customers during the week. Furthermore, less tourists frequent the restaurants at Playa Vieja compared to

Playa Nueva, which contributes to overall earnings, including tips.

Social Capital

Most young Dominican men reported trusting their peers (86%) being able to ask for help

(93%), and currently live with family (76%) (Table 5). In contrast, only 48 percent of young

Haitian men report being able to ask for help if there were experiencing financial health or legal trouble, only 39 percent trust their peers, and 48 percent live with some family (Table 5). The context of family living also varied significantly for Dominicans and Haitians. Most young

Dominican men who live with family, reported living in a multigenerational household, while young Haitian men living with family usually live with their partner and children or one other adult sibling or cousin. Young Dominican men were also more likely to have found their job from a family member (31%) compared to Haitian men (16%) (Table 5) and of the Dominicans who located employment with help from a family member, most were working in a family- owned business.

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Table 5. Social Capital Dominican Haitian Total Variable p valuea n % n % n % Can ask friends for help 0.001b 27 93 15 48 42 70 Works with a team 0.038b 19 66 12 39 31 52 Can trust peers 0.002b 25 86 12 39 37 62 Participates in community 0.768 12 42 14 45 26 43 groups Lives with some family 0.029b 22 76 15 48 37 62 Friend helped find job 0.350 9 31 10 32 19 32 Family helped find job 0.350 9 31 5 16 14 23 Found job alone 0.350 11 38 16 52 27 45 a Based on Pearson’s Chi Square Test b P-value is ≤ 0.05

Negotiating with supervisors was also a significant issue described by young Haitian men. Due to precarious documentation status, perceived risk of job loss has prevented many young Haitian men from negotiating better pay, schedule, or benefits. Local business promotion was reported to be a precarious occupation in any case. Many Haitian men reported being replaced or fired frequently, and often move from one job to another, sometimes in the matter of the same day. One young man described being fired one day due to standing up to his supervisor regarding fair payment. This young man was hired by the adjacent restaurant the next day but returned to the previous restaurant the following month. While exacerbated in the population of young Haitian men, this situation was reported in young Dominican men working on the beach as well, particularly with kite-boarding schools.

Food Security and General Health

Food security in the informal sector is widespread. As shown in Table 6, three of the indicators correlated with food insecurity were reported by over 50 percent of the total sample population. However, there is still a stark disparity in the reporting on these variables between

Haitians and Dominicans. Over 60 percent of the Haitian participants reported having experienced worry about food (65%), have run out of food in the house (81%) and have had to 79 eat the same food nearly every day for the last three months (77%) (Table 6). Geographic isolation due to inflated living costs in tourism settings, threats of violence, documentation precarity and lack of financial resources were the most reported reasons Haitians connected to their experiences with food insecurity. Dominicans cited only financial issues.

Table 6. Food Security Dominican Haitian Total Variable p valuea n % n % n % Worried about food 0.001b 13 45 20 65 33 55 (last 3 months) No food in house 0.001b 11 38 25 81 36 60 (last 3 months) Same food every day 0.001b 7 24 24 77 31 52 (last 3 months) Engage in shameful or 0.605 5 17 7 23 12 20 illicit activity for food in the (last 3 months) a Based on Pearson’s Chi Square Test b P-value is ≤ 0.05

Table 7. Illustrates variables related to general health. Young Dominican men reported almost no issues with sleep, while 45 percent of young Haitians reported frequent difficulty sleeping at night. Several Haitian men explained that their sleep was often affected by the level of stress they experienced during the day, as well as fear of robbery or violence while asleep. In fact, one of the young Haitian men participating in the survey explained that someone had snuck into his small one-room home when he was sleeping to steel his phone a few nights prior. Very few people I spoke with had health insurance, however no Haitian men reported having health insurance, while 35 percent of young Dominican men did. Drinking and smoking is reported, however I would not suggest these are completely accurate, as many young men reported drinking one drink a month, while others drank several drinks a day. What is of particular 80 interest though, is that young Haitian men reported smoking tobacco more often. Several participants in qualitative interviews reported tobacco use to stave off daily hunger.

Table 7. General Health Dominican Haitian Total Variable p valuea n % n % n % Often have Trouble 0.001b 1 3 14 45 15 25 Sleeping Have Insurance 0.001b 10 34 0 0 10 17 Has to pay for medical 0.195 18 62 24 77 42 70 services Drinks Alcohol 0.014 b 25 86 18 58 43 72 Smokes Cigarettes 0.014b 5 17 12 39 17 28 a Based on Pearson’s Chi Square Test b P-value is ≤ 0.05

Sex Work and Sexual Health

While the quantitative survey does not elucidate the culture of sex work in the informal tourism sector, going on dates is prevalent. Many young men and the women who sometimes joined our conversations, reported dating tourists in exchange for meals, gifts, or social capital, and those who reported not having done so in the past, reported that this would be an ideal way of making ends meet if they had the means to do so.

Male sex work and going on dates requires a certain level of social and economic capital to present one’s self as an “attractive candidate” in the sex work industry. Most of the young men working at Playa Vieja experienced severe poverty, some of them homeless, and perhaps only bathing in the ocean at night when the beach closed. Some young men also must borrow clothes from friends in order to wash the few clothing articles they actually own. One day while sitting on the rocky steps leading from the strip of restaurants to the sandy beach at Playa Vieja, a group of young Haitian men discussed with me the potential for dating a “blan”, the Kreyol term used 81 synonymously for white people and foreigners, and in this context, tourists. All of these young men clearly identified dating or even marrying a tourist as one of the best possible outcomes for them, however they also noted the necessity for proper “flo y estilo”21 and a cell phone to be able to facilitate communication. Many of the young men at Playa Vieja were lacking the social and economic capital to engage in the sex work endeavors we discussed.

Sex work reported among participants was much more prevalent in Playa Nueva, where most Haitians reported higher levels of economic security and social capital, as well as language skills. Sitting with my research associate at a restaurant in Playa Nueva one day, his co-worker, a

Haitian man in his 40’s explained that he often dates older women for money, and has worked in the tourism sector in Haiti, Miami, and the Bahamas prior to ending up back in the Dominican

Republic. He speaks several languages and has spent significant time cultivating his international flirting and romantic courtship techniques. He showed us the extensive texts with women in

English, French and Spanish, often in the context of “sexting”22 nude photos and all. On several occasions after his shift, he showed up to the restaurant where he worked or the adjacent nightclub with an older Canadian or American woman, often smoking a cigar and drinking expensive rum.

Sex work presents specific health concerns, especially for youth populations engaging with older romantic partners. While interviewing several young men and women working in both

Playa Nueva and Playa Vieja, two alarming themes arose: many young people reported not using condoms, or using two condoms at once, which increases the risk of condom-tearing and increased risk of sexually transmitted infections. Many young women also reported taking antibiotics intermittently as birth control when they run out, and/ or using antibiotics as if it were

21 Referring to trendy clothing, hair style, jewelry, etc.. 22 Sexting refers to “sexual texting”, a popular form of erotic communication via technology. 82 an emergency contraceptive, both of which are ineffective and dangerous antibiotic use behaviors. Several young men who work in watersports who also engage in romantic relationships with young tourists discussed the lack of condom use because tourists are

“clean”. 23

Synergistic Vulnerabilities

Vulnerability is an intrinsic part of daily life for most of the Haitians with whom I spoke.

These young men came to the Dominican Republic to search for enhanced livelihoods but are often stuck in a system that exploits their labor and denigrates their identities. Young Haitian men are forced into a cycle informed by several vulnerabilities working synergistically, ultimately reproducing and maintaining their lowered status in a hierarchal race and class system.

Exploitation

Sitting on the Playa Nueva beachfront of a foreign-owned restaurant, ironically named after the original indigenous inhabitants of Hispaniola, Michaelson, a young Haitian musician and club/restaurant promotor spoke to me about the system of exploitation and vulnerability experienced by most Haitian im/migrants working in the informal tourism sector.

