The social aftershocks of a migration crisis: racial threat and racial drift in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, I explore how the racial structure of an immigrant-receiving Latin American society informs the strategies that are available to its members when they are confronted with the arrival of perceived racial outsiders. Using survey data, I explore how Dominicans responded to the rapid influx of displaced Haitians in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and find that when surveyed after the earthquake, Dominicans were more likely to self-identify with the popular and nationalist identity category of indio. I argue that this signaled a heightening of anti-Haitian sentiment in a moment of perceived increased racial threat to the Dominican racial order, and that this shift was facilitated by Latin American racial dynamics that allow for movement between enumerated racial categories in societies structured around the logic of mestizaje.