Not Dominican Enough

A Dominican Person (ADP): de donde tu eres? (Where are you from?)

Me:  Dominicana (Dominican)

ADP: Perot u naciste aqui? (But, were you born here?)

Me: no, me crie alla pero venia todos los veranos (No, I was born there – everyone here knows that “there” is the US – but I used to come during my summers.)

ADP: gives me the side eye and feignly smiles.

And then I’d do anything –thicken my accent, use sayings that are typical in island – to be accepted. To be seen as one of them. To be….Dominican?

I should be used to the above exchange by now for as long as I can remember, I’ve always been asked where I was born to validate “where I was from” when visiting.  But somehow, now that I know and am conscious that this island will be my home for the next year, it matters all of a sudden. It makes me wonder whether I was subconsciously okay with being a “foreigner” though, at least I thought, if I had the opportunity, I’d shout from every mountain top that I was Dominicana.  I do know that it’s important to me to be seen as a genuine community member – be it as a resident of Cabarete or Dominican – because I am a Dominican-American volunteer at a NGO in the Dominican Republic….make sense?  I get the sense that people like me don’t “come back home” to do this type of work so, I’m not going to lie, it makes me feel a bit special J But egos aside, it is important for me for students’ family members to see me as someone who they can relate to at some level and not just another volunteer that will come and go after a few weeks.

“Where are you from?”

I hate this question. It’s a racial micro-aggression that suggests that you are an outsider, a foreigner.  Aside from that, it’s a packed question that can’t always be answered in a word or sentence. Before living in the DR, I always said I was Dominican and most people never questioned it back in the US. I never felt the need to explain it. In fact, I didn’t care if people understood because all that was important to me were that folks knew my true heritage. I mean, I’m super proud of being Dominicana, why not flaunt it? And yes, there’s a lot to be said about negating my American-ness. Topic for another day J  Here, I feel that once folks perceive that you are not native and then claim to be, they need proof of said claim. Given DR’s history and current state of Haitian-Dominican relations, I guess I can understand.  As most folks know, Dominicans and Haitians don’t have the best relationship: we share an island, Haiti occupied DR for 22 years and later, a dictator took over and made it his personal business to persecute Haitians, negate all of our African ancestry (despite he himself being part Haitian) and mess with the Dominican psyche to the point where we can still feel it’s ramifications 70 years later (i.e. when I would come for the summers, my mom would slather a ton of sunscreen on me. Not because she feared the affects of sun damage, but rather, because she didn’t want me to look like Haitian.) The discrimination and racism towards Haitans is so deep, it’s systemic which yes, it happens in the US but Dominicans are blunt about it.

If you look at the part of the Dominican constitution that deals with nationality, it clearly states that someone is Dominican if and only if they are born here AND their parents are Dominican. People like me can also become Dominican citizens (which I am in the process of doing! Woohoo!) but it doesn’t matter where I was born. I just need a parent who is Dominican. While they “recognize” those that were born here but whose parents are of another nationality (read: Haiti), you better believe that getting your cedula (ID) will be difficult and if you do get one, it’s a different color. There’s just no escaping the label here.

Note: the reason why I specify Haiti above is because all this nationality BS happens with Haitians for the most part. Folks from other parts of the world are not knocking down DR’s door to become Dominican citizens….unless you’re European, your euros go far here and own a business).

I get it. Xenophobia is ingrained and runs deep here. Even though I’m not ignorant to the facts, it still sucks that I have to prove my Dominican-ness even though I feel as Dominican as anyone here. I guess that’s just how the cookie crumbles.