The Haitian people who come here [the Dominican Republic] for work, are not treated equal to the Dominicans. It is very different. For example, in my job, the salary that I earn, even though I work more, is not the same as the others [Dominicans]. When I work, I do much more than them, but the pay isn’t the same. How I am treated sometimes… I spend an hour being sad, thinking about it, but I have to accept it because I don’t have anything else. I can’t do something else to improve my situations. So, I take it, accept it then cry and scream and think of how difficult things are… the job… how humans should be treated. Sometimes people here are seen for the color of their skin, but you are not seen for the person that you are, but the color of your skin. For me… well, it doesn’t weigh on me, you just have to accept it and endure… put up with the pain and continue

23 A question regarding sex-work and STI/STD testing was included in the survey, however after several participants refrained from answering this question, my Haitian research associates and I decided to disqualify this question, as we knew several of the participants were engaging with sex work, and even discussed this work later on, but preferred not to report this activity during the survey. 83

fighting because in life there is also success, but success takes sacrifice. You have to accept that some days are for crying and others are for laughing.24

Michaelson has been living in Playa Nueva for several years, working his way up from doing janitorial and domestic work to managing the music and dance promotion for a local nightclub and casino. Michaelson is regarded as particularly influential in the Haitian beach- worker community at Playa Nueva and appeared to have the best job security out of all of the young Haitian men with whom I spoke. He had worked at several of the restaurants lining Playa

Nueva’s beach and had cultivated relationships with many of the foreign owners and Dominican employees. He has also brokered the hiring of several of the young Haitian men with whom I spoke at several of these restaurants. Even with his experience and connections, Michaelson explains he is constantly vulnerable to exploitation and at the mercy of his employers. The week before our interview, Michaelson told me his boss brought him a document that significantly cut his salary, which was already minimal.

For example, where I work, my supervisor told me that we have to cut our salaries. It was a week ago that I received the document. I read the document and it made me think about a lot of things…What could I do? Were there other things I could do [for work]? Do I have other options that would allow me not to accept the document? But it didn’t matter, I accepted and signed the document… This was the first time I have seen a contract like that. Before, I was told that this job would always support me. And later, they gave me this document… 25

24 Los Haitianos que vienen aquí trabajar no se tratan lo mismo. Es muy diferente. Por ejemplo, en mi trabajo, el sueldo que gano, aunque trabajo más, no es el mismo que los demás. Cuando trabajo, hago mucho más, pero el sueldo no es lo mismo. Cómo me tratan a veces ... Me paso una hora triste, pensando, pero tengo que aceptarlo porque no tengo nada más. No puedo hacer otra cosa para mejorar mi situación. Entonces lo tomo, lo acepto, luego lloro y grito y pienso en lo difícil que son las cosas ... el trabajo ... cómo deben tratarse los humanos. A veces las personas aquí son vistas por el color de su piel, pero no te ven por la persona que eres, sino por el color de tu piel. Para mí ... bueno, no me pesa, solo tienes que aceptarlo y soportar ... soportar el dolor y seguir luchando porque en la vida también hay éxito, pero el éxito requiere sacrificio. Tienes que aceptar que un día para llorar y otro para reír. 25 “Por ejemplo, donde trabajo, mi supervisor me dijo que tenemos que cortar nuestros sueldos. Hace una semana recibí el documento. Leí el documento y me hizo pensar en muchas cosas ... ¿Qué puedo hacer? ¿Hay otras cosas que puedo hacer? ¿Tengo otras opciones que me permitan no aceptar el documento? Pero no importa, acepté y firmé el documento ... Esta fue la primera vez que vi un contrato así. Antes, me dijeron que este trabajo siempre me apoyaría. Y luego, me dieron este documento ...” 84

As Michaelson explained, employers of Haitians often capitalize on their vulnerability in order to renegotiate working conditions, avoid paying minimum wages, while avoiding the cost of ensuring appropriate and healthy work environments. David, another Haitian restaurant promotor in Playa Nueva explained to me that he makes only 5 percent of the net expenditure of the customers he brings in, but the Dominican restaurant manager often skims the top or refuses to give him credit for some of the tables, suggesting that they are “repeat customers” of the restaurant, which should not be considered his customers, but those that the restaurant’s reputation brought it. David also explained to me that while he has been working at this particular restaurant for longer than one of his co-workers, his co-worker successfully negotiated an earning rate of 8 percent, but was told he was not allowed to share his increased earning percentage with the other two Haitian restaurant promotors, one of which was David.

In many instances, documentation precarity and economic stress are often leveraged to decrease the value of Haitian labor, and Haitian workers are forced to accept unfair and risky situations because of their beleaguered circumstances.

“Es un ciclo terrible” (It is a terrible cycle), Geoff, a young Haitian restaurant promotor at Playa Vieja remarked. We were sitting on the beach sharing a Coca Cola, as Geoff elaborated on his experiences migrating to the Dominican Republic to work in the informal tourism sector.

What Geoff outlined, I had heard from several other Haitian participants who currently have, or at one point had a formal travel visa. Haitian people working at the beach are poor and the

Dominican government has made it particularly difficult for Haitians to obtain and maintain visas. Haitians who do have a formal visa are restricted by several structural barriers. In order to maintain a visa, they must travel to the immigration services office to check-in with Dominican immigration services and make a payment on their visa each month. For those who live far away 85 from checkpoints, this is an economic burden but also inherently risky because they fear being arrested or extorted on the way to or from the checkpoint near the militarized border.

Consequently, many of those who initially obtain a visa fall behind on payments, producing more risk and precarity in the workplace, where they may be afraid to confront their supervisors or argue for improved conditions.

Geographic Isolation and Food Security

Wadley, another Haitian restaurant promoter explained to me in English, “They

[Dominicans and Foreign restaurant owners] are selling us the dream, and we are supposed to sell that dream too. But that dream is not real. It isn’t real for us,” referring to the dream of

“paradise” that the local business owners leverage while encouraging Haitians to work in the informal sector for low wages at the beach, and the dream that these same young Haitians are expected to sell to tourists. Those who are able to live near tourism sites are often relegated to slum-like conditions with intermittent access to electricity and potable water. For Haitians, this situation can be exacerbated by precarious documentation status and intermittent crackdowns by the national police. Many young Haitian men report difficulties obtaining secure housing agreements and being isolated to their work at the beach and to their homes due to enhanced policing. Geoff elaborated, “I go to the beach, and I go home, that’s it…Sometimes they give me food for lunch (the restaurant), if not, I eat in the street (buying food from street vendors) or don’t eat...but I don’t spend time in the street because it isn’t safe”.26

While nearly all communities have at least some access to rice, oil, some fresh vegetables, and eggs through local colmados (food stands/shops), many young men lack utilities to cook or keep perishable items. So, they are often forced to buy food in the streets. While street

26 “Voy a la playa y me voy a casa y ya... A veces me dan almuerzo, si no, como en la calle o no como ... pero no paso tiempo en la calle porque no es seguro ". 86 food is relatively cheap, it is much more expensive and less nutritious than having control of diverse ingredients in one’s own kitchen. One of the young Haitian men at Playa Vieja explained to me further, that if someone is fortunate enough to work at a restaurant, they can potentially eat a meal or two before or after work due to the occasional generosity of their employers.

Michaelson shared the same sentiment working at a club in Playa Nueva, also adding that while he usually works in the evenings and well into the early hours in the morning, in order to be able receive meals at the club’s restaurant, he must also be seen being productive during the day, even if he is not scheduled to work.

Even though it is not my schedule, I have to be there during the day. [The chefs] need to see me present during the day… Because if the women who cook in the restaurant’s kitchen don’t see me during the day, they won’t give me food. If I am not present… and they see me show up late, I can’t order anything. Because the job [at night] doesn’t provide you with [any food], only water in the club… About health, this worries me a lot. If you spend the entire day struggling at work as well as at night, and you only sleep like two or three hours, you have to feed yourself well, but for food the capacity isn’t there. 27

When rumblings of immigration raids surface, which increased significantly in June of 2019

(Dominican Today 2019), fear of being arrested or harassed means staying isolated, skipping work, and losing out on that day’s wages while also missing the potential free meals consumed while at work. This inconsistent work presence may mean increased chances of being fired from one’s informal position, resulting in more financial precarity and food insecurity.

