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A town that is racist
Against another town
Against another country
Is going to have the most popular artist in that country?
A person
An unfortunate person
A humble person, a hardworking person
Who went around selling candy in the streets
And with a little fork he tapped a tray
And created the song palito de coco
What I believe is that
That some sectors outside of the Dominican Republic
It seems they had something hidden for our country
And they're taking advantage of this situation
That was the Minister of Tourism of the Dominican Republic
Last week
Defending the constitutional law that
Denationalizes thousands of Dominicans
Born in Dominican soil
Of Haitian origin
To show that there is no racism in the country Francisco Javier Garcia
Gave as an example the success of the Haitian singer who became famous with the song coco stick
Is his argument convincing?
Here with us is Milagros Ricourt
Ex-director of Latin American Studies in Lehman College and an expert in the relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic
And immigration attorney Angela Fernandez of the North Manhattan Coalition for the rights of the immigrants
Thank you both for being here
Professor, what's your reaction to the words of the Minister of Tourism
Well, I believe
...
It's a joke
I think he's trying to hide something
that's very rooted
We're talking about human beings here
Who are going to loose their nationality
And Palito de Coco is part of the Dominican Pop culture
One thing has nothing to do with the other
It also reflects that Dominicans don't have problems with Haitians
Apparently
And they accept Papilto De Coco
And it has gotten very popular
But that doesn't have anything to do with the position of the goverment
And other sectors To which the government serves
Who were the real authors of this law
Of this sentencing by the national constitutional tribunal
What we have to remember like we did with the Minister of Tourism interview
That this sentencing is only happening because they're applying the law
A constitution that was reformed that way by the actual governing party
And the last government, who form part of The Dominican Liberation Party
I want to show another intervention by the Minister of Tourism
Saying that the country is not racist
If something that Dominicans have is not racism
Racist? Why?
The nationality or the color?
There's a high population in the Dominican Republic
But you know that there's a long documented history
Of racism in the Dominican Republic
There are historic elements
But in this moment those elements are irrelevant
There's no other country in the world that has the solidarity that the Dominican Republic has for Haiti
Well
The Dominican populace is not racist
We can't say that the Dominican Republic is racist because no country is
There's different ways on how the country interacts as a nation
We have a sector, that from decades
We can say even the last two centuries
That have dedicated of saying
of putting Dominican values and culture in contraposition to the Haitians
We are in that nomenclature, superior
And the Haitians are inferior
They came to work in the sugarcane in the 20th century
In the beginning of the century during the invasion by American troops in 1916
And then we see how Trujillo starts to formulate this plan
Who is in the one creates the conscious of Dominican superiority over the Haitians
That we are white and that we are Catholics
And it was something that occurred with mass socialization of a nation
Really strong socialization
Towards the Dominican
To understand this new Dominican identity that they invented
This group
This group that flourishes with the dictatorship of Trujillo
Yes, they are racist
Yes, they are xenophobes
They wish they could have the opportunity
To do another massacre of Haitians
Like the massacre that occurred
In 1937
In the massacre river or Dajabon river
They wish the world was like it was in 1937
So they could do the same
You only need to see the blogs and the discussions they have there
And awful things they talk about
And the names of the people repeat there, it seems that those people are there
Yes, there's a sector that is racist that has taught a segment of the population to be racist too
But it's not generalized in the Dominican population
I would like to thank for being here talking about this topic, I know this is a complicated topic
Because "Name of news paper" has reported that people who work in the Institute of Dominican Studies in cuny
Don't want to talk about this topic because they think is very volatile
Is it because there's a fear of a sector that is involved or an entity that is racist?
I really don't know the motives
But everyone, everyone who has a conscious here
From Junot Diaz, who is one of the most influential Dominicans
Everyone has been against this ruling without fear
To what fear?
Is it a different reality since these Dominicans that live here are immigrants? And maybe they can relate? Or see the ruling totally different.
Is it a different reality since these Dominicans that live here are immigrants? And maybe they can relate? Or see the ruling totally different.
I don't think that's the problem, there's other reasons
Principally political reasons
Which probably impede the institute relate and share it's voice
Sometimes we commit with interests that don't permit us freedom of speech
The're not going to be deported?
Those people are not going to be deported
Can you ensure that?
The people of Haitian origin in the Dominican Republic irregularly
In their majority, they're are going to resolve the problem that they have right now
That was last weeks interview with the Minister of Tourism
With us Milagros Ricourt
Ex-director of Latin American Studies in Lehman College and an expert in the relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic
And immigration attorney Angela Fernandez of the North Manhattan Coalition for the rights of the immigrants
Angela, is this true that they're not going to deport these people
Well, of what we understand is that deportation is already occurring
One of the things that really shocks of this law
Is that they are in violation of their constitution
One of the constitutional lawyers in the Dominican Republic
Said of the problem with this constitution is that
The law in the constitution states that one cannot create a law that takes away the rights of a person
This law takes away the right of person when it revokes their citizenship
And it's retroactive
Exactly
And that's another problem which violates the constitution
The law violates the constitution and the rights of people in the Dominican Republic
The minister Garcia who is also a candidate for the 2016 elections in the Dominican Republic
Also told us this
It has been established a period of one year and six months
To regulate the situation of all these people
The international community can rest assured that the PLD and the governance of Danilo Medina
That no rights are going to be violated of people with immigration irregularities
This is was mostly surprises me
That people who where born in the Dominican Republic for more than a century because this law is retroactive
What is it like to have someone tell you that your parents where here illegally
You're in a irregular situation not matter if you lived in the country for sixty years
Is something that
That's why we are scared
That someone can say
In all seriousness
And respectably
That this is something just
And legal
It's legal because it was written and approved
But it goes against
To all the international laws
And as I said before it goes against their own constitution
One of the things that we have to consider is why it occurred now
With all the economic problems the country is facing now
Is is this a distraction to avoid all the real problems
That have nothing to do with other immigrats
Haiti decided to import from Brazil and not from the Dominican Republic
Import
Different products
It could be that this law was made to distract
It could be revenge towards this economic change
We know that Haiti buys millions of dollars of products from the Dominican Republic every year
And we know this is going to effect heavily the Dominican economy
Something else I want to add
In the history of the Dominican Republic in the 19 century
It was one of the first countries to say that if a
when an afro-carribean person escapes a country where they were slaves
And the moment they touched Dominican territory, they were entitled for protection and citizenship
We know whats happening in the Dominican Republic but we must recognize that it was a leader in matters of human rights
Not only that, we have leaders saying that your a traitor against the homeland
Your against Juan Pablo Duarte and he was never antihaitian
One of the letters of Juan Pablo Duarte says that he admires the Haitian populace
Because they acquired their liberty
We simply want to be free
In that sense, there's no anti-Haitian sentiment only a nationalistic sentiment
No anti-Haitian sentiment which was created by other elements which was created later and for other reasons
Is there a danger for sentiment?
Sure
If we need to come to these means to distract people
But we live in a historical period of globalization
Sovereignty has limits
The Dominican Republic has sign many agreements
It it rectified the convention of human rights in the 68
It signed treaties in 1945 and 1948
To defend nations of what happened in Germany and Hitler
One has to be carefull
Because sovereigns are not hermetic anymore
We'll leave it there
Milagros Ricourt and Angela Fernandez thank you