Identity

I am the Blanca, the Americana, the Rubia, and of course, to those in the know (a rapidly growing group), Lauwra/Lauwrita.   Those other names used to bother me, but at this point I’ve realized that everyone identifies by color here (prieta, morena, negra, what have you – there’s a big range).   Sometimes they think I’m Española or Puertoriqueña, which I take as a big compliment regarding my abilities to speak Spanish and not be quite so obviously American.   

“Y dondé esta la blanca?”  Papo says when he walks up to the house and doesn’t immediately see me.  “Dondé esta mi rubia?”  Clearly my host dad knows my name, and doesn’t really categorize me as “that white girl” (note the possessive use of “mi”) – it’s actually just normal to scream out to people in terms of their skin color.   Endearing really…  and indicative of the serious preoccupation that pervades this country, where, as in much of the world, lighter is generally considered better.  The darkest skin marks one as Haitian.  No importa how long you’ve been here – as any country with a border knows – if you look like an immigrant, you’re generally treated like one.  For dark-skinned Dominicans (and Peace Corps volunteers!) that means you’d better have some kind of identification when traveling anywhere near the border if you don’t want to be deported to Haiti (or at least have a really infuriating day dealing with bigot officials).  Seriously, it’s happened.

The division between Dominican and Haitian is a big problem in this country, but it is nothing new or unfamiliar (read: United States and Mexico, Spain and Morocco, German and Turk).  Haitians come to the DR to escape the more abject poverty of their own country, willing to work long, hard days for impossible pay.  (I’ve heard of people receiving less than US$3 for every TON of sugarcane they break their backs cutting, for example.)  Dominicans say Haitians are stealing the jobs that they don’t want anyway, though the realistic ones admit that they are hard workers and quick learners.   When I hear someone being particularly bigoted towards Haitians, I like to let them know how lots of Americans view Dominicans (/immigrants in general) in the U.S.  I’ve had some productive conversations after bringing up that comparison. 

But I am white and American, which gives me completely unfair privileges –education, mobility, the general feeling of being welcome wherever I go… at least in this country.    The absolute strangest thing about my life here is feeling like some kind of celebrity when I walk down the street, especially when I admit to myself that I am getting used to it…

I sit on the front porch, reading a book in the rocking chair, and everyone who passes stops to grab my hand in greeting.   I walk from point A to point B, and people yell out, “hello, hola, como estas, how are you, rubia, blanca, Americana, Lauwra!”  They get excited if I actually stop to talk with them.   Often when walking in the blazing sun, someone pulls up in front of me on their moto and offers me a bola (free ride) to my destination.  Sometimes I’m offered bolas when I’m just sitting on the porch too, but I generally don’t accept the joy ride offers…  And if I sit anywhere long enough (or not long at all), I usually end up with something delicious in my hands, be it a cup of coffee, a bag of mangos, a bowl of tostones, or fresh juice (which I need to be careful of, because they most likely made it with “bad” water from the tap, instead of “good” purified water that they have to buy).  Today I was gifted my first avocados of the season from the colmado man down the street!   If I were a man, I’d probably be receiving propositions from parents to marry their underage daughters and make them Americans.   As it is, I’ve received several marriage proposals and more than one mother/grandmother has asked me to take her child back to the U.S. with me in my suitcase… resulting in several scared children who think I’m going to steal them away in a bag.  Creepy.

There’s actually a song by a Dominican group that says, “Quiero una Americana… pa’ mangar mi visa.”  Translation:  “I want an American… to get my visa.”  I don’t know what all the muchachos screamed at Americanas in the street before this song came on the radio, but now this is it.   When I walk past a group of teenagers (or younger kids) that I don’t know, it’s almost guaranteed that at least one will say under his breath, “Quiero una Americana…” And another might finish it for him, “pa’ mangar, pa’ mangar, pa’ mangar mi visaaaaa.”  This makes them super cool.  Ignoring it isn’t really effective, since I walk past the same people all the time.  Best response that I’ve discovered:  yelling back at them that I’m not going to mangar any visas, while giving them the finger-wag with a good-natured smile (which says:  “I know exactly what you’re saying and I don’t like it, but hey, we can probably still be friends”).  There might be some tigueres in my town, but I’m working on making them MY tigueres.   Then they can just direct their tiguere, too-cool-for-school behavior towards someone else, and yell “Hola Laura” instead of song lyrics when I pass by.

Tabara is a relatively small place.  It’s big enough that I probably won’t know every single person during my time here, but small enough that I do run into the same people all the time and all over the place, only to find out that this one is the cousin of that one, and this one was raised by that one (even though she’s not his real mom because his real mom lives in Spain), and this one is the great-grandmother, even though she looks like she should just be the regular grandmother (but everyone had their babies around age 15), and this one is the brother of that one, and this one is married to that one’s sister…etc, etc, you get the idea.   So, in this place where no one locks their doors and they don’t eat nutritious food (oil, salt, sugar, oh my!), where more people are illiterate than are literate and opportunities are extremely limited, and where it may be normal for girls to get pregnant before the age of 16, and for men to get more than one girl pregnant (/have four girlfriends at a time and start more than one entire family), they also are unbelievably generous, welcoming, and somehow possess motorcycles and cell phones with lots of music stored up.   I don’t really have an explanation for this, but considering all the problems they face, this community is not a bad place to be.