In June of 2019, in the middle of my fieldwork, CESTUR had teamed up with the Policia

Nacional and the Directorate General of Migration, the entity that oversees the CESFRONT

(border patrol), in order to carry out mass Haitian deportation initiatives in several regions

27 “Aunque no es mi horario, tengo que estar allí durante el día. Ellas necesitan verme presente durante el día ... Porque si las mujeres que cocinan en la cocina del restaurante no me ven durante el día, no me entregan comida. Si no estoy presente ... y me ven llegar tarde, no puedo pedir nada. Porque el trabajo no te da nada, solo agua en el club. de la salud, si tu pasa el dia luchando tsambien en la noche y solo duerme como dos o tres hora, hay que alimentarse bien entonces, pero por el alimiento no hay capacided.”

87 throughout the country. At the same time in the town of Playa Vieja, there was word of a drunken fight between a young Haitian couple that resulted in the death of his girlfriend in the early hours of the morning. The gossip on the beach was that the couple’s altercation was a result of jealousy, and that the woman had been going on dates with an older German man who in turn had bought her a moped. Regardless of what happened, this was the story being spread around the beach, and CESTUR along with the national police used this as premise for an intense up-tic in Haitian interrogations and arrests. When I arrived to Playa Vieja the morning after the incident, there were national police all over the beach, and many of the young Haitian men I had been speaking with in the preceding month had stayed home. Another young man that I had scheduled an interview with was arrested for “smoking marijuana” in the early morning at the beach prior to any tourists arriving. This young man and two others who did not arrive to work for the week, not only lost several days’ worth of pay, they barely ate during the time, and one of them lost their already poorly paying informal job as a restaurant promotor/ waiter.

While talking about this incident with another young Haitian man who worked as a water-sports promotor, he asked me, “Didn’t you know? We are called “Haitianos del Diablo.”

Which translates to “Haitians from Hell”, a slur used to derogatively refer to Haitians. I asked him to elaborate, and he explained to me that Haitians have very little formal structural support in the Dominican Republic, or even in their home country of Haiti. He explained that in many batey communities there is very limited access to the formal justice system, and Haitians are often the victims of lynch-mobs and community-level informal justice that has a tendency to over-rely on violence. The precarity of Haitians’ social situations and poor access to justice systems has often influenced how people are able to express themselves in difficult situations, and the media and local rumor-mills often exacerbate any type of violence involving Haitians. 88

Michaelson also elaborated on the complexities of the Haitian identity in the Dominican

Republic and how fear of racialized violence prevents him from travelling to new tourist locations to potentially improve his economic situation.

Sometimes they will come get you out of your bed while you are sleeping, even though they know you are innocent. If one [Haitian] does something, they charge all of us… and here I have this shitty fear to move to other locations, or new places where people don’t know me. This is the fear that I have. Sometimes I am called for work in other places, but the fear doesn’t let me go far. For example, here in [Playa Nueva] I know a lot of people, and I have some trust so that in a bad situation they can protect me. I have police officers, military and immigration personnel who know me, so I feel a little bit more secure in this place. But to go to another place? No, because of fear. I know that another place may be better, but because of the fear… In other countries if someone does something illegal, they are charged for their mistake. But here no. If a Dominican does something bad that Dominican pays, not some other Dominican. But if a Haitian does something bad, his problem is put on the rest of us [Haitians] who are innocent… That is the fear that I have. If I go to another place where I am not known, and someone does something bad, they could put it on me too even though I am innocent. 28

This stigma discussed by Michaelson can produce disproportionate levels of care, and access to health services as well. While the Dominican constitution states that all people residing in the country should have universal access to healthcare, documentation precarity also strips this access away. As anthropologist David Simmons demonstrated in his study with Haitians living in batey-s, even before the TC-0168-13 decision, Haitians experienced high levels of structural racism and violence which results in very poor access to health care systems (2010). My data confirms these experiences for young Haitian men who are working in the informal tourism

28 “A veces vienen a buscarte en la cama dormido, aunque sepan que eres inocente. Si uno [Haitiano] hace algo, nos carga todos ... y aquí tengo este mierda de miedo de mudarme a otros lugares, o nuevos lugares donde la gente no me conoce. Este es el miedo que tengo. A veces me llaman para trabajar en otros lugares, pero el miedo no me deja salir muy lejos. Por ejemplo, aquí en [Playa Nueva] conozco a mucha gente, y tengo un poco de confianza para que en una situación mal me puedan proteger. Tengo policía, militares y personal de inmigración que me conocen, así que me siento un poco más seguro en este lugar. Pero para ir a otro lugar? No, por miedo. Sé que otro lugar puede ser mejor, pero por el miedo ... En otros países, si alguien hace algo mal, se les carga por su error. Pero aquí no. Si un Dominicano hace algo mal, que paga el Dominicano, no otro Dominicano. Pero si un Haitiano hace algo mal, su problema se pone en el resto de nosotros [los Haitianos] que somos inocentes ... Ese es el miedo que tengo. Si voy a otro lugar donde no me conocen, y alguien hace algo mal, también me lo pueden poner a mi aunque soy inocente.” 89 sector. In fact, there was very little access to health insurance or any type of subsidized care

(Table 7), a right that on paper, is legally available to all people living in the country (Leventhal

2015). Many of the Haitian men I spoke with explained that aside from staying home in the case of fear from deportation, most rarely miss work due to illness, and very few sick days taken off from work were reported in the entire sample. Michaelson explained his worry about health and work:

We have… for example if I leave work, and I leave with a headache, and I arrive home with this headache, I have to worry about it myself and look for some medicine. Because I don’t have [insurance]. For example, the other day I left my house, I looked for some medicine with the money I had, and even though I was still sick, I had to return to work. Because If I find a replacement to work for me that day, I have to pay them, and I still don’t get paid for that day I missed… 29

Missing work, or not showing up was a constant concern for Haitian men at both tourist hubs.

For those who had a relatively steady gig, missing work may mean missing meals and having to make up the pay or upsetting their supervisors, who often threatened to fire them and find another Haitian to take their place. For those who came to the beach each day with the hopes of finding day-to-day work, missing a day at the beach means the potential for lost opportunity that may go to someone else. The vulnerabilities endured by these young men described above, are then exacerbated by the competitive market and social stress of missed opportunities.

Conclusion The data discussed above provides a mere snapshot of the variety of ways Haitians in the

Dominican Republic experience iniquitous structural vulnerabilities in an occupational setting that directly contribute to their overall quality of life. The stark quantitative differences between

29 “Tenemos ... por ejemplo, si salgo el trabajo y sali con dolor de cabeza, y llego a casa con este dolor de cabeza, tengo que preocuparme por mí mismo y buscar un medicamento. Porque no tengo documentos del hospital. Por ejemplo, el otro día que salí de mi casa, busqué un medicamento con el dinero que tenía, y aunque todavía estaba enfermo, tuve que volver a trabajar. Porque si pongo otra persona para trabajar para mí ese día, tengo que pagarles, y todavía no me pagan por ese día que perdí ...” 90

Haitians and Dominicans shown in nearly every survey category is evidence of how anti- blackness as anti-Haitianism and larger structural components of neoliberalism have manifested in Haitians’ occupational health in the informal sector. Globalization and structural adjustments have decreased the social safety net in the Dominican Republic while expanding a competitive tourism sector and subsequently vitalizing an informal sector. Simultaneously, the Dominican

Republic’s historical reliance on Haitian labor (and Haiti’s reliance on remittances) and the disenfranchisement of Haitian populations in unregulated occupational settings, have created synergies of vulnerability which ultimately render Haitian people a “disposable” workforce.

