Video: Black in Latin America Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided From: video.pbs.org

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One Response to “Video: Black in Latin America Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided”

1. Kiko Says:
   April 18th, 2011 at 5:55 pm

   Based on the clip I saw above, I’m getting the feeling that the Dominican chapter has some misinformation. A few examples:

   1. Dr Gates claims that there are no statues of black heroes in the DR. That is false. Gregorio Luperón is considered one of the greatest heroes of the country, having fought in the War of Restoration. There are hundreds of statues in his honor. Every city and town has a street, avenue, park, public building named after him, school textbook all mention him, his birthday is a national holiday. There are other black/mulato national heroes that are honored with statues, their rightful place in the history books, etc such as Francisco del Rosario Sánchez (one of the three founding fathers of the country). In Santo Domingo there is a museum called Museo del Hombre Dominicano with an entire floor is dedicated to slavery and the African heritage, and in front of the museum there are three statues, one of which is in honor of Lemba, an African slave that revolted and fought for his liberty in slavery times. The country has even had black presidents (full blooded blacks, not mixed race). Also, Dominican television channels are the only ones of all of Latin America where blacks and mulattoes (black/white mix) outnumber whites. Some of these channels are shown in the USA, you can see it and do the comparisons for yourself. Felix Victorino is considered the best Dominican news anchor in the country and the guy is a black as anyone can be, and everyone respect him (search his photo on google).

   2. In the video the guy that was answering Dr Gates question claimed that no one in the Dominican Republic considers themselves black, yet that’s not true. While there are many blacks that are in denial, many others are not and they do identify as black as can be seen in the census data where 11% of the population identifies as black and nothing else. You need to understand that Dominicans refer to actual skin color not race when they are asked to describe their skin color. As a result, only those people who are charcoal-black are considered to be of the black color, those that are as light as wheat or lighter are considered of the white color, and those of shades of brown would be referred to as mulatto or indio. Now, the use indio to describe the mulatto color in the past was used as an attempt to deny the African heritage, but this is no longer the case. It has taken a new meaning (as happens with many words around the world) and it simply means a person of brown color. It doesn’t mean that Dominicans actually think of themselves as indians, since their African heritage is taught in the public schools.

   3. While it’s true that the indigenismo movement in the late 19th century and early 20th century started as an attempt to exalt the Taino heritage over the African heritage, and that lead to the popularization of the Indio word as a skin color description; this doesn’t mean that there is no Taino heritage in Dominican culture. There are many cultural practices within the Dominican population that comes directly from the Taino indians such as eating Casabe (a special flat bread originally invented by the Tainos) or the use of the Güira musical instrument (an original Taino invention) among many other things. There is no question that the bulk of Dominican culture is a mixture of African and Spanish, but there is also a Taino influence as well. A DNA study was done by the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez campus both in Puerto Rico and in the Dominican Republic, and the Dominican results were that while there are no full blooded Taino descendants in the Dominican Republic, a full 15% of the population DOES HAVE some Taino ancestry. Again, this is not to say that Dominican culture is Taino 100%, but there is something still left in the blood, in the lifestyle, in the music, in the language and in every facet of contemporary Dominican life; along with the African and the Spanish, and to a lesser degree Arab too.

   (Here’s a link refering to the DNA test I mentioned earlier: www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=44379&ct_id=1 )

   I don’t hold this against Dr Gates since he was probably not acquainted with Dominican culture until he decided to make this documentary, but I hope people out there are aware that not everything being shown in this documentary is 100% true. There are some errors.

   Despite this, it appears to be a good documentary. I’ll see what it shows tomorrow, but I’m praying those are the only misinformation on the Dominican chapter.

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