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Speaker 1: Hey, Latino USA listeners, here's a great show from our archives.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa today on our

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Speaker 1: show a story that takes place elsewhere in the Caribbean,

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Speaker 1: and I'm here in the studio with Latino USA producer

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Speaker 1: Marlon Bishop and Marlon, you took a trip recently to

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Speaker 1: one of my all time favorite places in the world.

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Speaker 1: It's the Dominican Republic. And we're going to be looking

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Speaker 1: into this story for the entire hour because it's a

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Speaker 1: really complicated.

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Speaker 2: One, that's right, and I want to start by talking

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Speaker 2: about something that happened on one of the first days

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Speaker 2: I was there.

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Speaker 3: What happened.

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Speaker 2: I'm in the capital, Santa Domingo, and I see a

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Speaker 2: billboard that just really kind of takes my breath away.

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Speaker 1: What does the billboard say?

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Speaker 2: It says without a border, there's no country, and then

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Speaker 2: in bigger letters, the wall border control.

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Speaker 1: Wait wait wait, So just like the wall symbolizes border

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Speaker 1: control and what does that mean?

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Speaker 2: Well, it was a billboard for this politician whose name

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Speaker 2: is Pellegreene Castillo, and what it means is that he

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Speaker 2: wants to build a wall on the border. It turns

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Speaker 2: out he's kind of this right wing Dominican Trump figure

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Speaker 2: of sorts. I looked him up and I visited his office.

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Speaker 2: That's him, That's Pelagrene. He's a former member of the

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Speaker 2: Dominican legislature. He runs this far right party that has

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Speaker 2: this anti immigrant stance, and you know, I asked around.

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Speaker 2: A couple of people told me he was kind of

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Speaker 2: seen as a sort of crazy guy. There's paintings all

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Speaker 2: over his office of the Dominican founding fathers, Spanish looking

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Speaker 2: guys with kind of cool hair.

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Speaker 1: He thinks that Trump learned from the Dominicans about the wall.

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Speaker 2: I mean, he's kind of joking, but you know, he

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Speaker 2: said that he's been asking for a while since the nineties,

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Speaker 2: and so he's like, maybe Trump copied it for me.

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Speaker 2: And of course, you know, the border that he wants

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Speaker 2: to build a wall on is Haiti.

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Speaker 1: Haiti and the Dominican Republic are one island that is

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Speaker 1: divided in half essentially, and this is where this politician

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Speaker 1: wants to put the wall.

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Speaker 2: It's an island, but it's like really populated. There's you know,

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Speaker 2: about ten million people in Haiti. There's ten million people

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Speaker 2: in the dr and there's a lot of you know,

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Speaker 2: poverty and pressure in Haiti that leads people to migrate

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Speaker 2: to the DR to work. He talks about Haiti is

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Speaker 2: depressing wages of Dominican workers. And he also said this

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Speaker 2: one thing that I thought was a little eerie vite conflict.

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Speaker 2: He says, we want to get along with Haiti well,

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Speaker 2: and we want to avoid conflicts. In a perfect world,

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Speaker 2: there would be no walls, but we have to build

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Speaker 2: a wall to keep order because if not, there's going

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Speaker 2: to be another kind of wall. Muros, a wall of

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Speaker 2: hate and a wall of blood.

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Speaker 1: That's very dramatic.

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Speaker 2: And the truth is things are really tense in the

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Speaker 2: DR right now around immigration. You know, you talk to

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Speaker 2: a lot of average Dominicans and they feel really strongly

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Speaker 2: that they don't want Haitians living in their country.

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Speaker 1: And the other thing is that Haitians have been in

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Speaker 1: the Dominican Republic really for decades upon decades upon decades.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, we know that there are a lot of stories

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Speaker 2: about tensions like this, you know, hatred that happens across borders.

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Speaker 2: It seems to happen all over the world, right And

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Speaker 2: I think we tend to think of this as like

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Speaker 2: one of the worst aspects of human nature, which is

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Speaker 2: that you put two people and you draw a line

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Speaker 2: in between them, and they're going to grow to hate

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Speaker 2: each other. So the story I want to tell today

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Speaker 2: is about those lines, Who does the drawing, and what

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Speaker 2: are the consequences for all of us? In specific, we're

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Speaker 2: going to focus on how one man, Raphael through Heio,

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Speaker 2: the former dictator of the Dominican Republic, did something terrible

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Speaker 2: exactly eighty years ago, something so terrible that to this

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Speaker 2: people don't want to talk about it. And this single

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Speaker 2: event shaped the Dominican Haitian border as we know it.

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Speaker 1: So tell us how this story starts.

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Speaker 2: Okay, to start off.

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Speaker 3: We need to meet Edward Paulino. He's Dominican American and

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Speaker 3: I am proudly a historian.

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Speaker 2: Specifically, he studies the Dominican Haitian border. His book Dividing

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Speaker 2: Hispaniola is actually what got me interested in this whole

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Speaker 2: topic in the first place. And Edward can point to

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Speaker 2: the moment that the border called to him.

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Speaker 3: I was a sophomore maybe in college, and my advisor

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Speaker 3: invited me to visit the FDR Presidential Library, and there

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Speaker 3: I discovered for myself a document.

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Speaker 2: The document was a telegram sent in nineteen thirty seven

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Speaker 2: from the US ambassador in the Dominican Republic to the

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Speaker 2: State Department.

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Speaker 3: Saying that there was a campaign of extermination.

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Speaker 2: A quote systematic campaign of extermination end.

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Speaker 3: Quote, and that's the red pill. I went into the

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Speaker 3: rabbit hole.

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Speaker 2: Edward became obst tessed with wanting to learn everything about

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Speaker 2: this massacre. He decided he wanted to go to the

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Speaker 2: border and see for himself what happened. And growing up

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Speaker 2: in the Dominican household, he heard things about the border

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Speaker 2: that kind of painted it as a scary place.

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Speaker 3: Why are you going to the border? Don't you know

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Speaker 3: that the border they eat people?

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Speaker 2: And so had you heard growing up about the massacre

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Speaker 2: at all? Like a god? He as a Dominican American.

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Speaker 3: No massacre.

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Speaker 2: But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Time to back up.

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Speaker 2: So the way this all started is that back in

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Speaker 2: the day, the Spanish arrived in what is today the

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Speaker 2: Dominican Republic. It's actually the first Spanish colony in all

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Speaker 2: the Americas. They colonized half the island and the French

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Speaker 2: colonized the other half. Both sides brought large numbers of

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Speaker 2: enslaved Africans to work, but especially the French, and it

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Speaker 2: became the wealthiest colony of the French Empire. But not

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Speaker 2: for long, because in eighteen o four there was the

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Speaker 2: Haitian Revolution. It was the most successful slaver volt in

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Speaker 2: modern history, maybe ever. And after the haitiansick out the French,

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Speaker 2: they look over on the other side of the island

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Speaker 2: and they think, we probably don't want a European power

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Speaker 2: over there.