The Production of Haitian Im/migrants as a Disposable Workforce This process of producing “disposable people” is not unique to the context of Haitian im/migration in the Dominican Republic and is widely discussed in the context of the US-

Mexico immigration industrial complex (Green 2011, 2008; Golash-Boza 2009; Chacon and

Davis 2006). Anthropologist Linda Green, who has worked extensively with internally and externally displaced people from Central America and Guatemala in particular, describes how im/migrants are produced as “disposable people” or “nobodies” in a global neoliberal system “in which violence, fear and impunity are crucial components” (2011:367). Green goes on to describe neoliberal im/migration to the US in this context as:

1) a consequence of a complex set of global economic doctrines and geopolitical practices that produce both nobodies in the global south and low wage, dangerous, and non-union jobs in the United States; (2) a strategy of survival for millions of Central Americans and Mexicans who have few alternatives for procuring a livelihood in their own country; and (3) a set of punitive laws and practices that have reconfigured the US- Mexico border and beyond into a militarized zone—a space of death that punishes those people who are dispossessed and dislocated by US state-sponsored neoliberal policies and ongoing repressive practices. (2011: 367)

91

One need only replace “United States” with “Dominican Republic”, and “Central Americans and

Mexicans” with “Haitians” to see that what Green describes above as a neoliberal system of violence and impunity has been eerily and precisely replicated on the island of Hispaniola.

As I indexed in Chapter Two, centuries of racialized violence and later neoliberal structural reforms have intermingled with ecological disasters and ongoing political volatility to bereave Haitians of their livelihoods at home. Im/migration in this context often becomes one of the few “survival strategies” that remain (Green 2011). As a result, Haitians have been lured to work as the informal backbone in each phase of a growing Dominican economy (agriculture, urbanization and construction, and tourism) also propping up Haiti’s economy through remittances. All the while, anti-blackness has been leveraged by Dominican elite to create a narrative that exploits and stigmatizes the Haitian identity as a threat to the Dominican

Republic’s national identity (Howard 2001; Sagás 2000).

The creation and promulgation of a “Haitian threat” has been used to militarize the Haiti-

Dominican Republic border, encourage harsh documentation procedures, incarceration, and deportation, all of which promote a devaluation of Haitian humanity and worth. In the same way a “Latino threat” has been leveraged by the United States to perpetuate and capitalize on vulnerabilities of Central American and Mexican im/migrants (Chavez 2013; Green 2011),

Haitian im/migrants working in the Dominican Republic experience synergies of stigma, fear, violence and impunity that produce Haitians as an exploitable and disposable workforce, deprived of occupational and human rights protections.

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Chapter Six Hope, Opportunity, and Social Capital in the Informal Tourism Sector

Today, the term social capital is ubiquitously used to denote connections which afford support or certain access leading to some sort of benefit, however, the operationalization of the term in academic contexts varies. Sociologist Nan Lin’s conceptualization of social capital is that it is “rooted in social networks” and defined as “resources embedded in a social structure which are accessed and/ or mobilized in purposive actions” (Lin 2001: 12). This definition of social capital is operationalized into three components: the structural or embeddedness, the opportunity or accessibility, and the action-oriented or use of social resources (Lin 2001). In the Dominican

Republic, like many places, social capital is often connected to one’s reputation, family, and the ability to leverage relationships to produce positive outcomes. For example, having a large extended family with cousins, aunts, uncles, or even friends who work in several sectors of society offers embedded support which some Dominicans are able to actively mobilize as social resources. Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, often lack this type of social capital, and are likely to be filling a key role themselves in the support system that is leveraged by their families back home. Despite a systemic lack of social resources to mobilize, Haitians working in the informal tourism sector project stories of hope and opportunity, describing the potential to build international social capital. This chapter discusses the ways young Haitian men working in the informal tourism sector draw on international relationships while aspiring to fulfill their dreams of improved opportunity.

Social Capital and Resilience

As anthropologist Bonnie Kaiser and colleagues explain, social capital and social relationships are vital to mental health in the context of Haitians living in the Dominican 93

Republic (Kaiser et al. 2015). However, as their ethnographic and epidemiological data demonstrate, Haitians living and working in the Cibao region lack significant access to structural, opportunistic, and action-oriented aspects of social capital. Furthermore, Kaiser and colleagues found that migration to the Dominican Republic and lack of social support were associated with symptoms of anxiety, depression, and mental distress (Kaiser et al. 2015) 30.

Kaiser and colleagues also found general anxiety and distress to be positively correlated with the presence of others in the household, such as a spouse, children, or roommates (Kaiser et al. 2015:

161). Kaiser et al.’s qualitative data suggests that this correlation is due to increased perceived responsibility or a “social burden rather than social support” and related to the potential of not meeting “social expectations” that are associated with the Haitian culture of expected family support (Kaiser et al. 2015: 161).

While recognizing the variability of culture, and the pitfalls of over-generalizing one particular context to others, even in similar cultural milieus, Kaiser et al. 's findings promote necessary re-evaluations or conceptualizations of the role of social capital in health maintenance across cultural and contextual settings, particularly in understanding its role in forming or preventing resilience. Resilience, in the biological context, refers to the ability for the body to effectively regulate and cope with stress (Juster et al. 2010). Resiliency is fostered through a healthy amount of stress, counteracted with social support to develop self-efficacy along with specific physiological functions to effectively deal with given stressful exposures (Juster et al.

2010)27

For Haitian im/migrants working in the Dominican Republic, variables that may otherwise be categorized as forms of social support that promote reliance may be inaccessible or

30 Kaiser et al. also found that past experiences with interrogation or deportation were associated chronic symptoms of anxiety. 94 acting as a propellant of stress rather than support, as a result of their key role in supporting themselves and their families back home. Those with families relying on remittances may experience increased stress to provide additional support while also trying to survive themselves

(Kaiser et al. 2015). Today, young Haitian men who are working in the informal tourism sector are often able to leverage their language skills and increased exposure to foreigners in the global tourism market to form new and alternative forms of social capital in order to survive. While the past chapters have underscored the increased risk and vulnerabilities experienced by Haitian men in the informal sector, this chapter discusses how increased risk may also be accompanied by increased rewards.

Language, Impression Management, and Opportunity in Tourism

Language is a key variable in the modern Haitian im/migration experience. For Haitians, language can be both a source of stigma and opportunity. As discussed in Chapter Two, the

Haitian language has historically and systematically been stigmatized as a “black” and “African” component of the cultivation of anti-Haitianism which has been used to create hierarchies of race and class (Johnson 2003; Sagás 2000; Torres-Saillant 1994). However, in addition to Haitian

Kreyol, Haitians often speak several other languages, which provide them additional opportunities in the tourism sector compared to their Dominican counterparts. Table 8 depicts the reported linguistic abilities reported from the cross-sectional survey. While the reported language abilities in both groups are impressive, Haitian men reported speaking an average of four languages, while Dominicans reported an average of two, and Haitians reported a significantly broader linguistic skillset (Table 8).

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Table 8. Reported linguistic abilities of Haitians and Dominicans in the informal tourism sector Mean Spanish Kreyol English French German Other Total spoken n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) Haitians 31 4 30 (97) 31 (100) 20 (65) 26 (84) 1 (3) 2 (6) Dominicans 29 2 29 (100) 2 (7) 13 (45) 3 (10) 1 (3) 2 (7)

Wilson, a young Haitian man who speaks several languages fluently and who works as a beach vendor commented on the linguistic skills of Haitians and Dominicans working in the tourism sector:

Opportunity? Well most Haitians know many languages, they go to school, they are really well educated...Like I was saying earlier, some of them speak maybe 7 or 8 languages. So that is an opportunity when you are in foreign places, you are allowed to speak with whoever you want to. It doesn't matter where they are from. You can speak to anyone you want to. That is a big opportunity that the Dominicans at the beach probably don’t have. Dominicans [who work at the beach] know a couple of languages, but you won't find a lot of Dominicans who speak several languages.

