Notes on The Dominican Racial Imaginary: Race, Nation, and Resistance

Theoretical Frameworks in Critical Caribbean Studies

This academic series, primarily focused on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, incorporates interdisciplinary methods across anthropology, history, and sociology to analyze the Caribbean region. It investigates four distinct research clusters based at Rutgers University: Critical Studies, Theory, and Disciplines; Archipelagic Studies and Creolization; Caribbean Aesthetics, Poetics, and Politics; and Caribbean Colonialities. A central piece of this scholarship is the study of the Dominican racial imaginary, which explores the complex intersection of race and national identity within Hispaniola. The series emphasizes the tension between traditional colonial historical narratives and the lived experiences of the Caribbean diaspora.

Contemporary Racial Tensions and State Policy

The Dominican Republic is currently Navigating a period of intense scrutiny regarding its racial relations and citizenship policies. A significant point of international and domestic debate involves the denial of citizenship to individuals of Haitian ancestry and the subsequent threat of mass deportations. These state actions have sparked anti-Haitian sentiments and social unrest, creating a divide between the government, the Catholic Church hierarchy, and the social elite on one side, and human rights advocates and international institutions on the other. The Dominican diaspora in the United States has been vocal in this conflict, utilizing newspapers and legal advocacy to protest government policies. High-profile writers, such as Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz, have faced threats of losing state honors due to their public opposition to these racialized policies.

The Dual National Imaginaries: Official and Subversive

There exists a fundamental divide in how the Dominican nation is perceived, which can be categorized into two competing "imagined communities." The first is the "official" or colonized imaginary, which was constructed by the Creole elite, Catholic authorities, and intellectuals. This narrative emphasizes a Hispanic and Catholic identity, often portraying the nation as the oldest Christian and most Spanish entity in the Americas. This framework intentionally marginalizes or erases African roots to maintain a Euro-Christian epistemological base. In contrast, a "subversive" imaginary persists among the general populace, particularly in southern rural areas. This perspective embraces the African and indigenous Taino heritage, drawing inspiration from historical maroon resistance, slave insurrections, and the cultural roles played by blacks and mulattos in achieving national independence in $1844$ and during the War of Restoration in $1865$.

Personal and Ethnographic Insights into Dominican Blackness

The author explores the persistence of African cultural markers through personal observation and ethnographic research conducted between $1980$ and $2011$. Despite official denials of negritude, African influences are evident in rural religious practices, such as the use of palos (African-derived drum ensembles) and the performance of salves (musical prayers with strong African rhythms). The existence of Dominican Vodou and the veneration of figures like San Miguel (known as Belié Belcán) further illustrate this subterranean cultural heritage. Significant historical symbols of resistance, such as the peasant leader Mamá Tingó (Florinda Soriano), represent the intersection of black identity and the struggle for land rights during the regime of Joaquin Balaguer ($1966--1978$). These practices suggest that the elite's attempt to erase Africa from the national consciousness has not fully penetrated the social tissue of the country.

Historical Construction of the Anti-Haitian Discourse

The intellectual foundation for Dominican anti-Haitianism can be traced to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Antonio Sánchez Valverde’s $1785$ work, Idea del valor de la isla Española, lamented the decline of the Spanish colony and urged the crown to compete with the French side by importing enslaved Africans, viewing them strictly as labor rather than part of the social fabric. This elite resentment deepened following the Haitian Revolution in $1804$ and the subsequent Haitian occupation of the eastern side from $1822$ to $1844$. During this time, Haitian policies such as the abolition of slavery and land redistribution alienated the Spanish slaveholders and clergy. Later historians like José Gabriel García solidified this resentment into a national narrative that framed Haitians as "barbarians" and enemies of Dominican sovereignty, anachronistically labeling inhabitants of the Spanish colony as "Dominicans" to justify a historically rooted conflict.

Literature, Racialization, and Positivist Thought

Ninteenth-century literature and international diplomacy further reinforced the Dominican elite's racial ideology. Manuel de Jesús Galván’s $1882$ novel Enriquillo promoted "indigenismo," a romanticized version of history that emphasized the blending of Tainos and Spaniards while completely silencing African contributions. This narrative allowed the nation to imagine itself as white or light-skinned in contrast to the "African" Haiti. This was encouraged by United States diplomats who, in their reports to Congress, categorized Dominicans as light-skinned to justify political support. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, positivist thinkers like José Ramón López and Federico García Godoy argued that the country's social and economic challenges were the result of racial hybridization, often advocating for European immigration to "whiten" the population and achieve modern progress.

Spaces of Resistance and Academic Challenges

Since the $1970s$, a new wave of scholars and activists has worked to reclaim the African components of Dominican history. Academics such as Carlos Andújar Persinal, Celsa Albert Batista, and Franklin Franco have challenged the official narrative by highlighting the cultural relevance of Africa. This effort is supported by the UNESCO Slave Route project, which aims to break the silence surrounding the slave trade in the former Spanish colony. Additionally, the border regions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic serve as physical spaces of cultural fusion and cooperation, where ordinary people bypass official state ideologies to negotiate shared identities. The work of diaspora scholars like Silvio Torres-Saillant and Ginetta Candelario continues to refute the negrophobia of the ruling class, advocating for a national identity that acknowledges its complex, multi-racial reality.

Geography and the Legacy of Maroonage

The physical landscape of Hispaniola reflects the shared history of its two nations. Major mountain ranges, such as the Central and Septentrional ranges, extend across the border into Haiti, bridging the national divide. Historically, these mountains facilitated "maroonage," where enslaved individuals established independent villages. These maroon societies, appearing as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, allowed for the survival of alternative knowledge and social structures that resisted colonial control. Strategic points like Ouanaminthe (Juan Mendez) and Anse-à-Pitre remain significant today as sites of cross-border interaction and refuge, maintaining the historical continuity of the island's interconnected populations.