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Speaker 3: They want to be free. But the Haitians also feel

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Speaker 3: that they need to control the island because they don't

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Speaker 3: want slavery.

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Speaker 2: So in eighteen twenty two, Haiti invades the other Spanish

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Speaker 2: controlled half of the island what is today the Dominican Republic.

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Speaker 2: They kick out the Spanish and they rule over the

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Speaker 2: unified island for twenty two years. They end slavery, but

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Speaker 2: eventually Dominicans pushed the Haitians back and declare their independence.

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Speaker 2: To this day, actually Dominicans celebrate their independence not from Spain,

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Speaker 2: who is their colonizer, but from Haiti.

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Speaker 3: And so by eighteen forty four you have this idea

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Speaker 3: of dominicanness expelling Haitians.

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Speaker 2: Let's fast forward now to nineteen thirty when a general

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Speaker 2: in the Dominican military named Rafael Trujillo seizes power from.

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Speaker 4: The ancient Spanish fortress built more than four hundred years ago.

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Speaker 1: Comes the car of Rafael Trujliumolino, the strong Man of

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Speaker 1: the Republic.

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Speaker 2: Through Heillo was a total megalomaniac. He had the capital city,

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Speaker 2: Santo Domingo, renamed after him. It became Ceodad through Heillo.

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Speaker 2: He also renamed the country's highest mountain after himself, and

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Speaker 2: he did things like force the country's merengue orchestras to

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Speaker 2: compose songs in his honor. And nowadays most people look

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Speaker 2: back at Thrujillo as one of the great villains of

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Speaker 2: Latin American history. He ran a police state, killed thousands

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Speaker 2: of his own citizens. He's also said to have been

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Speaker 2: obsessed with whitening the Dominican Republic and even powdered his

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Speaker 2: face to have a more Spanish appearance. And a side

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Speaker 2: note about that, so most Dominicans are of at least

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Speaker 2: partial African ancestry, but the country for much of its

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Speaker 2: history has had this very Eurocentric identity. Part of that

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Speaker 2: is just regular old fashioned racism, but a lot of

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Speaker 2: it was about the presence of Haiti next door, and

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Speaker 2: some Dominic thinkers have told me, you know, Dominicans saw

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Speaker 2: how the world isolated Haiti, and they said to themselves, look,

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Speaker 2: if we can define ourselves as white, or at least

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Speaker 2: white er, things will be much better for us. But

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Speaker 2: at the beginning of Trujillo's rule, in terms of his

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Speaker 2: relationship with Haiti, things started out really positive. In nineteen

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Speaker 2: thirty five, the two nations even signed a border treaty.

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Speaker 3: You know, someone even nominated President Thruhio and President Vincennes

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Speaker 3: of Haiti for the Noble Peace Prize.

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Speaker 2: Thrhio visited Haiti and bragged about having a Haitian grandmother.

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Speaker 2: He declared his love for the Haitian people and kissed

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Speaker 2: the Haitian flag. But the border with Haiti became a

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Speaker 2: kind of fixation for him. So I spoke to another historian,

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Speaker 2: Richard Turrets, and he explained to me that back in

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Speaker 2: through Heo's time, many of the people who lived in

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Speaker 2: the border area of the Dominican Republic were actually Haitian.

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Speaker 5: Most Haitians there were not migrants. Most Haitians had lived

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Speaker 5: there for generations and things have been very peaceful.

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Speaker 2: Kids might live in the DR and then casually cross

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Speaker 2: over to go to school in Haiti or vice versa.

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Speaker 2: At the time, Haiti was actually a wealthier country than

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Speaker 2: the DR and many of the Haitians there were fairly

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Speaker 2: well off.

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Speaker 5: You have cattle ranches that straddle both sides of the border,

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Speaker 5: you have families and communities that ignore the border in

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Speaker 5: a way that's very difficult for Trujillo, who, despite the

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Speaker 5: harmony between the two states, was very interested in hardening

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Speaker 5: the border.

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Speaker 2: He wanted to harden the border because, for one, he

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Speaker 2: was paranoid that political enemies could cross back and forth

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Speaker 2: and plot to overthrow him. And also, maybe most importantly

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Speaker 2: to it says, he controlled everything in the country and

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Speaker 2: it grated him that he couldn't control this one thing.

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Speaker 5: In the end, I think it was this transnationalism which

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Speaker 5: was so upsetting to Trujillo, the fact that the border

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Speaker 5: was really a political fiction. And after the massacre, Trhillo's

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Speaker 5: reported to have said, now let them say we have

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Speaker 5: no borders.

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Speaker 2: And so on October second, nineteen thirty seven, it began.

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Speaker 3: There's a Star that through Hell was already doing a

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Speaker 3: tour of the border. In early October. He was in

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Speaker 3: the have on in what is called like the city hall,

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Speaker 3: this official building, in a party. And so he stops

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Speaker 3: and he stands up. He says that I have heard

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Speaker 3: Dominican farmers their cattles being stolen no more. He stomps

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Speaker 3: his foot.

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Speaker 2: According to the story, that stomp marked the beginning of

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Speaker 2: the massacre. On thru Hero's order, the Dominican army in

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Speaker 2: the northwest of the country, especially near the border, went

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Speaker 2: down to town looking for Haitians. Today, this massacre is

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Speaker 2: known in textbooks as the Peti Hill or Parsley massacre.

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Speaker 3: Haitians and Dominicans can look alike, right, Dominicans are the

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Speaker 3: majority of African descent, So how do you know Haitian

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Speaker 3: is a Dominican.

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Speaker 2: And so there was this test. If soldiers suspected some

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Speaker 2: body of being Haitian, they would ask them to pronounce

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Speaker 2: the word.

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Speaker 3: Pet Ahil, and so in Haitian creole, the ours are

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Speaker 3: not as you know, you can roll them as hard

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Speaker 3: as a Spanish speaker. And so the thinking was if

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Speaker 3: or she mispronounced Verrehill, then they were taken away or

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Speaker 3: killed on the spot.

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Speaker 2: So a lot of people doubt if this story is

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Speaker 2: true because Haitians living in the border region for many

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Speaker 2: years would have spoken Spanish fluently. What is true is

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Speaker 2: that Dominican soldiers killed innocent Haitian families.

