THE DOMINICAN DISCOURSE
The Dominican government puts forth a narrative of the correct right to citizenship in their country including a level of certain fairness included in the process. Yet, the colloquial language demonstrates the disconnect between these narratives given by the government and what is said or felt by the general public.
WHAT IS THE DOMINICAN GOVERNMENT DISCOURSE?
How do we define discourse and how do the various discourses created by the government promote racism in the country?
HOW DO WE DEFINE DISCOURSE?
Michel Foucault defines discourse as a production of knowledge through the influence of language and the creation of narratives promoted in a specific society. A discursive knowledge is created through different narratives the government creates and pushes in the Dominican Republic. Once these discourses become normalized within the society, Foucault defines that as a discursive practice. The creation of these discourses is imperative to the government and how it maintains power and control in their country. It was easy for the Dominican dictator Trujillo to use the narrative of Haitians negatively impacting their perfect European and "white" Dominican society to promote his racist discourse. In present day, some of the many examples of the Dominican government discourses, led by Medina, are their citizenship policies that exclude those with Haitian descent as well as the implementation of ID cards that represent their social identities.
Each of these presidents can easily implement these racist narratives because they play on the Dominican colonial history and the remaining tensions left after the French occupation of the Spanish side that threatened to erase their Spanish and European cultures.
RAFAEL TRUJILLO
The Trujillo dictatorship was led by a violent massacre, killing thousands of innocent people mainly of Haitian descent. This was his statement to begin his rule of the DR and his goal to whiten the country. About 90% of the population, however, is of African descent. Even though this is a fact the Dominicans cannot ignore, Trujillo attempted to hide his blackness, or brownness, from the general public by using white powder on his face for public appearances and portraits. He marginalized a population because of their ethnicity when he was in reality part Haitian as well, with a Haitian grandmother. This fact was minuscule and not important in his efforts to homogenize and "whiten" the Dominican society, pushing the discourse that the Haitians would "darken" their European society too much. This PBS video documenting the racialized tensions between the two countries provides an excellent explanation of the Trujillo regime and how that has left scars in the countries still today.
THE DOMINICAN EXPLANATION OF THE POLICY CHANGES
The Dominican embassy in the United States framed the new National Regularization Plan for foreigners as a positive move that has provided rightful citizenship to thousands in the DR. But, the evolution of citizenship policies have taken a turn recently when the government took away birthright citizenship from thousands of Dominico-Haitians before 2004. But then, in 2004, they gave citizenship to the undocumented Haitians born in the country by those "in transit" through the New Migration Law. Even with their legal right to papers, the registry often refused to provide them with their papers. Then, in 2010 the government denied citizenship from any child born from undocumented immigrants after 2010. This has led us to day, where in 2013 the government took away all citizenship from any person of Haitian descent born in the country since 1929. This has stripped the rights of more than 200,000 who are now stateless, some in both countries. The government promotes this as a positive policy because they allow those of Haitian descent to go through the Naturalization process provided they have some papers corroborating their birth. This is a very small percentage of the Dominico-Haitian population because they were either born in a rural part of the DR or were too poor and worried about discrimination to obtain them at birth. These policy changes play into the broader racist discourse and reveals how the remaining colonial tensions perpetuate the conflict.