Members of the African Diaspora in particular the Haitian Diaspora should be very intentional about where they spend their money. Members who live in the US. The US is the world’s second-largest importer of goods such as sugar. The next time you add sugar to your coffee, kindly ask yourself where this sugar was imported. Each year, hundreds of Haitian men and women are recruited to work in the Dominican Republic. They are promised good-paying jobs with higher wages than what they would make in Haiti. In the documentary The Price of Sugar, recruiters gather as many Haitians to cross the border to an area where they will be transported late at night not to see where they are being taken. They would then strip them of all their legal documents rendering them illegal.
They are then loaded on trucks and taken to bateyes- settlement near sugar mills. The Bateyes are poorly structured and are considered to be inhumane living spaces for sugar plantation workers. In the documentary, bateyes are described as concentration-camp like structures. The Vicini family owns the sugar plantations shown in the film. The Vicini family has strong political ties in the country and controls the media.
Captured plantation workers work about 14 hours a day and earn less than $1.00 with no healthcare. The Vicini family does not pay them in cash, but instead, they receive vouchers good only at company-owned stores. They can only afford to eat once a day, and many of them are malnourished and resort to eating sugar cane for energy. Children born on the plantation are not recognized as Dominicans. The mortality rate is quite high because the living conditions are comparable to slavery. Many die of tuberculosis, malnutrition, or diabetes from eating too much cane sugar. They cannot leave the plantation and are surveilled by cruel and anti-Haitian armed security guards.
The documentary is partly narrated by Priest Christopher Hartley. Hartley is a courageous priest born to a wealthy Spanish-English family, and he chose to leave a very comfortable life to do the work of the people. In 1997, he volunteered as a missionary in the diocese of San Pedro de Macoris in the town of San Jose de Los Llanos. He became aware of the horrible conditions that the Haitian plantation workers were in and decided to get involved.
- He brought American doctors to many of the plantations to see workers.
- He managed to get the Dominican government to build homes for workers, a gesture that infuriated Dominican citizens as they see it as Hatianizing the country.
- He worked on their behalf to have better living conditions, such as better pay.
- While facing death threats, he was able to work with the government, and workers were allowed to leave the plantation. However, with no legal documents, many of them had to remain there.
- For those who do stay, they will no longer be surveilled by armed guards
- Perhaps one of the most significant changes father Hartley brought to this cause is attention. The US imports much of this sugar cane from the Dominican Republic, is made aware of these horrific conditions, has not done much, and continues to buy sugar from the Dominicans.
This documentary was hard to watch and even harder to write about, but I stress we, members of the African Diaspora, need to be intentional about where we spend our money. We need to realize that collectively we have the spending power that will affect change.
Please watch, The Price of Sugar
YouTube link: The Price of Sugar Documentary
The Price of Sugar
Director: Bill Haney Writers Bill Haney, Peter Rhodes Stars Paul Newman, Christopher Hartley Rating Not Rated Running Time1h 30m GenreDocumentary
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