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Speaker 3: They were rounded up and they were summarily executed.

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Speaker 2: And there are all sorts of horror stories which are

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Speaker 2: hard to verify, of soldiers throwing babies in the air

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Speaker 2: and impaling them on bayonets, or making people dig their

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Speaker 2: own graves. Civilians were recruited to help the military burn

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Speaker 2: the bodies, and according to some scholarly accounts, they may

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Speaker 2: have participated in some of the killings as well. Edward

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Speaker 2: Paulino when he was doing his dissertation research, he interviewed

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Speaker 2: several people who claimed to have participated in the killings.

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Speaker 3: The military gave them, these civilians cartridges for shotguns, but

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Speaker 3: you had to prove that you had used the cartridge.

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Speaker 3: To show them that you killed Haitians. You had to

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Speaker 3: bring back the ears of those you killed. If you

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Speaker 3: killed two Haystians, you had to bring back three ears.

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Speaker 2: And on the other side there were civilians who resisted.

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Speaker 3: And you had Dominicans who risked their lives to save

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Speaker 3: their neighbors by saying, don't go there, I saw the patrol, etc.

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Speaker 2: The killing stopped after about eight days. Later. Estimates of

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Speaker 2: the dead would vary wildly, from a few thousand up

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Speaker 2: to twelve thousand or even thirty thousand.

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Speaker 3: They murdered them there, usually by machetes. The state already

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Speaker 3: was thinking about an excuse, saying this was not a

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Speaker 3: military operation. The killings were just Dominican patriotic farmers defending

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Speaker 3: their lands from Haitians.

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Speaker 2: The Dominican government didn't acknowledge that it was responsible for

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Speaker 2: the massacre.

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Speaker 3: There was a moratorium on news.

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Speaker 2: The local press, which through Heio controlled, did not report

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Speaker 2: on the government's role in the massacre and insisted that

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Speaker 2: the story was about fed up locals rising up against

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Speaker 2: Haitian cattle thieves. The United States, under pressure from Haiti,

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Speaker 2: urged through Heo, to pay an indemnity of five hundred

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Speaker 2: and twenty five thousand dollars to the Haitian government, worth

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Speaker 2: about nine million dollars today. The dictator reluctantly paid, but

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Speaker 2: refused to apologize. Through Heio stayed in power for another

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Speaker 2: twenty four years, and during that time nobody could investigate

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Speaker 2: the massacre. After his death, scholars started digging through documents

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Speaker 2: and doing interviews and kind of trying to piece together

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Speaker 2: what happened. But there were large pieces of the puzzle missing.

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Speaker 2: The biggest piece was the bodies. They were never found,

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Speaker 2: and that has made it very easy for people to say, well,

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Speaker 2: this didn't happen, or at least not on the scale

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Speaker 2: people are claiming that it did. And so I wanted

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Speaker 2: to go to the border myself. I couldn't exactly go

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Speaker 2: around trying to dig up bodies, so I did the

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Speaker 2: next best thing. I went looking for survivors.

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Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino, USA. We hear from some of

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Speaker 1: those survivors. Stay with us, not divide us. Hey, we're

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Speaker 1: back and I'm here today with producer Marlon Bishop, and

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the Haitian Dominican massacre of nineteen thirty seven. Now,

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Speaker 1: when we left off, Marlon was talking about the fact

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Speaker 1: that no bodies have ever been found after the massacre.

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Speaker 1: So Marlon decided to head to the border himself to

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Speaker 1: see if he could find any survivors.

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Speaker 2: That's right, So before I left, I started digging around

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Speaker 2: and eventually I got in touch with a woman named

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Speaker 2: Nancy Bethensis. She's from the Border area. Does volunteer work

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Speaker 2: with local NGOs, and when I called her up, she said,

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Speaker 2: no problem, I can definitely help you find survivors. So

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Speaker 2: I flew to santh to Domingo and rented a car

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Speaker 2: and drove about five hours up through the Siboo Valley

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Speaker 2: and over the mountains to a small city on the

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Speaker 2: border called Dajabon. I arrived at night, and when I

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Speaker 2: got there, I met up with Nancy and a friend

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Speaker 2: of hers who she invited to help on our mission.

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Speaker 6: Millambrees Steven soon Diief.

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Speaker 2: Stephenson is in his twenties from the Haitian side of

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Speaker 2: the border, but goes to university on the Dominican side.

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Speaker 2: Nancy is Dominican in her forties, with a light complexion

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Speaker 2: and dyed blondish hair, and Nancy and Stevenson have formed

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Speaker 2: a kind of unlikely friendship. It's unlikely Becauseiama Stevenson's grandfather

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Speaker 2: was himself a survivor of the Haitian massacre, and Nancy.

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Speaker 7: Niram Jamava Raphael and riqueve.

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Speaker 2: Her grandfather was a chief in the Dominican military stationed

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Speaker 2: at the border at the time.

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Speaker 7: Yel Tu Keepartisi par Ima Tar and he killed Haitians

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Speaker 7: during the massacre.

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Speaker 2: And the amazing thing is that their grandfathers were from

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Speaker 2: the exact same town, but on different sides of the conflict.

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Speaker 2: And sitting down with Nancy and Stevenson, I wanted to

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Speaker 2: know what were the scars that the massacre left. How

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Speaker 2: do Haitians and Dominicans here at the border see each

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Speaker 2: other today, eighty years after the killings.

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Speaker 7: Aunt is jummiauer tami Ido.

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Speaker 2: When she was a kid, Nancy says she remembers that

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Speaker 2: if you behaved badly, your parents would say, if you

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Speaker 2: keep acting this way, the Haitians are going to get you.

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Speaker 2: And among Haitians, Stevenson says, Dominicans have this reputation of

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Speaker 2: being kind of violent and racistes dominic. If somebody in

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Speaker 2: Haiti has a knife or is playing with knives, people

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Speaker 2: will say you must have Dominican blood because you like knives.

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Speaker 2: And in fact, at the border, the massacre is not

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Speaker 2: known at all as the Parsley massacre, but courte the cutting,

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Speaker 2: and Nancy is not proud of her family's role in this.

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Speaker 2: Today she actually volunteers for groups that work with Haitian immigrants.

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Speaker 7: Jo She says that maybe she works with Haitians because

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Speaker 7: she has a debt to pay because of what her

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Speaker 7: grandfather did.

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Speaker 2: Over the days I spent with Nancy, I learned that

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Speaker 2: she was a bit of a busy body, somebody who

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Speaker 2: likes to stick her nose in places where it wasn't

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Speaker 2: necessarily invited. And this trait, which might be super annoying,

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Speaker 2: say in a neighbor, was actually really helpful. In a

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Speaker 2: guide for the Dominican border is.

