December, 2009: Birth Certificates

Hello everyone, here is an article I wrote for our local Peace Corps DR publication. I think I’ve mentioned that getting birth certificates can be difficult for people of Haitian descent, here’s one example:

Our Future, And Theirs….

I first got to know Eliza when we (a Canadian nun and I) tried to convince her to join our young mother’s group. We were pointed to her house while interviewing all the young mothers in the batey. She was sitting on the porch with her baby; her three year old running around naked. I knew she also had a seven year old because he came to my house often to dance reggaeton and gaga to my neighbor’s radio. We posed the usual questions, asking her how many kids she had (3), their ages (1 year, 3 years, 7 years), whether they had their documents (no), whether she had her documents (no), and what her birthday was (she was born in 1986). Whoa, what? 1986? I was born that year.
She was my age, already had three children and had blazed through two “husbands”. Despite our age, we have no similarities in life. We thanked her for the information, invited her to come to our meetings, and went to the next house. She didn’t show up to the meetings for the first couple months; I only got little tidbits of information about her from her son, who spent his days at my house when his mother “se fue,” whatever that meant.
When the young mother’s group was finally able to organize an 8th grade adult class to be offered in our town, more women began to show up for our meetings at the prospect of something new and exciting. Eliza began to come, and proved to be responsible, respectful and animated about the class we were going to offer. She participated during the meetings, listened to others, and seemed excited for the class. The only problem is she doesn’t have her acta de nacimiento (birth certificate), since her mother is from Haiti and does not have documents. I encouraged her to enroll in the class anyway and promised we’d work on getting the documents before the end of the year so that she could take the mandatory national exam. She has been a much more reliable student than most; she goes to class every week, attends the weekly meetings I hold for the women, and shows up on time every Thursday when we all come together and work on homework. She’s smart, and her oldest boy is also one of the smartest ones in his class. When I see her participating, it is obvious she wants the best for herself and her children; she hasn’t given up like some other mothers her age that I see around.
Eliza was born in the Dominican Republic, barely speaks Kreyol, and has never been to Haiti. A couple weeks ago I invited a migration lawyer to come talk to the group about documentation and the new laws that the Dominican congress had recently passed. He discussed the new law that is soon to be enacted which allows those who can prove they have lived in this country more than ten years to become residents.
“But of course” he stipulates “that means you have to accept the fact that the government first and foremost recognizes you as Haitian”
“But I’m not Haitian, I was born here, I am not going to accept being Haitian.”
Eliza’s reasons for not accepting Haitian citizenship are not clear; maybe she simply feels Dominican, possibly she fears being labeled as Haitian, or perhaps she herself has negative feelings toward Haitians. Whatever it is, she told the lawyer clearly that she would not accept that proposal, and went on to ask him what he thought about trying to get someone else other than her parents to declare her. He strongly discourages it because of the problems with documentation it can bring later on in life. Even though many people have done it here in my town, everybody knows that currently the fiscalias are making it harder and harder for anyone who appears Haitian or has a last name that is not “Dominican” to get their documents.
After the lawyer explained the choice she had: acknowledge that the government labeled her as Haitian and get proper documents, or fight the label but stay sin documentos, Eliza looked as if she was going to cry. She left for a while and came back later with her backpack, ready to do her homework after the meeting. The lawyer kept talking, but she was not listening any more. It seemed as if any hope was lost.
I like to think that we as volunteers all still feel very young. We still have hopes and dreams and we know that we have possibilities ahead of us: jobs, grad school, marriage, adventures. For Eliza, who is my age, without documents she is already old. She has very few opportunities to change the trajectory of her life if she cannot study, work a legal job, or send her children to high school. Her life will involve surviving in this batey raising her children, with the odd job in a “casa de familia” or in Bávaro taking her away from the community for a while. But she will always return, because it is here where she can survive best without documents, with the support of her family and friends. Her only hope is that she might be able to find someone else to declare her children, or that the Dominican laws may someday change.
Dominican laws about documentation are changing slowly, but many do not trust that they will stick, and still others doubt that any of these changes will be implemented. As Peace Corps volunteers we can work on documentation projects, bring people to the fiscal, encourage them to find their documents, etc… But there are some people, like Eliza, whose cases are currently hopeless. When the new Peace Corps director came to visit a fellow volunteer asked him what kind of opportunities are available to RPCVs to stay involved and help the country they served from home. Here is an opportunity. The Dominican government is not going to listen to our pleas for fair residency laws from here, not to mention that we are not supposed to get involved in in-country politics. Nor does the political system here embrace advocacy, letter writing and canvassing nearly as much (if at all) as it does in the United States. But once we return, we have the potential to lobby our politicians and international organizations to pressure the Dominican government into changing the citizenship laws that so blatantly discriminate against Haitian descendents. It is one way to continue helping Eliza and the countless others who we have met here and are struggling due to these discriminatory laws.

For more information on efforts to change the laws, please refer to:
www.mudha.org