Erving Goffman describes impression management as “the arts, basic in social life, through which the individual exerts strategic control over the image of himself and his products that others glean from him” (1986:130). For Haitians living and working in tourism sectors of the

Dominican Republic, language is part of their comparative advantage as well as an integral part of daily survival. Whether it is choosing to speak Spanish in a bus full of Dominicans, Kreyol with co-workers at the beach, or English with potential customers, language ability provides a tool to present themselves in certain ways in order to avoid stigma or build relationships. Haiti’s national language is technically Haitian Kreyol, which is linguistically similar to French, however the French language has been propagated by Haitian elite in formal settings, including the public-school system, for over a century. The amount of English-speaking aid workers and volunteer missions from the United States has also inundated Haiti’s educational structure, especially since the 2010 earthquake, producing significant exposure to the English language and 96

English speakers throughout the country. As my research associate, Lebron, explained to me, when he went back to Haiti to visit his family recently, many of the Haitians living near his families village often initiated him in conversations in English, assuming he was a diaspora31 from the United States because of his attire, and Spanish-tinged Kreyol accent.

In the informal sector, these linguistic skills create significant opportunity, and Haitians can capitalize on these skills through copious interactions with foreign tourists, often building lasting relationships resulting in tremendous social capital not otherwise available in Haiti or through relationships with their Dominican counterparts. These skills often allow Haitians in the tourism setting to expand their engagement across traditional hierarchies of race and class. The experiences shared with me by several young Haitian restaurant promoters are indicative of this type of social capital formation.

“Mache chèche pa janm dòmi san soupe”

When I met David in May of 2019, he was working at a foreign-owned beachside restaurant at Playa Nueva doing promotion. David often spent his days hosing down the beach- side furniture, meticulously raking and beautifying the sand in front of the restaurant or perched at the restaurant’s beachside entrance studying English and Spanish materials on his phone.

When potential patrons would meander close to the restaurant, David would quickly hop up, greeting them in whichever language he thought would make a better impression (often English) and give the tourists his brief pitch promoting the restaurant. David had worked in several areas of the tourist sector in the Dominican Republic, and spoke fluent English, Spanish and French in addition to his first language, Haitian Kreyol. David came to the Dominican Republic nearly four years before to look for improved employment opportunities with the goal of also supporting his

31 Diaspora is a term that has come to be used in Haitian Kreyol to describe someone who has Haitian roots, but grew up in another country, usually the United States. 97 family back in Haiti. To finance his initial travel visa and journey, David’s family had sold some of the family land investing in David to make a better living across the border and improve the entire family’s situation after his father had passed away. David learned English in Haiti, studying it in school, but also through copious interactions with Christian missionaries coming to his community, with whom he often volunteered.

David was very interested in my project, and we spent significant time over the summer discussing tourism, employment opportunities for Haitians, and the sometimes-ugly nature of volunteer missions that often come for a week of vacation after “serving” in often impoverished communities throughout the Dominican Republic. David usually split his time working at the restaurant on the beach and participating in a Haitian evangelical Christian church that was located about 20 minutes away from Playa Nueva in the community where he lived. When I asked David about his experience working at the beach, he explained to me that he comes for the opportunity the beach represents. David elaborated that while being at the beach was not his ideal work environment, it gave him access to opportunities to build relationships with tourists and other foreigners.

For me… this is not a good job. So, I could do more, because of my skills, but I keep coming to this job just to look for opportunity. So, you can imagine that I met even you there [referring to the relationship we had built over the summer]. So now I am not there [at the restaurant], I am making an interview with you, and you never know where that will bring me. Someone like you who comes to do a project next year or in the future, may need help from someone who speaks English and Spanish and French. And that happens, and so it is an opportunity.

Some of the opportunities David expands on are the seemingly constant flow of medical missionaries he encounters while working at the beach. David often takes these opportunities to volunteer as a translator and cultural liaison. This type of work is risky, though, as David explains, because in order to participate he has to take sometimes two weeks off from work and 98 pay to travel to the interior of the country to volunteer. David has also yet to be paid for this work, which often amounts to between 60 and 120 hours of language and cultural translation over a one to two-week period. That said, David sees other distinct advantages that manifest from his participation in these trips, including building more meaningful and lasting relationships with people who may be willing to support him outside of his work as a missionary translator in the future:

I also told you that I went to work on a mission in Santiago. A mission trip for healthcare. I met them here at my job. It was me who invited the group of medical missionaries to come to this restaurant. I said "Hey, welcome to my restaurant, my name is David, working for this restaurant, we have a very beautiful view and we have a great menu for you.” And, they sat with me, and said, "Oh you speak English!” I said, “Yes”, and they explained to me what they are doing there. They kept asking me why I came here. They ask me how I feel, and they ask about my experience, and they ask, “Do you think about leaving the DR one day? Ok, well one day if you think about coming to the United States, you should think about coming to Maine.” Because they lived in Maine. I said, “Okay, but I need a friend or connection to be able to go there, and if I don't have any friends there, I will not be able to go.” They said, “No! All of us will receive you in our houses. You will not need to bring this or that, and whenever you want and have your visa you will come to Maine, and you will come to stay with us. But we know that you will need a visa.

In the particular situation described by David above, the missionaries did not provide David with support with his visa, however I met another group of David’s missionary friends from Canada one day while completing surveys at Playa Nueva, and they described to me how they planned to crowd-source funds in order to fund David’s student visa and college inscription costs so that he could begin to study tourism and management at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo

(UASD), the flagship university of the Dominican Republic. David was excited to report to me that this financial aid did eventually come through.

Romantic prospects are also a significant motivator for young Haitian men who work as restaurant promoters and have daily interactions with tourists. As David explained, he used to be 99 in a long-distance relationship with a young woman from the United States, and he attributes some extent of his stellar English skills to the time he spent practicing with her. These days, he is interested in finding a more serious relationship, potentially with a tourist. Not all of his interactions with young tourists develop romantically though, and David emphasizes that is not his goal as a Christian man. David explained that he values the long-distance friendships that these encounters also produce. Showing me his smartphone, David, explained that he is constantly maintaining several ongoing text conversations with the people he meets at the restaurant and at medical missions

I have met many young women… I am texting with this young woman right now. But you know, she just met me. She doesn't know me for sure, she keeps asking me a bunch of questions, and then she even tells me that she is not interested. But you know sometimes, girls just want to talk with you and be friends, talking about a lot of stuff...But you know, that is opportunity for me too. To learn more and to have more connections. Like I told you, I am looking for opportunity.

For some, these interactions with tourists amount to little more than earning a living. But for

David, who has a meticulous plan for his future, these interactions are all part of the larger picture. David explained to me that his current position is just the first step of his plan of eventually being able to move back to Haiti and open up his own business in Haiti’s tourism sector.

You know this job, is this my first stage. But I have many, many plans. Like long term goals, and short-term goals. But I have to do this stuff before. So, I do it. I will use my strength as if I love it every day. If I find something else better than this, I will do something else. But if I don't find it yet, I will stay, and use it to look for more opportunities. We have a saying in our language, and I will try to translate it into English after I tell you, ‘Mache chèche pa janm dòmi san soupe’32, that means if you are looking and looking for something, one day you will find it. So that is to say, if you keep working hard, for the first day, the first month and the first year you may not be successful, but the second day, week, month or year you will know success. I believe in that

32 Literal translation of Mache cheche pa janm domi san soupe: Those who walk and search for it, never go to bed without supper, or if you work hard, you will reap rewards. Sayings, parables, and proverbs are an integral part of Haitian language and culture. 100

“I used to be a street chaser, now I am a dream maker”

Wilson, a young Haitian man who recently moved to Playa Vieja from the resort-laden

Punta Cana, echoed many of David’s sentiments towards opportunities in the tourism sector.

In the Dominican Republic, the most regular job anyone can find is in the tourism sites. Otherwise what do you have to do? Go work at a colmado (small corner store)? Which is not even a minimarket, or you have to work in the street or at a car wash. Otherwise the most highest job you can get in the DR is in the tourism site, at a resort or something.

Wilson, who speaks fluent Spanish, French, and English in addition to Haitian Kreyol, worked as a club promoter in Punta Cana before following a friend to Playa Vieja with the promise of increased opportunity. However, this opportunity was not what he was expecting.

