Collapse_ How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond [221]
Just as the Dominican Republic’s future affects others because of globalization, Haiti also affects others through globalization. Just as with Dominicans, that effect of globalization includes the effects of Haitians living overseas—in the United States, Cuba, Mexico, South America, Canada, the Bahamas, the Lesser Antilles, and France. Even more important, though, is the “globalization” of Haiti’s problems within the island of Hispaniola, through Haiti’s effects on the neighboring Dominican Republic. Near the Dominican border, Haitians commute from their homes to the Dominican side for jobs that at least provide them with meals, and for wood fuel to bring back to their deforested homes. Haitian squatters try to eke out a living as farmers on Dominican land near the border, even on poor-quality land that Dominican farmers scorn. More than a million people of Haitian background live and work in the Dominican Republic, mostly illegally, attracted by the better economic opportunities and greater availability of land in the Dominican Republic, even though the latter itself is a poor country. Hence the exodus of over a million Dominicans overseas has been matched by the arrival of as many Haitians, who now constitute about 12% of the population. Haitians take low-paying and hard jobs that few Dominicans currently want for themselves—especially in the construction industry, as agricultural workers, doing the back-breaking and painful work of cutting sugarcane, in the tourist industry, as watchmen, as domestic workers, and operating bicycle transport (pedaling bicycles while carrying and balancing huge quantities of goods for sale or delivery). The Dominican economy utilizes those Haitians as low-paid laborers, but Dominicans are reluctant in return to provide education, medical care, and housing when they are strapped for funds to provide those public services to themselves. Dominicans and Haitians in the Dominican Republic are divided not only economically but also culturally: they speak different languages, dress differently, eat different foods, and on the average look different (Haitians tending to be darker-skinned and more African in appearance).
As I listened to my Dominican friends describing the situation of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, I became astonished by the close parallels with the situation of illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries in the United States. I heard those sentences about “jobs that Dominicans don’t want,” “low-paying jobs but still better than what’s available for them at home,” “those Haitians bring AIDS, TB, and malaria,” “they speak a different language and look darker-skinned,” and “we have no obligation and can’t afford to provide medical care, education, and housing to illegal immigrants.” In those sentences, all I had to do was to replace the words “Haitians” and “Dominicans” with “Latin American immigrants” and “American citizens,” and the result would be a typical expression of American attitudes towards Latin American immigrants.
At the present rate at which Dominicans are leaving the Dominican Republic for the U.S. and Puerto Rico while Haitians are leaving Haiti for the Dominican Republic, the Republic is becoming a nation with an increasing Haitian minority, just as many parts of the United States are becoming increasingly “Hispanic” (i.e., Latin American). That makes it in the vital interests of the Dominican Republic for Haiti to solve its problems, just as it is in the vital interests of the United States for Latin America to solve its own problems. The Dominican Republic is affected more by Haiti than by any other country in the world.
Might the Dominican Republic play a constructive role in Haiti’s future? At first glance, the Republic looks like a very unlikely source of solutions to Haiti’s problems. The Republic is poor