Note: A placement exam will be required when you arrive on site.

Advanced

This course is designed for students who have completed or tested out of a minimum of four semesters (or six quarters) of college-level Spanish. However, students must take a placement exam to determine the course level into which they will be able to enroll.

DESCRIPTION

This course provides an introductory examination of the experience of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, pointing out the historical-structural nature of both societies, as well as the historic, political, economic, and cultural factors that have influenced relations between the two. Complimentary activities are foreseen, such as visits to a batey and/or to the border region (Dajabón) and the use of videos, among others.

OBJECTIVES

At the end of the course, the students will have had an opportunity to consider the roots of the contradictory relations of the two nations, characterized by living side by side and the tensions that accompany that.

CONTENTS

Unit 1: The historical milestones that define Dominican-Haitian relations.

1. Spanish and French settlement on the island of Hispaniola.
2. The first international treaties. Tolerance and acceptance of the French on the island.
3. Transferal of the western part of the island to France. Treaty of Basil.
4. Economic nature of both sides of the island. Shaping of national identity. Haiti: an agro-exporting economy. Spanish Santo Domingo: an economy for local consumption.
5. Impact of the Haitian Revolution. Characteristics. Causes. The military stamp of Dessalines (after-effects).
6. The Haitian occupation in the eastern part of Hispaniola (1822-1844).
7. Dominican independence. Characteristics.
8. The regimes of Trujillo and Duvalier.

Unit 2: Economic nature of the two societies. Impact on relations.

1. Migration and the Haitian work force.
2. The border. Commercialization and contraband.
3. Haitian space and rural misery.
4. Dominican space and its urbanization of poverty.

Unit 3: Diversity and cultural parallelism.

1. Racial prejudices in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The phenomenon of Anti-Haitian prejudice. Is there such a thing as Anti-Dominican prejudice?
2. The religious phenomenon and Dominican-Haitian synchretism. Voodoo and its particularities in the two nations. Gagá.
3. Haitian painting and its influence in the Dominican cultural market.
4. The border and the bateyes as cultural spaces. Language, family relations, festivities.
5. Haitian and Dominican literature. Poetry.
6. Beliefs, legends, and myths.

Unit 4: Contradictory analytical perceptions of Dominican-Haitian relations.

1. Forgetting and historical instrumentalization.
2. Traditional historiography. Hispanophile currents. The threat syndrome.
3. Historical-structural reading of the Dominican-Haitian question. Two societies, two cultures, one island, a common history. Two wings of the same bird.
4. A geopolitical problem?

EVALUATION:

1st Partial Exam (Unit I): 25%
2nd Patial Exam (Units II, III, and IV): 25%
Final project: 25%
Participation: 10%
Assignments, reports in class: 15%
Total: 100%

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bautista Betances, A. (1985) El racismo integrante del antihaitianismo dominicano. Año XVII, No. 59. Santo Domingo: Estudios Sociales.

Balaguer, J. (1983) La isla al revés. Santo Domingo: Editora Corripio.

Cassá, R. (2000) Historia Social y Económica de la República Dominicana. Primer Tomo. Santo Domingo: Editora Alfa y Omega.

Cedeño, C. (1992) La nacionalidad de los descendientes de haitianos nacidos en la República Dominicana. En “La cuestión haitiana en Santo Domingo”. Santo Domingo: FLACSO.

Charles, C. (1992) La raza: una categoría significativa en el proceso de
inserción de los trabajadores haitianos en República Dominicana. En “La cuestión haitiana en Santo Domingo”. Santo Domingo: FLACSO.

Girault, C. (1992) Las relaciones entre la República de Haití y la República Dominicana. Un enfoque geográfico. En “La cuestión haitiana en Santo Domingo”. Santo Domingo: FLACSO.

Lozano, W. (1992) Agricultura e inmigración. La mano de obra haitiana en el mercado de trabajo rural dominicano y Contratos y reclutamiento de braceros: entradas clandestinas o repatriación. En “La cuestión haitiana en Santo Domingo”. Santo Domingo: FLACSO.

Moya Pons, F. (1992) Las tres fronteras: Introducción a la frontera dominico-haitiana. En “La cuestión haitiana en Santo Domingo”. Santo Domingo: FLACSO.