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Speaker 7: Super part of the.

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Speaker 2: Cal she says. The authorities of this country want the

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Speaker 2: massacre to be forgotten, to be covered up coming, and

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Speaker 2: the fact that people don't want to talk about it,

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Speaker 2: that's what interests her. We made a plan. First I

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Speaker 2: would go with Stevenson Tahiti to introduce survivors there, and

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Speaker 2: then Nancy would take me around and do the same,

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Speaker 2: but on the Dominican side. The next day, bright and early,

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Speaker 2: I meet up with Stevenson at the foot of the

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Speaker 2: international bridge leading to.

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Speaker 6: Haiti Isa del Merca.

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Speaker 2: It's Monday, which is the day of the weekly binational market,

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Speaker 2: so there's lots of people crossing back and forth to

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Speaker 2: buy and sell goods. We're theoretically allowed to cross, but

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Speaker 2: we weren't sure if the border guards would give us

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Speaker 2: any trouble about our recording equipment. So we try to

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Speaker 2: fly under the radar. So we're walking across the bridge

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Speaker 2: crossing into Haiti and nobody has asked us for any document.

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Speaker 2: And the plan is if someone tries to stop us,

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Speaker 2: we just say we're going to a meeting and they'll

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Speaker 2: let us throw And it seems like this plan works flawlessly.

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Speaker 2: By the way, that river we just crossed, it's called

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Speaker 2: the Massacre river jaisamus Angati wanna meant. The town on

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Speaker 2: the Haitian side isn't too different from Djabone, which is

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Speaker 2: the town on the Dominican side. There's lots of motorcycles

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Speaker 2: here Domino games, though the streets and buildings are noticeably

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Speaker 2: in the worst shape. Stevenson seems to loosen up right

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Speaker 2: away once we crossed into Haiti. The first stop of

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Speaker 2: the day is his grandfather's house, who remember, was a

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Speaker 2: survivor himself. Stevenson's grandfather is named Francisco Pierre. He's ninety

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Speaker 2: years old, mostly blind, can't move much, but when we

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Speaker 2: asked him to tell us the story about what happened

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Speaker 2: to him during the massacre, he remembered it as if

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Speaker 2: it were yesterday. By the way, we've hired a voice

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Speaker 2: actor to translate his story.

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Speaker 6: Leavin Wilkoma, Dominikan never used to It was Essens who

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Speaker 6: used to found and work.

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Speaker 1: See I think you take on, I think take on God.

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Speaker 2: Francisco's family was typical of the area. They were mixed

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Speaker 2: Dominican and Haitian and had lived in the border area

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Speaker 2: for a really long time, and because of that, they

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Speaker 2: were completely surprised by what happened.

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Speaker 6: On October feets nineteen thirty seven. We saw an Asian

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Speaker 6: man pass by and he yelled out to my uncle,

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Speaker 6: go across to Ritzi right now, because they are killing

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Speaker 6: people in the village. We went further up to here,

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Speaker 6: and sure enough the village was boiling with noise. They

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Speaker 6: were killing every last as in the village. So we

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Speaker 6: grabbed the donkey, filled our gunny sacks and tied it

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Speaker 6: to him. I had a little gold filled with rice

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Speaker 6: and put it around my shoulder and we were off.

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Speaker 2: Really Francisco and his grandmother started walking. Other Haitians who

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Speaker 2: were fleeing joined them, and as they went along, all

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Speaker 2: of a sudden, two Dominicans approached.

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Speaker 6: Mboy was on a mule and the other on a horse,

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Speaker 6: and they said stop right there, stop right there. I

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Speaker 6: immediately ran off with my calabash filled in my hands.

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Speaker 6: When I reached my grandmother, I got hold of myself.

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Speaker 6: I was trembling. I was only done. I trembled and trembled.

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Speaker 6: One of the Dominicans went to approach us and menace us.

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Speaker 6: The other one lagged behind.

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Speaker 2: Marie. The Dominican who lagged behind recognized one of the

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Speaker 2: Haitian women who had joined the group some time ago.

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Speaker 2: The Dominican had been riding by this Haitian woman's house

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Speaker 2: and fallen off his horse and injured himself, and she

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Speaker 2: took him in and nursed him back to health. Now

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Speaker 2: in front of her, under orders to kill any Haitians,

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Speaker 2: he saw he couldn't do it and started crying.

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Speaker 6: The Dominican heard him crying and asked what he was

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Speaker 6: bubbering about. He said that woman, I cannot kill her.

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Speaker 6: She treated me with great kindness once once I was sick,

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Speaker 6: and to see who picked me up, so I cannot

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Speaker 6: kill her.

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Speaker 5: And keep.

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Speaker 2: The Dominicans spared the group and they took off running.

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Speaker 6: We ran and ran and ran and ran. When we

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Speaker 6: arrived far, we started to cheer, and they yelled from

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Speaker 6: afar to keep going, because if we let other Dominicans

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Speaker 6: find us, we'd be in trouble.

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Speaker 2: But the group continued on. Descending a steep hill, we

401
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Speaker 2: went down and.

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Speaker 6: Approached a body of water which was the border between

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Speaker 6: eighty and the Dominican Republic. When we arrived, we saw

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00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 6: a bunch of dead bodies. There were a bunch of

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Speaker 6: Asians on the Asian side yelling, come, come, the guards

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Speaker 6: are coming and if they catch you, they.

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Speaker 2: Will kill you.

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Speaker 6: But we stood there in mobile. Before we knew it,

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Speaker 6: the Asians crossed over and our donkeys and crabbed a

410
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 6: hold of our hands and pulled us across. No sooner

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Speaker 6: than we made it across, the Dominicans that were killing

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Speaker 6: people showed up.

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Speaker 2: Francisco and his grandmother narrowly escaped, and after they crossed,

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Speaker 2: they went to the Haitian police, who took down their names. Eventually,

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Speaker 2: in Haiti he would go by Francisque instead of Francisco.

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Speaker 2: The local mayor brought them to a place where they

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Speaker 2: could build a house, and here in Haiti they remade

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Speaker 2: their life, starting from scratch and Since then, he says

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Speaker 2: he's only returned to the DR once to go to

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Speaker 2: a hospital when he was very ill, and the reason

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Speaker 2: he hasn't wanted to go back is because he's terrified

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Speaker 2: of the.

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Speaker 6: DR and T com Pierre Dominica. I was afraid of Dominica.

