Indio. A word that means so little, to Dominicans means so much. As a child growing up in Dominican Republic, the word Indio was a part of my daily vernacular. It was the only “polite” way I knew of referring to someone who was black or of African descent. I recall my uncle’s tales about his Dominican friend who moved to London. Explaining how one day, as his friend was getting his visa renewed, a British officer inquired, “quite rudely,” about the meaning of the word Indio on his official documents. The man recited as if he was reading from a handbook, “Indio means of color. It is not black per se but means tan or beige, trigeño as we might say in Dominican Republic”. The officer gave him a quizzical look not quite understanding what he meant and almost without hesitation said, “I don’t know about this Indio sir, but here, you are just black.”
To most Dominicans, this story exhibits the extent of racism that exists in countries outside our sphere of interaction. Yet Dominicans fail to recognize that the term Indio holds racist implications as well. The officer was only describing the man’s phenotype, which was a required part of her job. The man was not Indio in any significance of the word. Indio, in the simplest sense, refers to indigenous peoples, or people native to a land. The man most likely had no genetic connection to the indigenous Tainos that roamed the Island of Hispaniola in pre-colonial times, seeing as they were almost entirely annihilated. Nevertheless, he, and all Dominicans for that matter, refuse to embrace their phonotypical characteristics or admit that they are in fact black. We hesitate in identifying as black, regarding the word almost as an insult. Dominicans face more than just racism; they suffer from a serious racial identity crisis.
Indio: Creation of the Myth
Three out of four Dominicans are of mixed European and African descent making it the nation with the highest amount of mulattos in the Americas. When asked to describe the Dominican race and identity, most people will contend Dominicans are not pure, but a mix. Second only to Brazil, the Dominican Republic has the largest amount of categories for race and color. Colors range from blanco (white), trigueño (wheat), indio or canela(brownish), moreno (dark brown), and negro (black), Indio being the most popular form of expressing race and color. Indio alludes to the indigenous people that presided in the island before the colonial era, but by acknowledging their Indigenous race, Dominicans fail to acknowledge their African ancestry.
Dominicans have recently begun to recognize that the term Indio is made up. Descendants of Africans slaves adopted the term Indio in an effort to purge themselves of their slave background. They could never attain the status attributed to white, but wanted to get rid of their African past, which was associated to slavery. In an effort to conform, they adopted the word Indio as a way of romanticizing their physicality by connecting it to the annihilated Taino natives. Yet today, some confusion lies on whether Indio refers to color, or whether it refers to the indigenous past. David Howard outlines the three main hypothesis of what many believe the term Indio to be. The first implies that the term refers purely to color. In other words, Indio refers to being of the same color of the indigenous race, of brownish tones, or that of the people from India. This idea entails that Dominicans understand that they do not have any indigenous descent. The second hypothesis signifies to the idea that Columbus believed he had landed in India when he came to the new world, making the inhabitants of the new world Indios.The third concedes to the idea that people who consider themselves Indio believe they are direct descendants of the indigenous Tainos, This last hypothesis has been defined the rise of what is loosely described as Indigenismo.
Accounts of Indigenismo are most commonly associated with post revolutionary Mexico’s attempt to emphasize indigenous elements in their national culture. Indigenismo in Dominican Republic is associated with the emphasis on Taino culture as a way of defining the Dominican identity. Unlike in Mexico where indigenous peoples still exist today, Indigenismo in Dominican Republic is based on a myth. In the 19th Century, Dominicans took what information they could gather about the native Tainos from the colonial era and constructed a culture around it. Little is really known about the native Tainos, but Dominicans managed to incorporate it into a large part of their culture, romanticizing events and people.
The zenith of Indigenismo in Dominican Republic is the story of Taino leader, Enriquillo. The story tells the tale of a noble savage who fought against oppression and converted to Christianity. This and other forms of Indigenismo are attempts to fulfill a psychological need for continuity between the indigenous people and the population today. As Indigenismo fills the gap between Tainos and Dominicans today, it slowly widens the divide between Dominicans and their African past.
