The Non-Black Other in Hispaniola: The Role of Japanese Migrants in Dominican Racial Narratives

• In Event: Asian migration in Latin America

Abstract

The 1956 arrival of Japanese migrants in the Dominican Republic (DR) marked a historical transnational connection concerning racial narratives, national identity, and the role of an Asian “other.” Under the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, the DR was experiencing the reinforcement of its fabricated Euro-Indigenous, Hispanic Catholic identity to distance itself from its African-descended, French-Creole Haitian neighbors. This effort to suppress African ancestry from Dominican identity has deep roots that stretch back to European colonization and the DR’s 1844 independence from Haiti. Almost a century later, anti-Haitian sentiment which had long been perpetuated by the pro-eugenic elite became state-sanctioned rhetoric under Trujillo. Within this context, Japanese families were strategically welcomed—not only to bolster agricultural production in the borderlands, but also to serve as a non-black counterweight to the Haitian presence. Through a historical analysis of the racial context of the DR and the framework of blanqueamiento (whitening), this paper explores how the Japanese migrants were racialized to manufacture a “whiter” Dominican identity. Additionally, this paper interrogates how Asian communities in Latin America and the Caribbean intersect with geopolitics, race, and nationalism, occupying dual roles as both "foreign" bodies and instruments of racial "whitening."

Author

• Midori Komatsu Hidaka, Doshisha University