One night I remember and I ain't never going to forget that...we walked all day to get to work in the city, and when we finally arrived my friend said, ‘Do you see all of those tourists? That is how you are going to make your money.’ And I thought to myself, ‘How am I going to make money?’ I was thinking, ‘do I have to start selling drugs? Or selling other stuff?’ He said, ‘by begging, trying to ask them to make friends and asking them for a dollar, three dollars, or five dollars, just to explain you don't have family, that you are from Haiti and you are hungry, you have to pay your hotel and apartment that's the way you are going to make your money.

This is not uncommon to see in the streets of Dominican tourist communities. While for many tourism indeed represents opportunity, not everyone who is engaging in the tourism sector has the means or social capital to obtain even an informal position. For these individuals playing on the generosity or ignorance of tourists can be a crucial survival strategy. As Wilson explained, most tourists have no idea about the politics happening in the Dominican Republic, and most don’t know who is Dominican and who is Haitian. Most tourists coming to the Dominican

Republic stay in expensive all-inclusive resorts and are herded around and exposed only to the culture that is presented by the resort-associated staff. Wilson explained:

They book their resorts outside of the country...stay in the resorts... and they have no idea how most people here really survive. They don’t know that there may be half of a million 101

Haitians here that have a capacity to work that many Dominicans are not willing to use, not that they don’t have it, most just don’t need to or choose to take the risks Haitians take. Haitians work most construction, even when they are sick, they take that risk to make like $400 pesos (US$8.00) a day, but they have to at least try to make DOP$100 to survive. But you [tourists] don’t even want to think about it, and you don’t even want to know, and [the resorts] don’t even want to show them either.

The nature of globalized tourism with stark separation between resort-level and street-level tourism has created this competitive market in which those at the lowest rung of the ladder must compete with those at each step above them. When tourists do venture out of the resorts, they are often quickly confronted every few steps by ambulatory vendors, street-side promoters, and people simply asking for money. This was not the life Wilson wanted. When his friend who coaxed him to move to Playa Vieja explained his intention of making a living from begging tourists for money, Wilson was disappointed:

I said, ‘no no no no, there is a big mistake right here.’ And that is why right now I am suffering, because there are many things I do not choose to put myself in. So many things I don't see myself doing regardless of because I am an immigrant, and no matter what. I do not want to go back to my country, no matter what I am going through here. ‘Cus it is worse over there. It has nothing to do with security, or that it is a bad country. But, when it is up to job security, you don't find that. I am never going to tell someone to not go to Haiti, that it is fake or dangerous...No, because that is a lie! These Haitians came here because otherwise they would not be able to make it daily over there. But because life is so hard every day, people have to improvise to make their day. If you go through a hard night, you have to think about what you are going to do tomorrow. So every day is just trying to make a better day. That is just how it is. Same thing in Playa Vieja, but different opportunities.

This is the reality of a tourist economy that is propped up with foreign direct investment which stimulates private sector growth, while most of the money made in the tourism sector flows out rather than infusing the local economy on which it capitalizes. Wilson explained that for some the opportunities are better in the Dominican Republic’s tourism sector, but most

Haitian im/migrants are still taken advantage of by both foreign and Dominican-owned 102 businesses. Haitians often have linguistic capabilities to speak to a variety of potential customers in the tourism sector, but are also likely to be experiencing documentation precarity which means they can be paid less than a Dominican:

[Haitian] immigrants can never get paid the same wage as someone else over here. When you are an immigrant you get taken advantage of. They may offer you three or four- thousand pesos a month, and you will say, ‘yes sir’ because something is better than nothing. They are looking for people like us. They know that we speak English, they think ‘They can be a servant. Let’s put them on the beach and make tourists buy excursions’ But their money stays with them. They see you come every day in the same clothes. Sometimes you have to wash what you are wearing every night just to make it every day… Some of these people [Haitians] borrow clothes and shoes from their friends every day just so they can try and get a job.

Despite the many negative and risky aspects of the im/migration-tourism labor nexus and the financial hardships that he has been experiencing in particular, Wilson explained to me that the still has a lot of hope for his future and working in the informal sector at Playa Vieja is key for his future prospects of becoming a social influencer:

There would be millionaires and trillionaires who would give all they have to be a part of this humanity to have my health but they not a part of it. I can laugh every day; I can meet different people every day so that is also a part of living life. I can see different aspects every day, and one thing that keeps me living life is ‘hopes’ and you find so many people that give you hopes, even though it may be fake. You still have hopes, that is what keeps me from all of the stress. I know tomorrow I will be a big influence and example for the whole wide world...You don't have to know anybody when you are trying to make a living here, but you just have to communicate with people. Not everyone is going to give you an opportunity, but the one who is going to do it, you are going to find him. When I was younger, I used to call myself a street chaser...When I came here, I was in the street trying to improvise my life everyday...When you are chasing, you don't know what you are looking for. But now I don’t see it like that, I see myself as a dream maker. I will be a big influence and a big example. It doesn't matter where [someone] is in their life. The whole world may talk about them just because of that one right decision they made...I just need one thing right now, that thing is called opportunity. I don’t want someone to come and give me a big plate of food every day. I don’t want you to do things for me, I just want the opportunity to do it myself… and I don’t mean from just one person, you know? I need my nation, my community, my society to give me what we call opportunity...I just need an opportunity, to see what I am really made of. Just give me the opportunity.

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A couple of weeks after this interview, I stopped to talk to Wilson again. Wilson and all of his Haitian friends were wearing matching blue hats. Wilson eagerly called one of his Haitian co-workers over and asked to see his smartphone so that he could show me some pictures of their latest promotion gig. As Wilson flipped his thumb across the screen showing me photos of his friends and him working as promoters at a newly opened night club near Playa Vieja, he explained to me how they got the gig. Wilson had met a Dominican-American club promoter from the East Coast of the United States and was able to organize a small group of multi-lingual

Haitian men from Playa Vieja to help with some of the club promotion, passing out flyers, setting up, and assisting with security. As we were talking, a group of sunscreen-plastered tourists approached the store where Wilson was working. The group of young Haitian men disbanded to their respective territories, preparing to engage the potential patrons as they crossed in front of one tourist shop to the next.

Una Gringa Linda

As I walked to the supermarket through the dreary rain which had pushed mostly everyone else inside, I heard a “pssst..Hey what up yo”. I turned around and two young men were waving me over. The taller looked Haitian, the shorter was Dominican. The taller of the two young boys gave me a friendly handshake and greeted me with “Que lo Que, you need something?”. I said, “like what?” He said, “anything, trabajamos en la tienda allí, o tu sabes.. lo que sea..” His name was Ericson. He was 21 and had recently come to the Dominican Republic from his home community right across the Haiti-Dominican Republic border. After our first meeting on the street where Ericson casually offered to locate some drugs for me, I stopped and talked with him almost every day. After getting to know each other a little more, Ericson explained to me that he doesn’t actually sell drugs, but he doesn't mind smoking some marijuana 104 here and there. The only time he can get it, though, is when a tourist is looking for it, and he gets some during the retrieval process. He knows a lot of tourists in the area like it though, so he offers to find it, and sometimes girls for them.

