Claiming Dominico-Haitian Identity in the Dominican Republic

“We were able to see what we had read about and watched videos on in real life and hear real‐life accounts of what some of these people are going through.”

Destination: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Trip Organizers: Alexandra Mendez ’17 ([email protected]) & Dalia Luque ’18 ([email protected])

The Experience

Participants in the Claiming Dominico-Haitian Identity Break Out Trip worked with two non-profit organizations in the Dominican Republic (OBMICA and ASCALA) that advocate for the rights of Dominicans of Haitian descent who face the risk of statelessness in the DR. Trip members learned the history behind Haiti and the Dominican Republic and how the tension between the two countries affects the social and legal environments. Participants then started to put this learning to action by helping OBMICA with a number of projects, including a critical discourse analysis of the ways in which Haitians are portrayed in Dominican newspapers and the organization of OBMICA’s new website. Trip members then traveled to San Pedro de Macoris to work with ASCALA, conducting interviews and gathering testimonies from people who had been affected by issues of statelessness in the countryside. Participants also assisted ASCALA’s lawyers by sorting legal documents and helped ASCALA re-organize their website and create a sustainable plan for continued social media outreach. This collaboration with these two non-profits was a successful continuation of the work done by previous students in the 2015 DR BOT trip.

Participant Quotes

  • “I think the work we did was meaningful for both organizations we worked with. It gave me some insight into what it is like to work with an NGO and the type of work that they do.”
  • “We were able to see what we had read about and watched videos on in real life and hear real‐life accounts of what some of these people are going through. We were able to interact with the people that we were trying to help through our work with the organizations.”
  • “The work we did exposed me to critical analysis of Dominican newspaper clippings and helped me understand what is going on in the DR on another level.”