Two Wings to Fly

Two wings to fly

Haiti and the Dominican Republic rely on each other on an island filled with dignity and despair.

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FRIENDS AND FAMILY MOURN the loss of Aneuris Polanco Foxan in January 2014. She died at the age of 33 due to pneumonia. In order to bury her, the family had to exhume another family member because they could not afford to build a new casket. (Photo by Kaylee Everly)

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications sends student photojournalists to cover international poverty twice a year. For three weeks in the winter of 2013-14, 13 of them worked stories in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. In the fall of 2014, Bethel University students in St. Paul, Minn., took the best of that work and designed this magazine.

For more information about these programs, contact UNL Professor Bruce Thorson at bthorson2@unl.edu or 402-472-8279, or contact Bethel Professor Scott Winter at s-winter@bethel.edu or 402-853-2036.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is an equal opportunity educator and employer with a comprehensive diversity plan.

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To order this magazine in individual copies or classroom sets, contact UNL’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications at cojmc@unl.edu or 402472-3041.

Two wings to flycontents LÍNEA 6 LA A barren dirt road divides Haiti and the

Dominican Republic, and one family is split on both sides of it.

TO FIGHT 24 BORN Men train roosters to fight to the death in order to put food on the table.

WORKERS UNITE 32 SWEATSHOP A garment factory experiment transforms

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the lives of Dominican women, but depends on American markets to survive.

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NO MORE 46 BACK A recovering addict tries to reconnect

with his family. His decision could cost him everything.

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A LITTLE GIRL ANYMORE 56 NOT Teenage motherhood cycles through

families in the Dominican Republic. It’s not seen as a problem, but it needs a solution.

SALE IN SAMANÁ 64 FOR Three young, single Dominican mothers feed their children by working in the sex industry.

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LIVING IN LIMBO

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UNBEARABLE ODDS

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LIFE AMONG THE DEAD

A new court ruling looms over a Dominican husband, his Haitian wife and their two children.

Dominican teens take their shots at living out baseball dreams in the U.S. If they lose, they lose everything.

60-year-old gravedigger Ultimo Gomez Cueba is reminded daily how poverty can still reach you after death.

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ABOUT TWO WINGS TO FLY In September 2013, the Dominican Republic’s highest court ruled that children of Haitian migrants born after 1929 were not Dominican citizens. On the island of Hispaniola, which is smaller than the state of Maine, racial tensions extend back centuries and migration to the wealthier Dominican side is inevitable. The ruling stripped an estimated 250,000 people of the citizenship they had previously claimed.

Instantly, international rumors circulated about racial violence and Dominican immigration raids in Haitian neighborhoods.

In major Dominican cities like Santo Domingo and Santiago, politics continued to isolate Haitians both politically and socially. Haitian migrant workers, while convenient for the low-paying jobs they accept, are regarded by politicians and upper-class Dominicans more as irritating neighbors they’d like to keep out of their yards.

But the story that doesn’t blow across the Caribbean Sea to mainstream American media is the way the island’s border towns recognize and thrive off the countries’ unavoidable codependency. On the jagged roads connecting Haiti and the Dominican Republic, small-scale entrepreneurs and laborers flow between countries, selling and buying at open markets.

The Dominican town of Elias Pina, about a mile from the Haitian border, hosts a market every Monday and Friday. From 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., vendors from the Haitian town of Belladére are free to cross into the Dominican Republic without papers, as long as they return by nightfall.

The market swirls with Spanish and Creole, old and new clothes, empanadas, plantains and knock-off purses. It’s a hot whirlwind of shoulder-to-shoulder business transactions as two speakers blast Merengue music next to a string of freshly killed chickens. Evidence of heightened racial tension after the September 2013 ruling are nonexistent in towns like Elias Pina, said Luis Minier, mayor for seven years.

Haitians and Dominicans have been trading across the border out of necessity for more than 20 years. The mayor visits the market later in the afternoon to supervise the line of trucks waiting to carry vendors back home

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and to help regulate the chaotic closing of the border. His job is to keep chaos at a minimum.

He all but scoffed at the question of whether Haitians and Dominicans can live in peace.

They must, he said. At border towns like Elias Pina, Haitians and Dominicans need one another to survive.

“If I want to buy something, I go to Elias Pina, because it is cheaper than in my country,” said Tito, a Dominican schoolteacher from the nearby town of El Cercado.

Tito does more than shop at the market. He quietly slips an extra 100 pesos to a struggling vendor and gives his bottled water to a thirsty donkey on the street corner.

Tito is a native Dominican and enjoys the rights and privileges of Dominican citizenship.

But he still spends his free time building houses for impoverished communities on both sides of the border. Peace for the island of Hispaniola lies in increased fluidity and cooperation between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, rather than stringent laws to keep its citizens separate, Tito said.

“This island is a bird, each country is a wing,” he said, “and without one wing, a bird cannot fly.”

In the winter of 2013-14, twelve student photojournalists and reporters traveled from Lincoln, Nebraska, to Hispaniola to tell the stories of an island where Haitians and Dominicans fight and pray to survive economic, political and cultural struggles.

Along the way, these students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found men who raise roosters in order to kill them, just for some extra income for the family, and women who sell themselves to tourists, for extra food for their babies. They found teen baseball players who want to slug their way to family prosperity before they cave under the weight of that pressure, and a man who digs graves for God. Upon their return, they produced multimedia videos about the island people who need each other to fly.

This magazine, built in partnership with students from Bethel University (St. Paul, Minn.), is a collection of the best photography and writing from that trip.