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Speaker 2: Francisco's story was a little slice of living proof about

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Speaker 2: what happened, and at ninety years old, he's probably one

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00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 2: of few people alive today who lived through the massacre

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Speaker 2: and is old enough to remember. Over the rest of

428
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Speaker 2: the day, we spoke to several others who also said

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Speaker 2: they were survivors. We found them in dos mon, a

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Speaker 2: town twenty minutes away. That residence a was set up

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00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 2: as a refugee camp for people fleeing the massacre. Their

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Speaker 2: stories were similar to Francisco's total surprise at the attack,

433
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 2: narrow escapes across to Haiti, and relatives they never saw

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Speaker 2: or heard from again.

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00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,120
Speaker 7: This is el Rio Masak.

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00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 2: The next day, I went out with Nancy, the Dominican

437
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 2: woman we met earlier whose grandfather participated in the killings,

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Speaker 2: and I wanted to learn about what happened during the

439
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 2: massacre from the other side and why many Dominicans don't

440
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 2: want to talk about it. As we drive through the

441
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 2: forested mountains near the border, she points to orchards of

442
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 2: mango trees along the road. You see all those mango trees.

443
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 2: They were planted by Haitians who were the original owners

444
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 2: of these lands Guandol. All of a sudden, when the

445
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 2: Haitians were kicked off, it made the Dominicans richer because

446
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 2: they were able to take the lands that were left behind.

447
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,719
Speaker 2: After an hour driving through these really beautiful landscapes, we

448
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:19,679
Speaker 2: arrived at the house of a woman named Paulina was

449
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 2: four years old when the massacre happened. You're not your name.

450
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 2: Today the place she lives is called rest Restoration, but

451
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 2: back when she was growing up here it was. In fact,

452
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 2: most of the place names in the border area used

453
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 2: to have French or Creole sounding names, and they were

454
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 2: changed to patriotic Spanish sounding ones after the massacre. It

455
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,959
Speaker 2: was part of Trujillo's plan to Dominicanize the border, and

456
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 2: back when Paulina was a kid, she said, Dominicans didn't

457
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:55,920
Speaker 2: live here at all. It was a totally Haitian town.

458
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 2: Her family was mixed. Her mom was Dominican and her

459
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 2: dad Haitian Daniel, her father, she says, was a wealthy

460
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 2: man for the region. He had lots of animals, cows, pigs,

461
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 2: there were coffee fields, and all of it stayed behind

462
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 2: Wa Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo Yomi. When the

463
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 2: massacre happened, her family fled to Haiti and they lived

464
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 2: on the other side of the border for many years.

465
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 2: Eventually they came back, though they never recouped the property

466
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 2: that they left behind. And one thing that was interesting

467
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 2: is that when I asked her about Trujillo, despite narrowly

468
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 2: escaping slaughter during Trujillo's massacre, she says Throhio was a

469
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 2: good looker, a real gentleman, a caballero. That's her impression

470
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 2: from watching a Colombian soap opera about Trujillo's life. And

471
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 2: despite being half Haitian herself and living in Haiti for

472
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 2: much of her life, she still spoke negatively about Haitians id.

473
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 5: A.

474
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 2: As we mentioned earlier, Haitians and Dominicans in the border

475
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 2: area lived together peacefully, according to the research of historians.

476
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 2: Yet after the massacre, anti Haitian attitudes grew and grew,

477
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 2: and so Edward Paulino, the historian we spoke to earlier

478
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 2: started to ask why, and he found.

479
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:20,640
Speaker 3: The violence came first, and then came the ideology.

480
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 2: In other words, after the massacre, in anti Haitian ideology

481
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 2: sprung up, which Edward says was used by Thruhio to

482
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 2: justify the massacre. After the fact, that ideology was spread

483
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 2: in newspapers which Thruhio controlled, and in the work of

484
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 2: intellectuals associated with the regime.

485
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:43,719
Speaker 3: Through Hio capitalized on this historically but diffuse notion of

486
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 3: Haiti as the outsider, as the enemy, and he uses

487
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 3: the massacre then to crystallize this official doctrine that Haitians

488
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 3: are eternal enemies.

489
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 2: And this is this classic thing that dictators and ultnationalists

490
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 2: like Thruhio do right they create a book man to

491
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 2: rally the people against. In articles and books from Thruhio's era,

492
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 2: Haitians were referred to as depraved and primitive, and this

493
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 2: conflict between the nations was increasingly cast in racial terms

494
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 2: as supposedly virtuous white Spanish Dominicans versus bad black African Haitians.

495
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 2: It was a predictable psychological trick that's been used time

496
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 2: and time again. If Haitians could be painted as fundamentally bad,

497
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 2: then the massacre could be painted as just. While I

498
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 2: was on the border, I saw that ideology at work.

499
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 2: It happened when Nancy took me to meet an older

500
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 2: Dominican man. His name was raynam Ramos Dors. He lived

501
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 2: through the dictatorship. He was a child during the massacre,

502
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 2: and I asked him what he thought of Thrujillo.

503
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 8: Well, Lehandaia Johanna the Camalo.

504
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 2: He says that a lot of people said Thrujillo was

505
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 2: bad because he killed a lot of people. But the

506
00:29:57,400 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 2: thing is you could go out at any hour of

507
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 2: the night, nobody would bother you. There was respect. And

508
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 2: when Nancy and I asked what he thought about Haitians,

509
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,720
Speaker 2: he said that back then Haitians would steal children and

510
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 2: eat them. JOYSOI, what do you think about the Haitian massacre?

511
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: Nancy asked, mala ya he Kolymy.

512
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 2: They had done a lot of bad things and we

513
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 2: had to get rid of them. He says. Turuhio wanted

514
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 2: to clean up the country. You kept yourself, and what

515
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 2: do you think about that? Asked Nancy. Trujillo did the

516
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 2: right thing, he says, thirty.

517
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 8: One year reign of terra and bloodshed comes to an

518
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 8: end in the Dominican Republic as Dictator Rafael Tohio is

519
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 8: shot down by seven assassins. His victims were numbered in

520
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 8: the tens of thousands during.

521
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 2: Years high in Truhio was assassinated in nineteen sixty one,

522
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 2: but anti Haitianism didn't die along with him. I spoke

523
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 2: with Joel Martin. He's a musician who teaches Afro Dominican

524
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 2: music at the National Conservatory, and he's a friend of

525
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 2: mine from when I lived in the Dominican Republic many

526
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 2: years ago. But most importantly for our purposes, he grew

527
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 2: up going to Dominican schools, which is where he learned

528
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 2: about Haiti and Haitians.

