Island culture clash hits home in Lynn

LYNN – Longtime Lynn residents from Haiti and the Dominican Republic said their shared experiences can set the stage for helping to resolve a growing disagreement between their island homelands over Dominican immigration policies.Pitting citizens of one of the few – if only – nations in the world sharing an island against one another, the dispute injects conversations and news accounts with accusations about historical animosity, economic unfairness and political finger pointing.?It?s a hot item. It?s very big,” said Lynn Dominican community member Manuel Nunez.At the center of the controversy, said Haitian-American William Joseph, is the government-set standards Haitians must meet to continue living in the Dominican Republic and work there. Most of the 524,000 migrant workers in the Dominican Republic are from neighboring Haiti, according to an Associated Press report.Joseph, a Lynn businessman and Haitian community activist, and Marc Philogene, a Haitian-American who has lived in the United States for 14 years, said Dominican policies mean Haitians working in the Dominican Republic could lose their jobs, even their homes. They said Dominican friends share their viewpoint.?Most are really upset about what is going on,” Joseph said.Joseph said Haitian dominance of Hispaniola, the island shared by both nations in the early 19th-century, still angers Dominicans. Philogene said Dominicans he knows share Haitian anger over treatment of Haitian migrants working in sugar cane fields.Juan Jose Encarnacion Soto, a Dominican political activist, attorney and media figure, said Haitians play a significant role in the Dominican economy. He said a 2010 change in the Dominican constitution set the stage for “the government to act retroactively to go after Haitians.”He said complications posed by “mixed parentage” – Haitians with Dominican and Haitian parents – underscore the complexities surrounding the controversy.?It?s not a legal issue; it?s a human one,” Encarnacion said.His longtime friend Francisco Soriano – a well-known figure in Lynn?s Dominican community – said Haitians “are not being mistreated,” but he said the Dominican Republic needs to forge a path away from deportation to legal status for Haitians living in the country.Joseph agreed, noting how a prolonged trip to the Dominican Republic opened his eyes to the number of Haitians owning businesses in the Dominican Republic. He said Lynn?s long-standing Dominican community and the more than 2,000 Haitian families living in Lynn share common goals: Local efforts to help Haiti following the 2010 earthquake raised $250,000 with 60 percent of the contributions donated by local Dominicans.Lynn resident Basilio Encarnacion said he is aware of Haitians and Dominicans airing their differences in Boston over Dominican policies, but he said local Haitians and Dominicans are “all one person.”?Over here, at the end of the day, we all come from one place – it?s all one connection,” he said.Philogene is convinced a third party – another nation or international organization – must play a role in mediating the Haitian-Dominican conflict before it leads to violence.?I believe if other nations don?t step up, it will be too late,” he said.Philogene keeps an image of a Haitian flag overlapping a Dominican flag on his phone.?That?s what I want,” he said.