- Shantee Rosado
dreams i have -- a collection of poems
Updated: Jun 25, 2019
By Anonymous
dreams we have
what if there was one flag?
red, white, and blue
red, Black, and green
red like blood
from ancestors
forever ago
from us
now
from our children
later
Black like skin that was
is
will be
green like the forests of Ayiti before
dreams i have
what if there was one country?
with love with protection
lots of love lots of protection
shared by the Haunted for the Haunted
freedom . freedom
with land with food
lots of land lots of food
owned by the Haunted grown and cooked by the Haunted
freedom . freedom
with music with joy
lots of music lots of joy
played and danced to by the Haunted siempre
freedom toujou
living with
not without
dreams we have
dress up
dominicans like to dress up their antihaitianismo in different outfits
they like to show off their antihaitianismo
in different colors, patterns, textures
“i don’t want them taking over our country”
take off the red hat
“i don’t want them blackening our country”
“it’s not our fault if they’ve never been to haiti before! send them all back”
unclasp the gold chain
“Black people don’t get to make homes for themselves”
“look at how haitians treated us when they took over our country”
unzip the cotton hoodie
“i can’t name what they did to us but they’re Black so they must’ve done something bad”
“they have their own country! they should go back!”
remove the striped t-shirt
“i see the current standard of living in haiti and i think that’s how Black people deserve to live”
“we are not to be blamed for their deal with the devil”
unbutton the blue jeans
“Black people practicing religion is scary”
“no, this is not anti-Blackness”
untie the white sneakers
“maybe the haitians shouldn’t have killed their oppressors,
maybe they wouldn’t be so damn Black”
holes*
your abuelo’s parents were european
his mother had straight hair
your abuela’s parents had dark skin but straight hair she looked taíno
you got your small nose from so-and-so
they looked white with nice hair
we’re mixed i didn’t grow up seeing color so i don’t know
he has black in him
abuela has darker skin because she is mixed
your tío was born with blonde hair we’re all dominican
don’t call her black my sister has green eyes
they looked european
don’t call him black we are a mixed people
maybe we are mixed with haitian
your tía got her green eyes from so-and-so
your great grandfather was from spain i got my hair from so-and-so
your great grandmother had dark skin
i don’t know where she was from
but i do know that your abuelo’s parents were european
he got his big nose from so-and-so
they looked black with nice hair
we’re mixed
i didn’t grow up seeing color so i don’t know
he has taíno in him abuelo has lighter skin because she is mixed
your tío was born with straight hair we’re all dominican don’t call her black
your abuelo’s parents were european
* This poem is recounting things I have heard from my Dominican family. The poem does not make logical sense as there are many contradictions in their stories. When I recall memories of discussing family origins with my family, I notice many holes--oral family history can erase and highlight certain familial figures. What history is lost within Dominican families who often suffer from anti-Blackness and self-hate? How does that shift the way they view their own origins and families? Who gets left out?
october 2, 1937
the border has always been complicated
but those complications were often navigated with a freedom
a freedom lost on october 2, 1937*
a freedom to weave oneself transnationally
to share oneself with love
to enrich oneself with cultural exchange
a freedom lost on october 2, 1937
perejil
how could one word become so unsettling?
estimates as high as 35,000
and still no justice 82 years later
a freedom lost on october 2, 1937
patriotic spanish names suturing the border
a smudging of haitian influence
a daily reminder of trujillo’s terror
a terrorizing legacy that still lingers today
a freedom lost on october 2, 1937
all freedom lost on september 23, 2013**
*October 2, 1937 refers to the Parsley Massacre, during which Rafael Trujillo, then dictator of Dominican Republic, ordered the targeting and massacre of tens of thousands of Haitians. For more, read Kelli Lyon Johnson, "Both Sides of the Massacre: Collective Memory and Narrative on Hispaniola." Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 36, no. 2 (June 2003): 75-91.
** September 23, 2013 refers to the day when the Dominican government retroactively applied the birthright citizenship ban that targeted Haitians. For more, read Jillian Blake. "Race-based Statelessness in the Dominican Republic." Understanding Statelessness, 2017, 102-16.
us
accepting them
is accepting you
is accepting me
is accepting you
is accepting me
is accepting you
is accepting me
is accepting you
is accepting me
is accepting us.
