Immigration Day!! (No. 16)

¡Que lo que!

Today we learned a lot of important history about immigrants in the Dominican Republic.
We went to ASCALA and had two guest speakers, Mariano and Maria. There, we learned about the harsh immigration laws and the way immigrants specially from Haiti are treated. We learned how the deportation laws implemented in the Dominican Republic come from a strong base of racism between Haitians and Dominicans. Next, we arrived to the Batey where we saw immigrants working in the sugarcane fields. We saw the conditions that they worked in, barely making 3 dollars a day working for long and tiresome hours. This put a lot of things into perspective and allowed us to realize how immigrants barely make enough to take care of themselves and their family. We were introduced to Domingo who used to work in the sugarcane fields but had a shift mindset which allowed him to leave this work as he deemed it unfair. He cut sugarcane and let us try it. Because a lot was learned about the harsh conditions of immigrants, it opened up our eyes and helped us understand in a way many are not able to see.