A Thousand Stories

by Elena Lorac

Elena Lorac (1988) Batey Enriquillo, Sabana Grande de Boyá, Monte Plata. She is not married, nor has children. She is studying at the university (she already has her ID). She works at Centro Bonó.

What do we call so much injustice, inhumanity, mockery and negative criticism of the life of a human being that breathes and, as always, [feels] the same discomforts that you feel? What do we call this air of superiority held by some people on this side? What do we call the shame and impiety of foreigners (mostly Haitians) - humiliation disguised as a Regularization Plan¹ (supposedly for foreigners) knowing full well it is intended for Haitians? What do we call the long lines yesterday, on June 15, 16, 17 of 2015, seeing the faces of those who–with joy and hope–came looking for a better future? What do we call it? What do we call it… speaking of a human being as if they were garbage or an object without value, without knowing this person’s suffering in the face of this terrible situation: the long lines, the faces of those men who came full of spirit to this vigorous land, brought here to cut sugar cane?

Today they are the same faces, but this time worn, helpless, aged from so much work—without ceasing—in search of a better life. Today it is these faces that appear in these lines and on television channels, but they are ill-treated, dispersed with tear gas bombs and as if they were criminals or, simply, as they exclaimed and declared to the military institutions that were present: “we are people, why do they treat us like dogs? There are pregnant women and young children here! If you don’t want to give the papers, why do you let us make this big line… like this?” These were some of the words expressed by those people who went to the long lines in search of an appointment to be enrolled in the Regularization Plan.

There are no more trucks at the start of the sugar-cane harvest, they no longer build those long barracks without bathrooms… with a single door, surely constructed to house dogs or pigs, because it is not a place for a human being with dignity to sleep and, if he or she could somehow sleep, it was only with the noise of the mosquitoes and the bedbugs having a party with them.² And then, with the singing of the roosters they would get up on their feet to go to give their labor and their lives to build a homeland that does not even recognize their children… because those elites say “they are from over there.”

But, of course, they are already helpless, they no longer produce. Their strength and vigor were eaten away by the cutting of sugarcane that today has been erased, and, before their eyes, has also erased the lives of those that cut, carted, stored, and weighed the sugarcane. They died doing that, and disappeared from the canefields. What do we call it? What do we call it? They did away with the sugarcane and today they want to do away with us, too. And today they want to discard us… as if we were trash.

The life of Haitian migrant women and their descendants

A country, a life that drags a thousand stories that can be lived and told in a thousand and one ways.

A woman, fountain of life and light… and who has the responsibility or, rather, the virtue of procreating something so marvelous as the birth of a child, a human being, innocent, unmatched and incomparable, no doubt. God was not wrong to give such a beautiful responsibility to a being as special as the woman, who goes through several processes or stages of life: girl, adolescent, young… mother, daughter, sister… worker, businesswoman, housewife. They face –and always wage— the great battles of life.

I reflected on this while watching my mother get up on a Sunday afternoon afflicted by strong joint pain: A Mother’s Day! While suffering on the inside due to her health situation, my mother thanked God that she could get up and see me and my brothers who were present and, with tears in her eyes –and between tears and joy– , she said to me: “What would become of me without all of you…I would already be dead” (yámuem tan ghatam murié).

“Muem lite ampil, pou muem ta bai Tissan y pi boun vi,” said my mother.

That to me was like a sharp punzón [thought] that ripped through my soul as I heard the words of my mother. During that conversation I became curious to know more about my mother’s life and how she got to Santo Domingo.

If I had known that my life on Dominican soil was going to be like this, I seriously would not have come here. My uncle Sosón brought me, he had been hired to come to cut sugarcane in Saint Domingue / Santo Domingo in 1970, and since my father was dead, Tissan had us all together, but he sent for me with a cousin, hiding it from my mom… I barely knew anything about it! Adivina arrived and told me: “Ton Sosón sent for you.” I arrived in the country at the age of 17. In Haiti my life would have been better.

