Why is the Dominican Republic deporting Black people to Haiti? Activists say it's history repeating
Why is the Dominican Republic deporting Black people to Haiti? Activists say it’s history repeating itself
A recent warning by the U.S. Embassy to “darker-skinned” Americans traveling abroad in Hispanola highlights the long history of racism against Haitians by its neighboring country.
Natasha S. Alford
| Dec 2, 2022
For Black Americans who were excited to vacation in the Dominican Republic, the warning was urgent:
“Carry your passport with you.”
The U.S. Embassy issued the guidance to “darker-skinned” citizens of “African descent” after reporting that many travelers had been stopped and questioned by Dominican immigration officials “based on their skin color.”
Not only had travelers been detained, but an estimated 43,000 people, mostly of Haitian origin, were being deported across the border to Haiti. For some, it meant being sent back home to a nation in the midst of socio-political chaos, with a cholera outbreak, presidential assassination and a fuel crisis. But for others, including an estimated 1,800 children deported without their parents, it meant going to a country they didn’t even belong to.
Hundreds of people, many of them Haitians, gathered in Times Square on Martin Luther King Day in 2018 to demonstrate against racism in the wake of comments by then-President Donald Trump that appeared to denigrate Haiti and African nations. Haitians also face problems at home with their island neighbor. The U.S. Embassy is cautioning people of “African descent” and others about traveling to the Dominican Republic amid a spate of stops and deportations. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Both sides of the island decimated the Taino population, trafficked Africans and enslaved them for free labor. Still, the French brought in far more African inhabitants to Haiti than its Spanish neighbor, working them brutally and also overworking the land. The Africans revolted in 1791 and became the first independent Black nation in the West in 1804. That independence would be punished, though, with the United States and other developed nations not recognizing Haiti out of fear of emboldening a “slave empire.”
More:
https://thegrio.com/2022/12/02/why-is-the-dominican-republic-deporting-black-people-to-haiti-activists-say-its-history-repeating-itself/