Judy Luo
Centro para la Observación Migratoria y el Desarrollo Social en el Caribe (OBMICA)
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
The month of July is closing up, and I have been extremely busy traveling around the country doing interviews with different people in the deportee community. Many of my preconceived notions of people in this demographic have been subverted.
Firstly, there is a lot of socioeconomic diversity in the community, and according to one researcher here, stigmas about deportees vary accordingly. This researcher told me that Dominican deportees in the middle to upper classes (in the minority among deportees) feel like they have to hide their deportee status more, as it is considered a huge taboo in privileged spaces. However, in poor communities, a deportee identity is less stigmatized, but only among peers, as the larger Dominican society associates deportees with also being poor and criminals.
Secondly, I was surprised to learn that many deportees coming from the U.S. do not speak English. For some, it’s because they lived in the U.S. for a very short period of time, but for many others, even having spent 10+ years there, their English is very minimal. In hindsight, when reflecting on conditions that immigrants–particularly undocumented–face in the U.S., and thinking about my own immigrant parents, whose English is barely proficient, this no longer surprises me.
Much of the existing media and literature around the subject of deportees and their survival in exile hones in on the narrative of people who are American to the core and deserve to be back in their “real home.” The truth is, many deportees don’t fit into this tragic narrative of the displaced patriot. Many people miss the United States, but they equally love the Dominican Republic. Many people have children and family in the United States, but they also have large families that they love and care for here.
As someone with a multicultural and immigrant background, I deeply understand the complexities of “belonging” and “home.” I am currently ruminating on how I can best portray these nuances without falling back on the crutches of highlighting the “deserving immigrant” who is an assimilating, patriotic American.