Antihaitianismo and the Indio Myth:
Indio is not only the denial of an African ancestry, but also the rejection of Haiti. In other Latin American countries, terms like Mestizo or Mulatto are used to describe a racial mixture of people. In Dominican Republic, the word Mulatto has a negative connotation because it refers to an African past. Dominicans don’t see themselves as Mulattos because Mulattos are dark and ‘to be dark is to be Haitian’, which is something Dominicans don’t want to be. Most of the countries in the Americas formed their national Identity in opposition to a European power, but the Dominican Republic formed their identity in opposition to Haiti. The Dominican Republic is the only country in the Americas who does not celebrate their independence from a European power, but instead celebrate their separation from Haiti in 1844. After the independence was won, Dominicans cast off everything Haitian, including language, culture and to a certain degree, color. Since Haiti was predominantly black, being black meant being Haitian, and the hateful idea of Antihaitianismo emerged. Indio again became a leeway for Dominicans to describe their dark color without having to consent to having African descent or being associated with Haitians, which other terms, like Mulatto, did not offer.
Conclusion
The cultivated history of Haitian-Dominican tensions transformed Dominicanidad (Dominican Identity) to being non-Haitian and to neglect their African ancestry. Through the formation of Antihaitianismo and the Indio myth, Dominican political figures shaped Dominican racial identity creating a negro-phobic culture of racist principles. Even though traces of an African ancestry remain in Dominican music, language and religion, Dominicans regard themselves as a predominantly a white, Hispanic influenced, nation.
We can only contemplate on the extent with which future Dominican governments will take it upon themselves to repair the social and cultural damaged caused by theories of white supremacist powers. Based on the recent politics, meeting expectation seems farfetched. In search of deeper racial understanding, the Dominican public must get educated. They must become aware of the Africanidad through the avocation of afro-Dominican entities as well as the return of Dominican Diaspora.
Looking back at my uncle’s anecdote about his friend in the United Kingdom, I realize the importance it carries. The man’s denial of his African backdrop represents centuries of a cultivate ideology that is ingrained in the Dominican psyche. By experiencing what he believed to be an example to racism, this man was actually taking one step towards coming to terms with what his blackness. Once Dominicans stop hiding behind their supposed indigenous dissent and begin to embrace their African legacy, then we will have truly acknowledge the Dominican identity. Today we disguise behind tainted masks, created by our own, perpetuated, misconstructions of race.
Until the 1930s, the term Indio was only used in a day-to-day basis, as a way of Dominicans defining color and race. It wasn’t until the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo that the term became official. When Trujillo came to power, he had the opportunity of redefining the population as Mulattos, seeing as he was of African decent himself. Instead, he conceded to the Hispanophillia of the white elite and sought to make Dominicans “the most Spanish people of the Americas.” Trujillo redefined blacks and Mulattos as Indios, making it the official description of the Dominican race. By allowing Indio to be used on the Cedula, the official Dominican identification card, the myth of Indio became institutionalized.
In the Dominican Republic, Cedula and census state officials are responsible for categorizing people’s color and individuals are rarely consulted for their input. Since so many different color variations exist, categorizing a person under a certain racial group can prove difficult. State officials, and Dominicans in general, define how they view color in terms of how much darker or lighter they view themselves. There is, therefore, no precise way to identify a person’s color other than their own biases or perceptions. Hence, the actual phenotype of idividuals categorized as Indio can range from dark brown to creamy brown. In a study done by Kimberly E. Simmons in the Dominican JCE (Junta Central Electoral) she witnessed that out of the 150 Cedulas made, 125 people were categorized as Indio, one of the 5 racial categories offered.
Categorization of color does not only involve skin color, but also hair and eye color. For example, if a person of dark skin has light colored eyes and thin hair, they are more likely to be categorized as Indio then as Mulatto, which is considered darker on the Dominican color spectrum. State officials also tend to categorize people in lighter terms as to “not to cause offense”. This can also be attributed to the government’s way of whitening the country as to have it be perceived as more Hispanic than African.
I grew up in harlem and even tho I stopped listening to that trash, I identify with black americans almost as much as I identify with Dominicans. U arent gonna find any pure, born and raised Latino on the coli, only Latinos that grew up in the hood and can relate to ya. Sorry if ya dont like it but I'm not gonna stop coming here because of some low self esteem having fatherless fakkits telling me to leave like @TheLesserEvil
why didn't we just rock with that. Way back than
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