529
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 6: But we're only taught about the moments that divide.

530
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 2: Us, like when the dr fought for independence against Haiti

531
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 2: back in the eighteen hundreds.

532
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 6: They is really highlighted during the history lessons about how

533
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 6: they specifically.

534
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:32,240
Speaker 2: They made the mention of cutting the heads of Dominicans.

535
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 2: The Haitian massacre that Rhio did in nineteen thirty seven

536
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 2: is in the history textbooks today. It's not denied anymore,

537
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 2: but Joel says, it's taught as a kind of footnote.

538
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 2: And that's something that bothers Edward, the historian we've been hearing.

539
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 3: From nowhere in the Dominican Republic. Can you go and

540
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 3: there's a plaque for these thousands of men, women and

541
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 3: children who were slaughtered.

542
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 2: It's not just that there's no plaque. There's no museum,

543
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 2: no memorial, no statue commemorating the massacre. Nothing. And Edward

544
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 2: has spent a lot of time thinking about the question,

545
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 2: well why not.

546
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino us say we try to answer

547
00:32:20,200 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: that question. So stay with us. Hey, we're back and

548
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:09,479
Speaker 1: I'm here today with producer Marlon Bishop, and we're talking

549
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: about the Haitian Dominican Massacre of nineteen thirty seven. Now,

550
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: when we left off, historian Edward Paulino was asking this question,

551
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 1: how is it that, after eight decades, why isn't there

552
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 1: a single monument or a day of remembrance in the

553
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: Dominican Republic for this massacre?

554
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Edward Paulino, the Dominican American historian that we've

555
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 2: been hearing from all hour, he has this mission to

556
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 2: get the Dominican Republic, the country of his parents to

557
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 2: confront the history of this massacre head on.

558
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 3: Dominicans are no different than their fellow citizens around the world,

559
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 3: like the US. And how do you engage with the

560
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 3: Confederate flag? Do you tear it down? Do you destroy it? Right?

561
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 3: The statutes of Lee throughout the world.

562
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 2: Edward says that when it comes to the Haitian massacre,

563
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 2: Dominicans are facing these really difficult universal questions.

564
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 3: How the states and citizens bear witness? How do you

565
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 3: reckon with the past.

566
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 2: And in the Dominican case.

567
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 3: States has never apologized, it has never officially come out

568
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 3: and engaged. And I think you have to talk. There

569
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 3: has to be a catharsis.

570
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 2: But not everyone shares that perspective.

571
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 9: There's two volumes then talked to on the massacres.

572
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 2: While I was in Santo Domingo, I visited Bernardo Vega.

573
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 2: How many books have you written by about Bernardo is

574
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 2: one of the Dominican Republic's foremost historians. And among those

575
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 2: fifty two books that he just mentioned, there are two

576
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:42,440
Speaker 2: that are only about the relationship between Haiti and the DR.

577
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 2: I visited him at home in this multi story penthouse

578
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 2: apartment replete with a library of Dominican history books.

579
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 9: So we are very upset the fact that time and

580
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 9: time again this issue of the massacres brought up, when

581
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:01,439
Speaker 9: it was something that the Dominican people, as society, we're

582
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 9: never involved in. I don't think that bringing this up

583
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 9: again and again helps the Medican Haitian relations. I think

584
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 9: in Europe the Germans have been forgiven by what they

585
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 9: did to the Jews.

586
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 2: He told me he thought that it's mostly foreign academics

587
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 2: or journalists who seem to be always trying to bring

588
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 2: up this massacre.

589
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 9: There's nothing more to research. We don't bring it up.

590
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 9: Real did so many bad things, Why should we be

591
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:31,399
Speaker 9: responsible for it?

592
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm a bit surprised, because I mean,

593
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 1: as a historian, I don't know. I think you kind

594
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:44,720
Speaker 1: of have to look at these things head on before

595
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:48,400
Speaker 1: you can move forward. So I'm a little I'm a

596
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: little surprised. I'm taking a back by that.

597
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:52,959
Speaker 2: Well. I had the same feeling a little bit, because

598
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 2: historians are always saying, you know, if we don't talk

599
00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 2: about history, we're doomed to repeat the mistakes. And so

600
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 2: I think his opinion comes from the perspective of someone

601
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 2: who represents the Dominican nation. Also, you know the statesman

602
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:06,719
Speaker 2: side of him, and he says, we want to move on,

603
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:10,439
Speaker 2: and this is Trujillo's fault alone, and it's ultimately talking

604
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 2: about this is divisive, it's not helping.

605
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm getting from all of your reporting

606
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 1: and from what I know is that it just hasn't

607
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 1: been talked about all that.

608
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 2: Much exactly, and so the idea that there's no more

609
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 2: to research, on its face, that seems like it's not

610
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 2: true because to this day, people are still arguing about

611
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 2: a basic part of the story, which is the numbers.

612
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:38,319
Speaker 2: There's huge disagreement about how many people were killed, from

613
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 2: thirty thousand down to just a few thousand. Edward Paulino

614
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,799
Speaker 2: uses a number around twelve thousand, which is what a

615
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 2: Haitian bishop at the time came up with after interviewing

616
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 2: refugees and asking them about their family members who didn't

617
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 2: make it. Bernardo Vega, years later, wanted to try to

618
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 2: calculate his own numbers, based largely on digging into census data.

619
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 9: In my studies, I estimate about between four and six thousand,

620
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 9: although I have to admit that there's never been found

621
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 9: any remains of Haitians in Dominican soil.

622
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,480
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, wait, hold up for a second. How is

623
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 1: it possible that they never found any any remains of

624
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,320
Speaker 1: Haitian victims after this massacre in the Dominican Republic.

625
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:20,919
Speaker 2: Nope, none. So what does it mean that bodies haven't

626
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:21,279
Speaker 2: been found?

627
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 9: Most likely well where there weren't that many. After Truhillo

628
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 9: was killed, there was a movement to try to find

629
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:30,760
Speaker 9: their tombs and do something, and nothing happened. Nothing appeared.

630
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:35,760
Speaker 2: Remember, people couldn't investigate until almost three decades after the massacre.

631
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 2: And there are theories as to why bodies haven't turned up.

632
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:41,799
Speaker 2: Some say they were burned to hide the evidence, or

633
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 2: thrown into the sea.

634
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 3: That's the perverseness of it all. We can't find them.

635
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:49,240
Speaker 2: Edward has another explanation of why nobody can find them.

636
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 2: When he was doing his dissertation research on the border

637
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 2: in the nineties, he interviewed Dominicans who participated in the killings.