Ericson’s day job was as a promoter for a local art and jewelry gallery at Playa Nueva and spent his days in the street and on the beach trying to convince tourists to come in and look at the generic tourist art his store had to offer. I happened to know Ericson’s employer, who he said treated him fair and paid him an honest wage of 25% of his commission. Lebron, my research associate, and I, would often sit and have lunch with Ericson at the Dominican restaurant right next to where he worked as well. I asked Ericson one day why he came to Playa

Nueva to work. He said he followed his cousin here for work. His cousin had told him that it was paradise, full of beaches, gringas, and a lot of money to be made. Ericson’s face soured as he quickly added that this was not the case, and that he didn’t like it here. He said in Kreyol, “Gen zon ki anpil bel na ayiti, pi bel ki isit. plis pase bel.” Which translates to “There are many beautiful places in Haiti, more beautiful than here. Much more beautiful”. Having lived in the south of Haiti near Jacmel for a summer in 2010, I agreed with him. Ericson was disappointed in the Dominican Republic and told me that he used to have a great job working at his uncle’s supermarket in Haiti. But, when the supermarket closed, he lost his job and either had to go back to doing agriculture and construction work or come look for new opportunities in the tourist sector with his cousin. However, the prospect of finding a tourist-wife kept him working at Playa

Nueva:

I am going to tell you seriously, sincerely if I had a partner, a foreigner, if I had the opportunity to live in her country, and it was better for her, it would be better for me. For me… I always ask God to send me a gringa linda, I always think that...I want to marry a gringa, a gringa. And I would tell her, “if you can help me, and you take me to your country, do you know what we are going to do? Work together. I don't care about what you have, and what I have, because I know what’s mine will be yours, and yours mine. 105

We are going to do everything together. And after we arrive in your country, if you have $1,000 and I have $1,000, we have two thousand. If I have $1,500 and you have $1,000, we spend $500 and save two thousand.33

Ericson went on to explain that he did not see a lot of differences between Haiti and the

Dominican Republic with respect to job opportunities, and that you have to have a good job and connections in either country to be successful. The time he has in the Dominican Republic, though, he plans on using to try and meet a partner who can potentially help him get a visa, so they can begin a new life together with better opportunities than he could have in Haiti or the

Dominican Republic.

Almendras, Dulce de Coco, and International Relations

These opportunities are not always strictly about money and potential romantic relationships. As several other young Haitian men who worked as ambulatory entrepreneurs discussed, it is also about learning and connecting with the larger world and escaping the scrutiny of abusive supervisors. For Jude, who has been selling almendras y dulce de coco at

Playa Vieja since he was 13, his work is about being his own boss, and meeting new people every day. Jude explained to me that working in tourism is the best possible job to have living in

Playa Vieja: “turismo es el mejor trabajo que hay en el mundo aquí”. However, Jude also explained to me that finding a steady job in tourism is very difficult, because jobs with dependable supervisors and pay are hard to come by: “Nunca hay trabajos confiable.” Jude explained, “Whenever you go to collect your pay each day, those who owe you money escape

33 “Te voy a decir en serio, sinceramente, si tuviera una linda, una extranjera, si tuviera la oportunidad de vivir en su país, y si fuera mejor para ella, sería mejor para mí. Para mí ... siempre le pido a Dios que me envíe una gringa linda, siempre pienso eso... quiero casarme con una gringa, una gringa. Y le diría: “si puedes ayudarme y me llevas a tu país, ¿sabes que lo que vamos a hacer? Trabajar juntos. No me importa lo que tienes y lo que yo tengo, porque sé que lo mío será tuyo y lo tuyo mío. mío, es tuyo, y el tuyo es mío. Y después de que lleguemos a su país, si tiene $ 1,000 y yo tengo $ 1,000, tenemos dos mil. Si tengo $ 1,500 y usted tiene $ 1,000, gastamos $ 500 y ahorramos dos mil. " 106 and leave the beach… it is better to be your own boss”34. Jude explains that while he works nearly every day of the year, his job allows him to take days off without being afraid of being fired.

Jude reports being happy for the most part but explained to me that he is often harassed and extorted by the local beach vendors union, of which he is not a part of. While Jude does have a current travel visa, he does not have a work permit, which limits his economic activities.

Rather than relying on other vendors, Jude says he relies on his customers for support. While

Jude sells some of his goods to tourists on the beach, many of his frequent customers are the

Dominican and Haitian beach workers, and Europeans who live in Playa Vieja for most of the year and have set up their own tourist-serving businesses. “I talk with Germans, Italians,

Americans, and people who speak French from Canada and France too.”35 Jude explained to me that he has learned a lot, including some skill in each of the languages above from his years speaking with these foreigners. Jude also explained that he gets stressed out when he is not working, because when he is not working, on top of not making money, his customers who are used to buying his sweets everyday get angry with him for not showing up, and he sometimes loses business.

Jude has no expectations of leaving the Dominican Republic, as he had spent half of his life there already and has fully integrated into his community. While the tourism sector represents larger opportunities for Haitians, often to advance in their careers or the potential to cultivate a romantic relationship that may result in a visa to the United States or Europe, Jude has found his opportunity creating his own business and engaging with a global population every day

34 “Cuando vas a la playa para cobrar cada dia, se escapen y salen de la playa… es mejor ser tu propio jefe” 35 "Hablo con los de Alemania, italianos, estadounidenses y canadienses que hablan francés de Canadá y francesas también."

107 in the informal tourism sector. At the moment his job provides him with enough financial stability to keep his business going, pay for a small apartment, and to spend significant time at a local internet cafe, reading about international relations, a passion of his. In fact, the first day I met Jude, he initiated our conversation with a question about the United States’ relationship with

China, the Middle East, and how trade tariffs work. We spent a few hours discussing international politics near the beach before Jude saw a steady customer and made his way back to the sand.

Conclusion

The experiences above offer just a glimpse of the hope and opportunity expressed by young Haitian men working in the Dominican Republic’s informal tourism sector. Some are searching for romantic relationships, and everyone want to maximize their personal and professional potential. For many Haitians working in the Dominican Republic, language becomes an instrument for survival. Multilinguistic capabilities allow these young men to access and forge new relationships, providing potential for social capital outside of their immediate circle. Regardless of their goals, all of these young men are eager to find an improved future, and the tourist beaches of the Dominican Republic, while posing certain risk, also represents a social space of performance. This social pace of performance allows some to maneuver across the traditional hierarchies of race and class which have been promoted in the Dominican Republic since the colonial period in order to create relationships and form social capital.

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Chapter Seven Conclusion

This thesis attempts to contextualize the modern experiences of young Haitian men working in the informal tourism sector in the Dominican Republic by using a lens of structural violence to examine ethnographic and epidemiological evidence of synergistic vulnerability.

Centuries of colonial, imperial, and neoliberal involvement on the island of Hispaniola has influenced a complex socio-political environment that draws young Haitians to work in the

Dominican Republic’s expanding global tourism market yet vilifies them for doing so. An anti-

Haitian rhetoric with roots in anti-blackness, has been propagated by certain Dominican elite through formal rulings on citizenship (i.e. TC-0168-13) and border politics. The militarization of the Dominican-Haitian border and mass-deportations have been used as tools by the Dominican government to perpetuate an ostensible threat of Haitian im/migration in the context of national economic security, while subjugating and rendering disposable Haitians who remain in the country to prop up certain portions of the economy.

The ethnographic and epidemiological data in this thesis offer evidence of how these structural and racialized components have manifested in disparities in occupational health and related experiences with stigma, violence, and food insecurity. Taken in a biocultural context, these data portend significant physiological and psychosocial health outcomes for these young men. For young Haitian men working in the informal sector, language skills and access to international tourists offer the potential to build significant social capital, which may be leveraged in a way that buffers these poor health outcomes. However, engaging in this type of social capital formation may also present inherent risk for these young Haitian men, as they must 109 also navigate local-level relationships with their Dominican supervisors and occupational counterparts while often dealing with documentation precarity.

Limitations and Future Directions

Reflecting on the experiences of both Haitians and Dominicans presented in this research, a particular weakness of this project is the lack of narrative exploring the relationships and social capital formed between young Haitian and Dominican men who are navigating the same informal economies, albeit with different experiences. Moving forward, this research not only begs a critical analysis of the relationships formed between those working in the informal tourism sector, but also a deeper understanding of the political economy of the tourism and pleasure industry, and how the associated vulnerabilities and risks are embodied by those who are involved. Furthermore, an exploration of social capital which can be examined from the emic perspective is also vital to encourage a more nuanced understanding of social networks, the value of these networks, the use of these networks, and the implications of these networks on health.