“marriage without divorce”
alaí reyes-santos describes the relationship between ayiti and la república dominicana as a “marriage without divorce”*
no matter how much violence the dominican government imposes on haitians
or how many dominicans make haitians feel unwelcomed
ayiti and la república dominicana will never divorce
they might be separated
there may be countless attempts to seek a divorce lawyer
(so far, trujillo being the most successful one)
but neither can sign the divorce papers
food is one of the many marriages
between two long-lost lovers
diri kole ak pwa**
moro de habichuelas
boullion
sancocho
diri ak sos pwa
arroz con habichuelas
salade de betteraves
ensalada rusa
griot
chicharrón
pwason fri
pescado frito
kremas
ponche de coco
bannaan peze
tostones
can we argue over who makes better fried plantains instead of who deserves to live where?
music is one of the many marriages
between two long-lost lovers
the beat of the drums
that tethers bachata to kampo to bachata to kampo to bachata to kampo
land is one of the many marriages
between two long-lost lovers
the land of ancestors forever ago
the land of us now
the land of our children later
i dream of marriage with no desire to divorce
do you ever dream about that?
*Reyes-Santos, Alaí. Our Caribbean Kin: Race and Nation in the Neoliberal Antilles. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015.
** A special thanks to my friend Mariane St. Juste who provided the names of Haitian foods.
where do the Haunted go to heal?
where do the Haunted go to heal?
the marked ones
the ones that stayed in the sun too long
the ones that remind you of tu agüela*
the ones haunted by years and years of d
ri
pp
ing
blood
where do the Haunted go to heal?
no ancestral home
many of us displaced too many times to count
yearning for dirt under our fingernails**
grass beneath our feet
where do the Haunted go to heal?
taught to hate ourselves
taught to hate the ones we love
taught to look in the mirror and deny our brothers and sisters
where do the Haunted go to heal?
some dig their feet so deeply into the dirt
so their legs blend in like tree stumps
in hopes that they will resist being uprooted
some flee to where the grass is greener
yet still steep in blood of ancestors forever ago
in hopes that choosing their home will heal them
where do we go to heal from yesterday’s trauma
today’s trauma
tomorrow’s trauma?
maybe this is the starting point
19.5499° N, 71.7087° W***
*This is a reference to the poem, “¿Y tu agüela, aonde ejtá?” by Puerto Rican poet Fortunato Vizcarrondo. The poem is about someone hiding their grandmother given she is black.
**This is a reference to Loida Maritza Pérez’s novel, Geographies of Home and its mention of pregnancy cravings of dirt and grass. Geographies of Home is a novel about a Dominican-American family who is haunted by racism, sexual abuse, and familial drama.
***I chose these longitude and latitude coordinates because they signify the location of Dajabón, Dominican Republic. This border town is significant because of the interactions between Dominican and Haitian populations due to their daily exchanges of goods and culture. For more on this location, read Milagros Ricourt. The Dominican Racial Imaginary: Surveying the Landscape of Race and Nation in Hispaniola. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2016.
The author can be reached via email at mjc5@williams.edu.
Works Cited
Blake, Jillian. "Race-based Statelessness in the Dominican Republic." Understanding
Statelessness, 2017, 102-16. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/gjmodco6&id=154&collection=journals&index=
Johnson, Kelli Lyon. "Both Sides of the Massacre: Collective Memory and Narrative on
Hispaniola." Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 36, no. 2 (June 2003): 75-91. Accessed May 12, 2019. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44029461
Morgan, Brendan. "Antihaitianismo: An Embodied Discourse." Ethnic and Racial Studies 42,
no. 2 (2018): 311-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1430841
National University College - División Online. "¿Y Tu Agüela, Aonde Ejtá?" YouTube.
November 20, 2013. Accessed May 14, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNjaX33JOhU
Pérez, Loida Maritza. Geographies of Home: A Novel. London: Penguin, 2000.
Reyes-Santos, Alaí. Our Caribbean Kin: Race and Nation in the Neoliberal Antilles. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015.
Ricourt, Milagros. The Dominican Racial Imaginary: Surveying the Landscape of Race and
Nation in Hispaniola. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2016.
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