Traidores a la patria: Reconfiguring the nation through (un)patriotic discourse in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

AbstractIn June 2020 anti‐racist activists in the Dominican Republic holding a vigil for George Floyd, who was brutally murdered by the police in the United States, were assaulted by right‐wing ultranationalists and detained by the national police. An event that was meant to express transnational solidarity was seen as a threat by ultranationalists who over the past decades supported anti‐Haitian and anti‐Black state policies that have contested the rights of Dominicans of Haitian descent to Dominican nationality and citizenship. This article explores how through the Dominican state's refashioning of the legal and juridical apparatus, as well as the support of self‐proclaimed Dominican nationalists, interpretations of Dominican national belonging are being contested and reimagined through the use of words such as traidor (traitor) and haitiano (Haitian). These terms code proper nationalism and Dominicanness as mixed‐race, Hispanic, and anti‐Haitian, as well as pro‐Dominican sovereignty, therefore against international human rights organizations.