While she was telling me her story, a great sadness invaded me… knowing about all the situations that my mother had to live to get here and that she might die without seeing a little happiness. Fulfill her dreams, live a decent life, even once. And I thought about the injustice of life, but —while talking with my mother— I had so many questions in my head! And I thought about the injustice of life… and I came to wonder if life had any meaning.

I came here against my will. In ‘86 Genot (my mother’s youngest brother) had problems in the community of Los Guineo with some Dominicans… they made our lives impossible. One Sunday the Dominican family began threatening us and a fight broke out between the Dominican family and Genot, my brother and, well, thank God there were no injuries, but that conflict lasted almost two months. On top of those fights, a lady from the Dominican family turned up dead, well, that’s when the big mess arose, then we had to hide. A church where we were [hiding]… was set on fire so that we would burn. It turned out that Gerard was a man that was falling in love with me, but I did not want him. It turned out that he got into the conflict because of me and, as a thank you, I got together with him. We had to leave Los Guineo in a hurry to Batey Juan Sánchez.³ That was at the end of ‘86, in ‘88 I left Gerard and went back to Batey Santa Rosa, which is a batey –located in the highlands– dusty and far from the town of Sabana Grande de Boyá. After a few months, I realized that I was pregnant, having morning sickness. And I said to Gerard, without yelling or fighting, for a being [sic] he told me that if I kept the child, I would never have children, and I got scared and went back to Sosón to the batey Santa Rosa in the month of February…There I returned to a hell because my uncle Soson’s wife didn’t want anything to do with me, that woman wounded me, mistreated me and made my life impossible and I had to put up with it because I was pregnant and I wasn’t going to go back to Gerard again, and I decided to put up with it, I had to work as a cane cutter, I did raffles, sold fruits, everything to survive. On a Tuesday, October 18, ‘88, I got up at dawn with a strong pain and had to wait until it was 9:00am, to wait for a pickup truck that takes passengers, the bus stayed on the road, the pain was getting stronger and, well, I arrived at 9 a.m. in Sabana’s maternity [hospital]and at 2 in the afternoon a baby girl was born, weighing only four pounds and with a ball on her head and eyes of a thousand colors.

In [19]90 my uncle Sosón, who was everything to me, dies. I felt devastated, and that’s when I went to live in Batey Verde, that’s when I met Vigo, with him I had five children.

I am my mother’s oldest child. In 2004 I finished 8^th grade and went to high school where I had to go through a lot of trouble. I would go to school without eating, asking for a ride and if none appeared, I walked.

On August 21, 2006, Carmen offers me to come and live with her in the capital and I loved the idea, because I remember that in 2004, she took me on vacation to her daughter’s house in the capital, and it was the best thing for me, imagine…and I thought everything would be the way it had been when I went on vacation. Carmen talked to my mom so she would let me go live with her and my mom didn’t think about it too much and let me go live with Carmen in the capital.

Carmen thought that everything would be easy (since there was a school nearby, in the Villa Faro sector, where we lived) but she did not know that it only went to 8^th grade. I was about to miss out on the school year, because we couldn’t find a school nearby, but a teacher from Gregorio L. told her: they had opened a new high school in Los Mina, check to see if they admit her. Well, in that high school… you had to pay 20 pesos a day.

I ended up working in a family home where I started to wash, scrubbing… and I started to earn RD $1,000. Then, the work continued to increase and I got to earn RD $3,500, where I had to do everything. I never thought that I would go through everything I went through in that house… Work, which for me had been a joy, became my worst nightmare. I had to arrive at 7:00 am (when it wasn’t my turn to sleep) until 1:00 pm, from there I went to the Pedro Mir school (located behind La Zafra in Los Mina), where I always had to go there in a hurry, without eating and, even so, I was late and always had problems with the teachers and the principal.

With great efforts I finished high school in 2009. For me it was an important achievement in my life. I spent my time saying, “I have little left to go to college…”

But when I went to request my birth certificate to get my national ID, the Civil Registry Officer told me that they could not give me my document because they received orders from the Central Electoral Board (JCE) that they could not issue birth certificates to children of foreign parents. And from that time, I began my Via Crucis (Way of the Cross): the JCE, the Feria…

As a result of that situation, given my desperation to get my ID and my birth certificate, I had to go back to my high school and the one who received me was the same principal with whom I had confrontations for being late. He asked me: “What are you doing here, my daughter?” And there I began to explain what was happening to me and he felt so sorry and said: “How can this be? You have worked so hard.” And he promised me that he was going to call an institution that worked on the subject. And, well, I left with some hope. I returned the next day to find out what the people from the institution had said. Well, one February afternoon, the principal, Juan Saviñón, took me to the Bonó Center.