This research brings up questions of social justice praxis and neoliberal understandings of health and wellbeing. I have intended to center the experiences of those living at the margins, however, to what end does this research promote or exacerbate vulnerabilities versus empower discourse and promote change? Due to the nature of this research, I cannot expand extensively on particular experiences without potentially “outing” my participants, exposing them to increased risk of violence or scrutiny. Simultaneously, this lack of particular context may siphon away power from their stories and experiences, rendering turbid the site-specific context and potential for local social change. 110

In fulfilling the obligations for master’s level work, I also want to acknowledge the limitations of this research with respect to time in the field and depth of training. This research should be viewed as a preliminary attempt at a critical biocultural and engaged approach. Having spent copious amounts of time analyzing and synthesizing data, several research weaknesses have come to light as well as new components of importance. The quantitative data represents a limited sample, which can be characterized by only limited generalizability in a very specific geographic setting, while the qualitative sample is small enough to potentially only represent the subjective perspectives of a small portion of young Haitian men in this locale. In future iterations of this research key components should be expanded upon: 1) This research calls for a more complex analysis of the political economy of im/migration of “Global South” to “Global South” migration contexts tied to tourism, which offers direct access to the economy of the “Global

North”; 2) drawing on the initial cross-sectional data, specific health outcomes should be incorporated to expand past reported vulnerabilities to specific biological functions of health; and

3) a deeper understanding of Haitian and Dominican relations at the community level, focusing on positive aspects of Hispaniola’s transnational history and modern Dominican-Haitian human rights efforts, yet still considering the larger structural component of anti-blackness perpetrated by hegemonic powers.

The “Nobodies” Seen by Everybody

In Chapter Five, I outlined with ethnographic and epidemiological data the particular risks and vulnerabilities experienced by young Haitian men in the informal tourism sector of the

Dominican Republic, drawing on the critical analysis of the larger neoliberal systems of im/migration to expand on how im/migrants are produced as exploitable and expendable people in im/migrant-labor contexts, or as Linda Green has called them “nobodies”. However, in the 111 context of Haitians im/migrating to the Dominican Republic, rather than entering into a “Global

North” economy like the United States or Canada, they are moving from the “Global South” to a slightly improved, yet still middle- to low- income “Global South” setting. In this particular context, Haitians are engaging directly in both the local Dominican economy and a globalized tourism economy, largely constituted by tourists and resort corporations from the “Global

North”.

In the past, a certain societal invisibility of Haitian im/migrants was promoted by isolated barracks style living in rural batey-s and sugar plantations. In the new political economy of

Haitian im/migration to tourist hubs and urban centers, Haitians still face vulnerabilities that promote exploitation, however in tourism settings they are also acting as the invisible or unrecognizable “face” of Dominican tourism in several respects. Tourism is a “customer service” industry, requiring constant communication and service, and Haitians working in the informal tourism sector are often pushed into these positions of basic tourist service provision. Being the face of interaction and conversation at restaurants on the beach, promotes them as front-line impression managers of the Dominican holiday experience, while still exploited for their labor.

Tourists who are often ignorant of local geographical and socio-political aspects of im/migration and ethnicity in the Dominican Republic, often indulge in an over-romanticized notion of

“paradise” and feed into the system of exploitation while ignoring the stark economic and racial hierarchies which they perpetuate. Future efforts should expand with critical analyses of this context in which “nobodies” are still produced and perpetuated front and center, seen by everybody.

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Specific Health Outcomes and Life Course Theory

Life course theory is a biosocial approach to understanding how health and human development is inevitably influenced by social, cultural, economic, and biological factors which are experienced at critical moments in development, accumulated over the life course, and are related to potential risk of particular poor health outcomes (Harris and McDade 2018). Figure 6 depicts Harris and McDade’s (2018) model of the biosocial dynamics which influence healthy human development throughout the life course.

Figure 6. Harris and McDade’s Conceptual Model of Biosocial Dynamics Across the Life Course (Harris and McDade 2018).

While this project only fulfills the role of a pilot study that offers the contextual component of environmental and sociocultural occupational exposures which are represented in the top portion of Harris and McDade’s Model (Figure 6), but does not measure specific biological health outcomes, it is important to discuss the specifics of how these exposures are 113 likely embodied. Considering the high reported experiences with violence, stigma, and food insecurity in this project, continuing forward with a biosocial approach to health should include biological markers of cortisol regulation and changes to the gut microbiome in young Haitian men working in informal tourism sectors. The functioning of the HPA axis36 which coordinates the body’s stress-response system (McEwen 1998) and the gut microbiome37 which plays an integral role in maintaining the body’s health and disease pathogenesis (Lew and Radhakrishnan

2020) and represents a potential locus of embodied violence, structural or otherwise. The incorporation of biomarkers should also manifest in a community-engaged process in which community members involved are directly involved in training and formulation of project components, health education, and contextualization of biological indicators of health.

36 The HPA axis, or the axis of interaction between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal gland, connects our body’s central nervous system and endocrine system to work as our central response system to stress (Dedovic et al. 2009). The HPA axis coordinates the body’s adrenal release of cortisol, our major stress hormone (McEwen 1998). Allostasis is the body’s ability to establish “stability through change” when the HPA axis coordinates the release of cortisol, to maintain homeostasis (Sterling and Eyer 1988: 631). So, allostasis and homeostasis are the processes the human body uses to adapt to perceptions of environment (Harris and McDade 2018; McEwen 1998; Sterling and Ayer 1988), increasing and decreasing cortisol production in accordance with environmental exposures and or perceived threats (Harris and McDade 2018). When allostatic systems are overwhelmed or perform abnormally in response to chronic exposures to stress, it is referred to as allostatic load (AL) which is also described as the accumulation of “wear and tear” on the body (McEwan and Stellar 1993). Chronic exposure to stress throughout the life course, and particularly during key developmental stages can reset the body’s natural “regulatory set points” for homeostasis and influences lasting effects on the body’s physiological mechanics (Harris and McDade 2018:4). This, then, influences how the body’s physiological response process reacts to different types of stress (positive, tolerable, or toxic) (Juster et al. 2010; Shonkoff et al. 2009).

37 The gut microbiome consists of all of the microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi that live in the gastrointestinal tract (Cresci and Izzo 2019). As described by Harrison and Taren (2018), the gut microbiota affects digestion and absorption by breaking down otherwise indigestible carbohydrates, and it protects against pathogens by competitive exclusion.” (Harrison and Taren: 2018: 279). Gut microbiota also influences the health of distal tissues in the liver, joints, and brain and contributes to the overall health and function of the body’s immune system (Harrison and Taren 2019). While an individual’s microbiota is influenced by genetics and imprinting, a person’s diet, socioeconomic status, and environment play a pivotal role (Harrison and Taren 2018; David 2014). Food insecurity and malnutrition can lead to underdeveloped microbiota or microbial shifts, which are associated with increased chronic inflammation and potentially other chronic non-communicable diseases (Logan et al. 2016). Furthermore, undernutrition affects the body’s immune system, leaving the body more vulnerable to infection and diarrheal illnesses (Kau et al. 2011). Repeated intestinal infection and diarrhea contributes a cycle of poor nutritional absorption and weakened immune system, leaving the body constantly vulnerable to pathogenesis, or the development of disease (Kau et al. 2011). 114

Healing but not Forgetting

While this thesis attempts to contextualize a structural and racialized components of the

Haiti-Dominican Republic political economy of im/migration, I do not want to contribute to what anthropologist Samuel Martinez (2015) calls the “demonic Dominican”, which over-emphasizes and conflates the racialized politics of the past and present political systems with the Dominican identity as a whole today. Haitian-Dominican race-relations are much more nuanced than what I have been able to present in this short thesis, and scholars working in the realm of Haitian-

Dominican relations are pushing to accentuate “moments of communalities and solidarity”

(Mayes and Jayaram 2018: 249) to combat the overwhelmingly negative rhetoric that promulgates a narrative that paints Dominican and Haitian relations in an opposing light on the island (See Martinez 2003, 2014, 2015; Martinez and Wooding 2017; Mayes and Jayaram 2018).

However, while communalities and less hegemonic experiences that exist are crucial to offer a holistic understanding of Hispaniola’s history, one that counteracts the demonization of

Dominicans as a whole and promotes healing between the two nations, the evidence of current racialized disparities experienced by Haitians living in the Dominican Republic abound.

Spotlighting the historical and contemporary manifestations of structural violence is crucial for encouraging changes to political structures and encouraging healing transnational relationships, particularly within the Dominican Republic.

115

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