commissioned in 1937 to conduct a mass slaughter of Haitians along the northern border. This became known as the Parsley Massacre because the Dominican soldiers identified Haitians by asking them to pronounce perejil, the Spanish word for “parsley.” Creole-speaking Haitians find it difficult to pronounce this particular combination of sounds, so the soldiers arbitrarily killed all those who pronounced perejil with a Creole accent. Amabelle’s lover is killed and she is crippled as she suffers a machete attack while fleeing back to Haiti.
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Edwige Danticat won the American
Book Award in 1999 for
The Farming of Bones |
| Haitians kill the Dominican inhabitants of Moca, 1805 |
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| The Parsley Massacre, 1937 |
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| The Massacre River, where Amabelle's parents drowned, as it looks today |
The Parsley Massacre, 1937 |
We live constantly reminded of this event because another, non-Haitian casualty of this massacre is buried beneath the floor of the Church of the Epiphany. The American Charles Raymond Barnes was the Rector when the killing occurred, and he was very disillusioned by the failure of the United States to acknowledge the problem. In the months following the massacre he began writing to a relative in the State Department, giving him more information than the news media were reporting, in an effort to evoke a response from the US government. In retaliation Trujillo’s thugs took Barnes from the church, beat him to death, and then dumped his body back on the porch of the rectory. Every time we enter the church, our eyes are greeted by the inscription on his memorial stone.
The Parsley Massacre was the culmination of a series of atrocities committed by both sides, beginning in the 19th century. It’s one of those situations in which it’s impossible to decide who’s more guilty. The only way forward is to scratch the slate clean and start over. But that’s very hard to do when the toxic effects of this brutal history still linger in every aspect of life. Every day there’s some story in the newspapers about the impact of Haitian immigration on the schools or the public health system. Church members remark on the fact that all of the acolytes are now Haitians. There are now a good many Haitians in Epiphany’s English-speaking congregation, in addition to Americans, Brits and cocolos (English-speaking blacks from British colonies). Our new gatekeeper is a young Haitian man, and a poor Dominican who recently came looking for aid was so annoyed to find his access to charity mediated by a Haitian that he began shouting racist slurs. Many conversations with Dominicans about such things begin, “I don’t have anything against Haitians, but…” Haitian seminarians sit more or less apart in the dining hall, by their own choice. It permeates everything. |
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| The Rev. Charles Raymond Barnes |
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Barnes's tombstone in the floor of the
Church of the Epiphany |
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¡Fuera haitianos! Public expression of
anti-Haitian sentiments |
Bishop Holguín with Haitian representatives at the consultation on
Dominican-Haitian church relations, February 2008 |
The church wants to do the right thing, but it doesn’t really know where or how to begin. There is a big cultural difference between Haitians and Dominicans, as profound as the cultural difference between Latin and North Americans. When it comes to dealing with Haitian otherness, Dominicans are as much at a loss as gringos dealing with Mexican otherness. The Dominicans’ attempts to do Haitian ministry are fraught with the same kinds of misunderstanding and ambiguity as North Americans’ attempts to do Latino ministry. And whether here or there, such attempts often come to the same point of resistance—the discovery that we can’t include “others” into “our” church without changing our own identity. In its relatively brief history the Dominican Episcopal Church has already been through one massive transformation in its identity, as it shifted from a largely black-and-white, English-speaking church to a largely Dominican Spanish-speaking church. Another shift of this sort in less than a century is a lot to ask of any institution.
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Diamond's 2005 publication has
sparked a lot of controversy |
And yet, the pressure is on. In his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond has a chapter comparing Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He gives an explanation of why these two nations with the same geography have turned out so differently, with Haiti as one of the world’s poorest nations and the Dominican Republic at least comparatively prosperous. His historical analysis of the past is interesting—for example, he credits the DR’s relatively enlightened ecological policies to the dictators Trujillo and Balaguer—but his thesis about the future is even more so. He argues that the Dominican Republic will have to realize that it cannot afford to let Haiti remain in its current condition. An impoverished Haiti will become such a drag on the progress of the Dominican Republic that Dominicans will come to regard the development of Haiti as something that is in their own interest.
This view is not widely shared—quite the contrary—but a few Dominican public leaders are beginning to make statements to this effect. It will be interesting to see how the church is influenced by this tendency. Will it be able to assimilate Haitians and their culture, redefining its identity in the process? Or will it resist? Probably both, but the future depends on which response is dominant. As a current theological refrain reminds us, God is to be found on the margins, and that is exactly where most Haitians are in relation to the Dominican mainstream. If the church refuses to go there, it will do so at its own peril.
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The market at the border town of Dajabon, where Haitians
come to find Dominican buyers for their goods |
Aerial view of the border, showing the barenness of Haiti
and the lushness of the Dominican Republic |
On the home front we had a good trip to the US during the summer, visiting supporters in Austin as well as family and friends from coast to coast—from Texas to California and South Carolina. We were glad to be able to attend the wedding of good friends, Liz Muñoz and Ray Pickett, in Los Angeles. This fall we have a new group of seminarians entering at different levels , as well as a slew of new children at the Ovejitas de la Epifanía preschool. Last but not least we are grandparents of sorts. Our dogs, Milly and Otto, just had six pups.
Que Dios les bendiga,
Michael & April
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| April and Michael at Liz and Ray's wedding, Los Angeles |
New seminarians José, Lorenzo, Germán, Luís and Joaquín |
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Hansel has just indicated that he is present by putting
the
card with his design in the matching pocket (above)
Flag raising and the national anthem every
morning at eight o´clock (left)
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| Adriana tries to keep the attention of two-year-olds |
Milly with her brood of 6 |
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