There I received guidance and that is where I received information about what was happening with my life. But in this situation I made it to 2011, a very difficult year for me and I thought I was going to go crazy. In the JCE they took me to the Inspectorate (a lonely, cold and gray place). The JCE’s lawyer tells me that they cannot give me Dominican nationality because my parents are Haitians and my last name is not from here. In that same year my stepfather, who was the one who raised me, became ill, and then died. And I, as the oldest, had to take care of everything. In the same week, my maternal grandmother died: a major loss. Then, an issue with my mother: it turned out she had a tumor in her breast. My sister got pregnant, and she told me she had been drugged and tricked by her boyfriend. The child’s father abandoned her and I had to take care of them. And the situations of my brothers in their adolescence… and, when I came to realize it, I had all the problems on top of me.

Since the beginning of 2011, I have been going to the Bonó Center. In that same year I started studying at the Bonó Center. From that process the Reconoci.do Movement is formed as a campaign and then becomes a Movement.

These were my strengths, despite the many personal situations I was facing. The process of [attaining] my documents was a huge headache that did not let me sleep. And I saw myself being exploited in the house where I worked. I really realize that women who work as domestic workers have to work more than eight hours or nine… and even more.

In spite of everything, I kept going. I went to every protest and any activity that had to do with my situation. My faith in God gave me more strength every day. At night, in my prayers, I presented all my struggles and the situation with my documents, my economic situation and the health of my mother and everything. The next day, I regained strength, but I did not sit around, I fought for my documents because according to the training I received they told me: “We must demand what by right is entitled to us,” and that sitting back would not solve anything.

I always carried these words in my mind. And I was thinking of a Bible verse that says: “Faith apart from work is dead”⁴ and vice versa. During my mother’s illness I asked for help at the Bonó Center. The person who received me sent me to talk to Gloria, and she listened to me and told me that in the Center they supported scholarships for technical courses for migrants, and that she was going to work it out so that I would get a scholarship.

I never left the Movement, despite the voices I heard saying: “I do not know why they continue bothering with this so much…they are not going to give you all anything.” Others said: “You are Haitians.” But, among so many voices that told us negative things, there were many more voices that spoke up in our favor. This made me feel strengthened knowing that I was not alone in this whole situation.

The denial and violation of my fundamental rights were for me a total delay in my life. It was a civil death that I was stuck in for more than five years, unable to study, work formally or, as established by law, I could not have medical insurance, not even a cell phone.

Thanks to the Centro Bonó, Juan Saviñón (principal of the Pedro Mir evening school), Carmen Polanco, Ana María… who was always there… was like my older sister, who despite her being in the same situation, she did the impossible so that I could move forward. Guadalupe Valdez, who opened the doors for me, gave me the opportunity to work with dignity without having an ID. To Juan Bolívar Díaz, for being the person who allowed me to express myself publicly through television, which I never imagined: being on a television program, speaking in front of cameras. That was something that marked my life, because from there, wherever I went, people sympathized with me. I was not so afraid anymore. I stopped feeling ashamed, and I cried less. And every time I saw more people joining our cause, they gave me more strength to continue fighting for my rights that had been violated.

Today I have my ID, thanks to our struggle. I pushed forward and the voices rose and continue to rise in favor of our nationality rights. I am also in college, but we still have to keep fighting, we still continue our struggle for the right to live a dignified, free life, without discrimination.

This story does not end here. Today the fight becomes more complex. It is no longer the suspension of our documents (although Law 169-14 was very positive), but it is no less true that it has generated more segregation and statelessness of Dominicans who were born on this land and that the Government —and some state entities— keep saying we are foreigners. This fight is not over yet; we are still fighting for the full restoration of our rights.