638
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 3: I asked, when I interviewed, I say, take me he

639
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 3: goes in theys to me, No, no, no, there's a

640
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 3: role there, or yeah, I can't find it, or you

641
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 3: know there's weeds. Yeah, you can't find it. You would think, oh,

642
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 3: there's a farmer. They're farming and they come up with

643
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 3: a skull in the last seventy years. But part of

644
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 3: the reason why if the farmer did find it is

645
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 3: because of the culture of silence that the dictatorship bred

646
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:22,280
Speaker 3: and that still remains as a residue.

647
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:25,320
Speaker 2: By culture of silence, he means that even if somebody

648
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:28,800
Speaker 2: did find a body, they probably wouldn't report it because

649
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 2: there's still a lot of fear. Edward participates in a

650
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 2: kind of diy commemoration of the massacre called Border of Lights,

651
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 2: which happens on the border during the anniversary in October

652
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,839
Speaker 2: in the city of Dahabone. It's put together by an

653
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:47,879
Speaker 2: international group of scholars, activists, and writers, many of which

654
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:51,319
Speaker 2: are Dominican and Haitian Americans. And the first time they

655
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 2: did it, he remembers going to a mass that was

656
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 2: held by the local Jesuit father.

657
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 3: He says, I've been here more than twenty thirty years,

658
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:02,840
Speaker 3: and this is the first time when these young people

659
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,759
Speaker 3: organized to remember this, the first time it's been talked about,

660
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 3: and he was telling in a mass, you know, talk

661
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:14,359
Speaker 3: it's okay through here is dead. Why the fear and

662
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:19,280
Speaker 3: we know why because the dr like many other post

663
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 3: dictatorial nations around the world, and their citizens experience post

664
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 3: traumatic stress.

665
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 2: To talk about the massacre, it's not just to talk

666
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 2: about the masacre. It's talking about all of Thru Hero's crimes,

667
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 2: and it's about really confronting this greater trauma of the

668
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 2: True Here years of exercising Trujillo's ghost once and for.

669
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,760
Speaker 3: All, I want to quickly remind you that in twenty fourteen,

670
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 3: there were about one hundred thousand Dominicans who gave their

671
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 3: signature in the list asking for a truth and reconciliation

672
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 3: kind of commission for the crimes committed during the True

673
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 3: Hero dictatorship. There so yearning for them, and the eightieth anniversary,

674
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,919
Speaker 3: I think is a window to understanding all these questions.

675
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 2: On one small scale, I feel like I did see

676
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 2: that reconciliation in action in the case of Nanci Badancis,

677
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 2: my Dominican guide at the border. While we were driving

678
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,280
Speaker 2: from town to town looking for survivors for me to interview,

679
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 2: I started to realize that in a way, she was

680
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 2: the story, not the survivors. Remember, Nancy's grandfather was in

681
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:28,160
Speaker 2: the military and killed Haitians during the massacre, and she

682
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 2: confronts that past constantly. I asked her if she loved

683
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 2: her grandfather.

684
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 3: Hi clar Barami.

685
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,279
Speaker 2: Of course, she says, despite what he did, I had

686
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,879
Speaker 2: to love him. He was the father I never had. Yet,

687
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 2: she rejects what her grandfather did and tries to make

688
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 2: amends for the crimes that her family committed by standing

689
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:51,839
Speaker 2: up for Haitians in her town today and that has

690
00:40:51,880 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 2: had consequences. She told me a story. A few years back,

691
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 2: a Haitian in her hometown killed a Dominican. Some days

692
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:07,879
Speaker 2: after that, people in town killed a Haitian man as

693
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:16,279
Speaker 2: a reprisals. Es after that, a nationalist anti Haitian group

694
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:19,280
Speaker 2: called the Defenders of the People put together a mob

695
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 2: to go out and try to force all the Haitians

696
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 2: in town and the surrounding countryside to leave. News reports

697
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 2: from the time say they were armed with sticks and bats.

698
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 2: The leader of this anti Haitian group knew that Nancy

699
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 2: worked helping Haitians and he threatened her not to show

700
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 2: her face in town. She had to pull her son

701
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 2: out of school, and she says the nationalists also threatened

702
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 2: to burn her house down, but Nancy wasn't intimidated. She says.

703
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:56,840
Speaker 2: She worked with an NGO to continue to help Haitians,

704
00:41:56,880 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 2: and she helped the Haitian family get out of town

705
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 2: that was trapped in their house under threat from the

706
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 2: angry mob. She helped send police to town to get

707
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 2: the people threatening the family to leave. And as she

708
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 2: tells this story, Nancy starts to get visibly emotional. Now

709
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 2: people say that my grandfather defended the country, she says,

710
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 2: and they attack me because I'm defending a cause that

711
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 2: they believe I shouldn't be and it hurts. While we

712
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:44,919
Speaker 2: were out on the road, Nancy wanted to make sure

713
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 2: I got a chance to meet a man that could

714
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 2: help explain how the massacre is connected to this dynamic

715
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 2: today between Haitians and Dominicans, the dynamic that leads the

716
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 2: situations like the story she just told.

717
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 3: Rehino Martinez Bredon.

718
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,719
Speaker 2: Padre Rahimo is the Jesuit father in Dajabone. He's been

719
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:07,279
Speaker 2: an outspoken supporter of civil rights for Haitian immigrants, and

720
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 2: he says there's a reason why Dominicans don't want to

721
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 2: talk about the massacre Desil DVD is it's a classic

722
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 2: divide and conquer situation. He says, like de differ Haitians today.

723
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 2: He explains work for low wages and in poor conditions

724
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 2: in the Dominican Republic, for example, in the sugarcane fields,

725
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 2: in construction as domestic help. All throughout the Dominican Republic,

726
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,799
Speaker 2: Haitians are everywhere in those fields, and Padre Rahmo's take

727
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 2: is that it's in the interest of the country is

728
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 2: rich to keep Dominicans and Haitians thinking of each other

729
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:49,839
Speaker 2: as enemies, because that makes it easier to exploit these

730
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 2: Haitian workers. And so even years after Truhio is gone,

731
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:57,800
Speaker 2: his anti Haitian ideology is still convenient for those in power.

732
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 2: Dominicans can love and defend their Haitian neighbors privately, but

733
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 2: they don't dare to support Haitians publicly, and so they

734
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 2: fall into step.

735
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: So, Marlin, you kind of went down the rabbit hole

736
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:18,759
Speaker 1: with this story of the Haitian Dominican border. Do you

737
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 1: feel like you've kind of figured it out in the end,

738
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: and is there an understanding now of why it's worthwhile

739
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 1: for all of us to study an event like this

740
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 1: in world history?

