Antihaitianismo (Spanish for "anti-Haitianism") is a racist bias against Haitians and descendants of Haitians by Dominicans.
Antihaitianismo can be traced back to a policy of racial segregation instituted by the Spaniards in the colony of Captaincy General of Santo Domingo (present day Dominican Republic).
Human Rights Watch has stated in their reports that the perceived difference between Haitians and Dominicans can be based from colonial times from linguistic, cultural, and racial differences, where Creoles or Haitians were thought to be descendants of Blacks or Africans while Dominicans were taught to believe they were descendants of Spanish ancestors.
It remains an issue in the present-day Dominican Republic.
Antihaitianismo was strongly institutionalized during the regime of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. This policy became part of the Dominican school curriculum, which Trujillo relied "on the schools and the media to disseminate these ideas"
Native Dominicans were taught that they were "white," and were to be proud to be descendants of the Spanish conquistadores. On the other hand Haitians, who share the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, were to be viewed under this racial policy as "merely" descendants of African slaves.
This educational policy became conjoined under Trujillo with a "Dominicanization" of the Dominican-Haitian border region, which culminated with the massacre of 17,000-35,000 Haitians in October of 1937, an ethnic cleansing event subsequently named the Parsley Massacre.
The government of Trujillo then initiated a policy of developing the border region by encouraging light-skinned Dominicans to settle there (as a matter of fact, Trujillo actively sought to raise the number of white people by sponsoring immigration from Spaniards escaping from the war-torn Spain and Jews fleeing Nazi persecution, during the 1930s and '40s).
These policies only served to perpetuate antihaitianismo within the Dominican Republic.
Consequently a number of Dominicans still share this view of racial policy and history.
The historical leader of the populist Right (and former right-hand of dictator Trujillo) and the historical leader of the Left united in a "National Patriotic Front" in order to prevent a Dominican of Haitian ancestry from becoming President.
Another factor also contributing to the mistrust of Haitians by Dominicans is the fear the latter have regarding to the voodoo that is widely practiced in the Western half of the island.
Many Dominicans still believe in both voodoo and witchcraft, reason for which they believe that Haitians, which "are more experienced and deeper immersed into the black arts", will be easily capable of putting curses on the unwary.
Today antihaitianismo remains as a prejudice against those being dark-skinned by those that are light-skinned. Because of Haiti's much higher black-to-other ratio of ancestry as compared to the Dominican Republic, many of the biased Dominicans perceive all dark-skinned individuals on the island as Haitian or all Haitians as dark-skinned, a racist and nationalist misconception.
Antihaitianismo continues to manifest itself in the form of apparent hate crimes perpetrated by Dominican citizens, mainly in the border provinces of the Dominican Republic.
Haitians are also frequently used as scapegoats globally, for instance, blaming them for the propagation of illnesses, proliferation of crime, destruction of natural resources, etc.
As such, the prejudice is being challenged by many human rights organizations.
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