Imagine if the United States passed a new bill that denied citizenship to everyone whose ancestors migrated to the United States anytime after 1929. If that was you, that means you would no longer have access to a birth certificate or passport nor could you enroll in universities or qualify for health insurance. Many, if not the majority of us, would be stuck in limbo — a disoriented state of statelessness. This is what Dominicans of Haitian descent are experiencing in the Dominican Republic today. Dominicans and Haitians share the beautiful island of “Hispaniola” but have always marginalized themselves from each other due to the Dominican Republic’s dark history of racial prejudice against Haitians. An ongoing conflict for centuries, hate crimes against Haitians in the Dominican Republic are still extremely common and ignored today. The Dominican government has failed to address the growing racism throughout the ...
