What's in a national identity anyway?

Paul Meyer Reimer

Who or what is a Dominican anyway? If you look on the cedula or national ID card that all Dominicans have there is a space for race, which is filled in with indio claro (light-skinned indian) or indio oscuro (dark-skinned indian). This is curious because the Taino indians that were here when Columbus arrived were pretty much wiped out within 30 years of his arrival. For the most part, Dominicans are the descendants of Spanish colonists and West African slaves imported to the island. There's a whole range of skin colors, from as dark as Haitians to the west, to nearly as light as Europeans.

The "Lime" dolls of Santiago (pictured above) have no faces. Their creator says this is because no one is quite sure what to make for a Dominican face.

In contrast, if you go to the Episcopal Cathedral of Port au Prince, the Biblical story is laid out as a mural with dark, Haitian faces on all the characters. Haiti has no ambiguity about who it is--a nation of the descendants of West African slaves, the only country where slaves staged a successful revolution, throwing off the yoke of their masters. (Whereby it's ironic that Haiti shares, with its former master France, that revolutionary part of its historical identity.)

When I think about Haiti and the DR, I am, on the one hand, tempted to take the perspective that, well, "a national identity and fifty cents might buy you a cup of coffee". What use is a strong national identity? Economically, Haiti is much worse off than the DR.

The Dominican Republic has certainly opened itself to the global economy--thanks to a weak national identity? Every major city has a "free trade zone" close by where multinationals employ inexpensive Dominican labor, without paying taxes on materials coming in or goods going out. Millions of Dominicans have emigrated to the U.S.--mostly in and around New York. The major telecom provider in the country, Codetel, is an offshoot of GTE.

The roots of a weak national identity for the DR go back a long way. One Caudillo in the 18th century annexed the Dominican Republic back to Spain after independence. (The Spaniards were thrown out after five years.) Soon after, there was a move to have the country annexed to the U.S. which then-president Ulysses S. Grant supported. The measure was narrowly defeated in the U.S. Senate.

This century, conservative politicians have sought to place the country firmly in the Hispanic tradition. But a counter movement has begun to celebrate the African face of la cultura criolla ("native" culture) as well.

Haiti remains much more suspicious of the U.S. and the free trade approach to globalization and development. And why shouldn't they be? Nobody (not the slave-owning U.S. of the time) gave them a helping hand after their revolution.

But surely there's more to a national identity than economics... Two Dominican writers who've emigrated to the U.S. tell very different stories. The dark tales of Junot Diaz in Drown are of Dominicans who've reached the U.S. and the end of the line, scraping by amidst drugs and misery in New York. Julia Álvarez (Yo and many others) portrays Dominicans in the U.S. who can't leave the DR behind, and return, and create a new relationship with the country, their families, and their past.