Dominican Republic

Today began like a normal day to the batey. Our group ate breakfast and boarded the bus for the familiar 45 minute drive. In the morning we planted several alvacado and apricot trees and just socialized with the community until it was time for lunch.

After lunch I was talking to Tate, the son of Peter who could be called the mayor of Batey Libertad. We got to talking and he began telling me about a military deportation that occurred approximately 3 months ago. Even when people of Haitian descent are born in the Dominican, are citizens or have current visas the government could round them up at any time. Tate told me that the military can wipe out a whole batey in a matter of hours, taking everyone in site and deporting them back to Hati.

As you can imagine his story took a while to process and I was thinking about it while Shara told me of her own experience. It turns out earlier Shara had told a young boy, who was about 12 or 13, that he reminded her of her cousin. The boy quickly asked her if he was white and when she replied yes he said then he could never be like him.

That’s when it hit me that most of our group has the same color skin as the military who pulls families apart. While the older kids understand that our group is only there to help, and the younger kids are too young to understand, the preteen are the ones who connect us to the people who rip apart and deport them and their families. It is really upsetting that this little boy viewed us with hatred but I totally understand where he is coming from.

The whole community has accepted us without question, trusted our group and been nothing but friendly. The idea that the community can still be all these things with the constant fear that people who look like us could come and take them away from their country simply amazes me. In many other towns I cannot even began to imagine the racism and hatred we would face. While our group is only here to help we can only be a constant reminder to the people’s fears of being taken.

Annie Machesky
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL

*indicates that name has been changed to protect the person’s safety.

Also I apologize for any spelling errors since I do not have spell check to correct them.