Jean M Jacques

Jean M Jacques

Francesca Menes attended the Little Haiti rally. Her mother is Haitian, and her father is from the Dominican Republic.

She says anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic is deeply rooted. In October 1937 some 20,000 Haitians are estimated to have been killed under orders from Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. People who were suspected of being Haitian were ordered to pronounce the Spanish word for parsley, perejil. A person who could not correctly roll the R was concluded to be Haitian and was murdered.

Menes says this latest push to remove Haitians from the Dominican Republic is yet another government-sanctioned move that speaks to the hate Haitians continue to face.