Transnational Hispaniola: New Directions in Haitian and Dominican Studies

Racism on the island of Hispaniola can appear ineluctable and ineradicable. Ever since Haiti’s glorious political accomplishments at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Western world has demeaned Haiti and Haitians. In the twentieth century, the Dominican Republic’s long-lasting dictator Trujillo managed to instill a logic of white supremacy in an overwhelming African-descendent population that resulted in a monumental massacre of Haitians in the Dominican Republic over 80 years ago, and, within the past decade, in political efforts to deny citizenship to Dominicans of Haitian descent