Dominican "cédulas" Promoting Racism

Following the history of the Dominican "cédulas", ID cards, is important to demonstrate how the government has responded to Haitian immigrants or simply people of different skin color. The cards have evolved positively since their conception in the 1930's because of the change towards gender equality. Yet, in the more recent years the government has included information on the cards that promotes racial profiling in the country. The past yellow ID cards included skin color to distinguish between the Dominicans, or whites, with a "B", standing for blanco (white in Spanish), and the indigenous, or "Indios", with an "I". By distinguishing between the two different ethnicities they are promoting a sense of superiority in those cards when showing a B for skin color. The racism and racial profiling included in these citizenship cards is furthered in the most recent orange ID cards because although they took skin color off the cards and include nationality instead they have eradicated the acknowledgement of any indigenous population. With these new ID cards, only mulatto, black and white will be the only "colors", cutting out the moreno representation of the "indios". Even though the majority of the indigenous population was wiped out by the Spanish during colonization from massacres and disease, there are still some living on the island. The Taino population is thus oppressed by the Dominican government and they are unable to take back their culture and autonomy because their ethnicity has now been erased by the government.