THE SCOOP ON THE ISLAND: Do Your Research People!

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Do I look White or Jewish?

No. I just embrace all that is there is about me which is my Dominican, my Haitian and my Jewish ancestry or background as a whole.

I do not do so just to give superiority to myself in any way, nor to flatter any specify race that I am or may be a part of.

Let us not get it twisted nor be fooled, because fact is, when a white or black person sees me, he or she sees a man of color.

Why some may ask?

Well simply because no matter what my one true identity is revealed to state that I am more African in ancestry and originality than any other background or than any of you, or unlike the way most of you are trying to mask it, deny it so by using or giving importance to the European race, color and petty historical feuds of division that they put in between us as excuses to not get along and co-exist on this one Island which both nations depend on the very same water source of L'artibonite to survive without realizing the ecosystem problem of one is relatively the problem of the other.

Hispaniola's society is the cradle of blackness in the Americas.

It was the port of entry for the first African slaves, only nine years after Columbus arrived.

Blacks and mulattoes make up almost 90 percent of the population.

There has been a longstanding tension between the two Repubics, particularly over the Haitian desire to migrate there.

In the early fall of 1937 Trujillo's soldiers used machetes, knives, picks, and shovels to slaughter somewhere between ten thousand and thirty-five thousand Haitian civilians, claiming it was a Dominican peasant uprising.

Even loyal personal servants and Haitian spouses of Dominicans were killed by the soldiers.

Today there is still great disdain for Haitian and other blacks.

So if both Dominicans want to embrace Europeans more so they do their African roots by claiming supremacy over Haitians because of Haiti's now state of economical challenges, then dominicans have to accept the fact that they are descendent of barbaric people whom given the history of any European countries, being it Spain, France, Great Britain and Portugal, all have invaded lands, killed and suppressed humanity for their imperial capital gains.

So what is so glamorous about that?

Or if Haitians subconsciously want to feel inferior of themselves because of simple economical calamities that they face now that is allow them to stop from thinking progressively and come together to solve this matter by starting to engage into a path to self-sufficiency; then do not expect for the rest of the World to give you any credit for any yet achievable recognition.

So what is so glorious about that?

On most sugarcane farms, working conditions are dreadful, and Dominicans are too proud to work for such low wages.

Companies hire Haitians to work the fields for twelve to fifteen hours a day. Workers are as young as eight years old. There are no cooking or sanitary facilities.

Children born to Haitian sugarcane workers effectively have no country and no medical or educational benefits.

ON CLASSES AND CASTES: Both the Dominican and Haitian Republic social stratification is influenced by racial and economic issues.

The upper class is historically descended from European ancestry and is light skinned.

The lower class is most often black, descendants of the African slave population thus Haitians.

The mulattoes are people of mixed African and European ancestry thus Dominicans The make up the majority of the population of both nations has created a growing middle class.

This middle class is divided into indio claro, who have lighter skin, and indio obscuro, who are darker skinned.

The term indio (Indian) is used because many Dominicans or Haitians do not yet acknowledge their African roots.

In Dominican Republic and Haiti, Public education is believed to be provided through the high-school level at no cost except for the school uniform and books.

it is in both Nation's Constitutions as an obligation to their Citizens.

Attendance is mandatory to sixth grade, although many children, particularly girls, drop out before then. Over one thousand schools were destroyed by Hurricane George in 1998 on the Island combined.

Scarce funding before and after the hurricane has resulted in limited resources and understaffed facilities.

Many urban Dominican families send their children to private schools.

Considering the lack of enforcement of education laws, the adult literacy rate of 83 percent is quite high, nearly double that of neighboring Haiti.

Voodoo is practiced on both sides of the Island of Hispaniola.

More so in Haiti then the Dominican which there it is practiced secretly, primarily along the border with Haiti, and originated with the African slaves, particularly those from the Dahomey and Dajabon region.

Practitioners believe in one God and many lesser spirits.

They believe that each individual has a protector spirit who rewards that person with wealth and punishes him or her with illness.

Nature spirits oversee the external world.

Ancestral spirits are the souls of dead ancestors and will protect the living if properly remembered with funerals and memorials.

Because the early colonists forbade the practice of voodoo, people learned to disguise the spirits as Roman Catholic saints.

For example, the Madonna who represents motherhood, beauty, love, and sex is Erzulie.

Although many voodoo products and arts are for sale in markets and beaches of the Dominican Republic, voodoo is unpopular with most Dominicans.

It was not until recently in the later years that Dominican artists have gained international recognition for their arts partly in parts of the drastic decline of Haiti's tourism.

In the capital city of Santo Domingo along with many other tourist spots such as Puerto Plata, Sosua, La Romana and such where there are neighborhoods with Haitian immigrants who try to make a living by selling their wood carvings, paintings and other forms of the Haitian arts to tourists which later believed to have been adopted by many Dominicans unemployed citizens.

The paintings are usually oil on canvas and are colorful, stylized, and inexpensive.

These people have a history of being mistreated by the police.

That is the scoop on the entirely of the whole Island give and take away slight minor differences or perhaps now of a greater margin evolved differences between the two Countries.

As for those of you questioning and wondering about what I truly am. I am Dominican just as much I am Haitian with the addition that I am Jewish in parts that after World War II most of my fathers family were granted assylum and settled in Hispanola.

Both the Dominican and the Haitian Republic have accepted Jews even way back during colonial times which proceeded jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/haiti.html "During World War II (1939-1945) the small town of Sosúsa was built by a group of European Jews who escaped persecution, and is still the center for the tiny Jewish population of the island.

My real name is Jean-Wilgeens Rosenberg but online I am HispanolanoYoSoy and the reason why is because I embrace the whole Island for what it is both culturally and historically and not the negatively created divisive resentments along with the offensive false differences most of you are fueling and clinging onto to deny your true selves.

Hispanolanoyosoy, April 16 2008, 10:37 PM

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