Reflections on Culture

Note: The below is from July 2015.

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On independence day, I couldn’t help but reflect on freedom, its symbolic meaning, and mystic physical manifestations. What is independence?

Are we free? Have I ever felt free?

I can’t recall a time I truly felt like myself. I never felt like I belonged anywhere or to any one thing. When it comes to recent events (DR/Haiti mass deportation crisis), it becomes so easy for me to detach entirely from my culture and my people. The We definitely becomes Them. It’s not because I don’t love being Dominican, I just wish Dominican people loved true Dominicanidad more than they loved our constructed and relative whiteness.

Aside from the idiosyncrasies (and general dopeness) of my beautiful Dominican people, I don’t feel like being Dominican is something I can carry or explain. It’s not always a fact I’m inherently proud of or even get excited about these days.

As much as I hold my family and upbringing extremely close and dear, it’s dreadful to know (and experience) how removed we are from our own history—where we really come from and who we truly are. How profound our battle with colorism, racism, and self-hate — as an entire nation.

The monuments erected across our country are not of our honorable forefathers. Instead (and, actually, in fact) they are some of the most violent men in history. Men who raped and pillaged entire indigenous civilizations. They arrived on our island and brought with them forced labor, twisted ideals, imposed religion, and lethal plagues.

Such bittersweet gifts from these beloved guardians to our little island, Hispañola. A reminder of all the Indio, African, Spanish, French, and global cultural mashup that makes us who we are today.

But after the unceremonious divorce of our little island (which can be attributed to numerous sociopolitical factors like *coughs* the United States), we were left with unstable governments, racism, and self-hate engrained so deep inside our DNA it’s considered folklore. In simpler terms, we’re lost inside of a manufactured identity.

Maybe not all, but surely most Dominicans want to be whiter; refina la raza. They want their hair finer; ay, pero que pelo mas malo! White-washed European features; refina la raza, muchacha! Unless you are one of the “lucky” ones who caught some of those euro-genes through a Conquistador-level ancestor on the backend—knocking you down a couple of notches on the melanin totem pole—we are constantly reaching backward into our ancestral gene pool in search of ojos claros, nariz fina, and most importantly — un pelo bueno.

And what, might I ask, is independent about that?