741
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I went into the story. I guess from

742
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 2: an American perspective, you know, thinking about our own border dramas,

743
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 2: and I wanted to ask the question of how did

744
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 2: things get so bad on the Dominican Haitian border that

745
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 2: they led to this massacre?

746
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:39,839
Speaker 5: Right?

747
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 2: And I think in the end, the massacre was through

748
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 2: Hero's way of marking the border in blood. And this

749
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 2: division was made in such a violent way that afterwards

750
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 2: it kind of made it seem that Dominicans and Haitians

751
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 2: had always been at each other's throats, which isn't the

752
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 2: full truth at all. Edward Paulino puts it this way.

753
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 3: Chichimanda the right talks about that there's one lie and

754
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 3: one story and one narrative, and that's it. Dominicans and

755
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:07,359
Speaker 3: Hasians have not gone on longman. Dominicans, hey Haitians. Well,

756
00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 3: if you go to the border region, it's not just

757
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:14,360
Speaker 3: about wars and massacres, but it's also about these two

758
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 3: peoples coming together and sometimes making one people.

759
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 2: And so I start thinking about this idea of what

760
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 2: makes up a nation or people, and that it has

761
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 2: so much to do with the stories we tell ourselves

762
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,160
Speaker 2: about who we are, and in the case of the

763
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 2: dr the story that Trhio promoted and to some extent

764
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 2: just keeps being told today is that Dominicans and Haitians

765
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 2: are these eternal enemies. As Edward said, you know that

766
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 2: Haitians are invaders in one way or another throughout history.

767
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 2: And the massacre in nineteen thirty seven of Haitians who

768
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:46,680
Speaker 2: are these long term residents of the border era and

769
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 2: who are living peacefully alongside their Dominican neighbors. That tells

770
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 2: a different story, and that's why it's rejected, because it's

771
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 2: hard to fit those two stories together.

772
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:58,760
Speaker 1: You know, Marlon, I've been going to the Dominican Republic

773
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: for twenty five years.

774
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 2: And this is because your husband's Dominican and your kids

775
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 2: are half Dominican exactly.

776
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 1: And when I'm there living it, I do see that

777
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: people are getting along and that people have these relationships

778
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 1: and that you know, the borders between people get really

779
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: fuzzy in the Dominican Republic. But I also know that

780
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: there are people that say things that I have heard

781
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 1: come out of their mouths that are shocking. So like

782
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: both things exist at the same time.

783
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:29,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think when this kind of all clicked

784
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 2: for me was while I was on the border and

785
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 2: I was driving with Nanci Betanzis. You know, she's the

786
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:38,279
Speaker 2: woman we've been hearing from whose grandfather was involved in

787
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 2: the massacre as a killer, and she wanted to show

788
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 2: me this one place. We were driving through the mountains near

789
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 2: the border, and we took this little road and all

790
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:50,799
Speaker 2: of a sudden we turn a corner and there's this

791
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 2: thing in front of us in this clearing. So here

792
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 2: I am in what feels like the absolute middle of nowhere,

793
00:46:56,800 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 2: and there's this completely giant monument. It's like huge cement structure,

794
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 2: at least one hundred feet tall, and it was really

795
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:10,320
Speaker 2: just kind of stunning. In a big clearing in the forest.

796
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 2: There's this huge, kind of brutalist thing, two giant pieces

797
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:19,280
Speaker 2: of cement on a raised platform, one horizontal and one vertical,

798
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 2: with a bronze relief depicting this battle. And Nancy explained

799
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 2: to me that this monument is a monument to the

800
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 2: War of the Restoration, which celebrates not the wars between

801
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:34,719
Speaker 2: Haitians and Dominicans, but another event where Haitians and Dominicans

802
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 2: work together to kick out the Spanish who had taken

803
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 2: control of the dr for a few years, starting in

804
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty one, and it struck me that this monument

805
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 2: represented this whole other possible narrative, not of Haitians and

806
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,920
Speaker 2: Dominicans in this eternal fight with each other, but as

807
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 2: good neighbors, as people working together towards a common goal.

808
00:47:55,760 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 2: And just like the massacre itself, it's kind of hidden

809
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 2: away in the forest, you know, kind of just out

810
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 2: of sight.

811
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your reporting, Marrow, Thanks for you,

812
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 1: dear listener. Before we end the show, we want to

813
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 1: share with you some pretty extraordinary news. Juan Castillo, an

814
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,920
Speaker 1: immigrant from En Salvador whose story we recently featured, is

815
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 1: now a freeman. After more than five years under iceed

816
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:40,240
Speaker 1: attention and twenty five years in prison for a crime

817
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: he says he didn't commit. Juan Castillo was granted relief

818
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:48,440
Speaker 1: under the Convention against Torture and has been allowed to

819
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 1: remain in the US, the place he calls home. You

820
00:48:52,239 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: can listen to his story, The Elusive Freedom of Juan

821
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:59,520
Speaker 1: Castillo on latinousa dot org or look for it on

822
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: the Latin USA feed wherever you get your podcasts. This

823
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:18,400
Speaker 1: is what accountability journalism looks like. This episode was produced

824
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 1: by Marlon Bishop and edited by Nadia Raimond. It was

825
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:26,480
Speaker 1: mixed by Stephanie Lebau. The Latino USA team includes Andrea

826
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: Lopez Cruzalo Marta Martinez, Daisy Contreras, Mike Sargent, Julia Ta Martinei,

827
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 1: Victoria Strada, Renaldo Leanos, Junior Alejandra Sarassa, Patricia Sulbaran and

828
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:43,320
Speaker 1: Julia Rocha, with help from Raul Perez. Our editorial director

829
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: is Julio Ricardo Brena. Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso.

830
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 1: Our associate engineers are gabriel A Biez and jj Carubin.

831
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 1: Our digital editor is Luis Luna. Our fellows are Elisa Veena,

832
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: Monica Morales and Andrew Vignandiz. Our theme music was composed

833
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:02,720
Speaker 1: by Zane Vino. I'm your host and executive producer Marienno Horsad.

834
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 1: Join us again on our next episode. In the meantime,

835
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: look for us on all of your social media. I'll

836
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:11,839
Speaker 1: see you there, yak where that day bye.

837
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:18,360
Speaker 4: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising

838
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839
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:31,040
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840
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Speaker 4: children come first, and the Ford Foundation working with visionaries

841
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Speaker 4: on the front lines of social change worldwide.

842
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Speaker 1: Yak, where that day a Gwhere that day yac, Where

843
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:49,399
Speaker 1: day