- ANNA GRONEWOLD

TITO LEANS in a window frame in El Cercado, Dominican Republic, on New Year’s Day 2014.

The countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic rely on each other for survival. “This island is a bird, each country is a wing, and without one wing, a bird cannot fly,” Tito said.

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La LĂ­nea

A barren dirt road divides Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

To a family severed by the border, the road represents a much broader political, historical and cultural chasm.

PHOTOS BY ANDREW DICKINSON | WORDS BY ANNA GRONEWOLD

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t hasn’t rained yet, but Ana Oce carries a purple umbrella with a handle shaped like a teddy bear. The bear’s nose cracked off months ago. It’s 80 degrees and Ana’s wears a long-sleeved wool sweater to hide the four-inch machete scar on her elbow. Trouble with her landlord, she explains.

It’s a 20-minute walk to the metro. She slides in and out of Santo Domingo traffic, dirt-brown Sketchers silent on the concrete.

She shuffles through the glass doors of Hospital Materno Infantil de Villa Mella, and takes a seat outside the room where she had blood work taken a week ago. She waits patiently for a half-hour. Finally, a nurse with a sleek ponytail quietly explains she needs an appointment if she wants to see a doctor.

She didn’t know. Ana purses her lips and takes the elevator back to the first floor, where she is handed a number: 51. The Dominican women

ANA OCE WALKS toward a public taxi on her way to the hospital for a checkup in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in January 2014.

A miscarriage almost killed Ana in late 2013 and left her with a $1,300 bill she cannot pay. “What can I do?” she said. “I have no one to call for help.”

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ahead of her in line swirl around the room in high heels and dresses, corralling their children and gossiping.

Ana sinks into a metal chair.

Ana and her sister Fifi left their parents and siblings in Los Cacaos, Haiti, more than a decade ago.

Although she and Fifi have lived, worked and raised Anna’s children in Santo Domingo for more than a decade, in the crowded city across the border they are alone.

———————— La Línea, “The Line,” has cracks – ominous, cavernous and permanent. Travelers can walk along the broken highway faster than the few local drivers bouncing violently over potholes in rusty pick up trucks.

On one side is Haiti, dusty fields of dried-up pigeon peas and tiny figures of farmers scattered on the distant barren hills, pleading with the

ANA OCE AND HER DAUGHTERS BRAINI (CENTER) AND ANA LUCIA SIT outside their home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in January 2014. Anna grew up in Haiti, but left her home and family years ago, hoping that Santo Domingo would be a better place to raise her children. “I miss a lot of things,” she said. “I miss my mother’s love in this moment.”

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FANILIA OCE (SECOND FROM THE RIGHT) AND ERNEUS (FAR RIGHT) STAND outside their home with their children and their grandson, Louie (far left) in Los Cacaos, Haiti, in December 2013. Since two of the families’ daughters, Anna and Fifi, left home to live accross the border, Fanilia has dreamed of reuniting her family. “If they lived close by I would be happy,” she said. “Everybody pitches in doing something as we live together and be happy.”

ANA OCE AND HER DAUGHTER ANA LUCIA (CENTER) AND SISTER FIFI OLIAMENE GERNEUS STAND outside Ana’s home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in January 2014. Ana grew up in Los Cacaos, Haiti, but her children have always called the Dominican Republic home. “For our needs we have to live separated,” she said.

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ANA LUCIA STANDS in front of her family’s home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in January 2014. Her family is scattered by the distance between her mother, Ana Oce, in the Dominican Republic, and the home of her grandparents in Los Cacaos, Haiti, where Ana left years ago and is unable to return. “I have no home in Haiti,” said Ana Oce, “I have no house, no job, no money, nothing.”

LOUIE PLAYS with a tire near his grandparent’s home in Los Cacaos, Haiti, in January 2014. His mother, Ana Oce, who lives in the Dominican Republic, couldn’t afford to care for her son alone, so she left him with his grandparents across the border where he will receive the citizenship benefits that Haitian children are denied in the Dominican Republic.

“For someone who isn’t a citizen of here it’s like they don’t have a family here,” said Fifi Gerneus, Louie’s aunt.

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THE SEVERED ISLAND One line divides the Caribbean island of Hispaniola into the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

LOS CACAOS, HAITI The Gerneus family’s home.

LA LINEA The road that divides Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

POPULATION 16,000 HAITI M

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

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250 K

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI The capital of Haiti.

POPULATION 2.2 million (2011)

Source: CIA World Factbook

SANTO DOMINGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC The capital of the Dominican Republic, where Ana and Fifi moved more than 10 years ago in search of a better life.

ELIAS PINA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Town where vendors from both Haiti and the Dominican Republic meet to sell goods.

POPULATION 2.19 million (2011)

POPULATION 63,029 (2010)

Source: CIA World Factbook

Source: Citypopulation.de

‘WE ARE ABANDONED. WE ARE LIVING IN BOTH COUNTRIES HERE, BUT WE ARE NOT HAITIANS.’

– GESHAR “YINET” DESIR Mayor of Los Cacaos, Haiti

HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: A HISTORY OF CONFLICT

HAITI

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

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1697: Hispaniola is split into two countries: Haiti (France) and Santo Domingo (Spain).

1804: Haiti declares independence from France after a 13-year slave rebellion.

1822: Haitian troops invade the Dominican Republic.

1844: The Dominican Republic claims independence from Haiti.

2010: Earthquake near Port-au-Prince drives Haitians into the Dominican Republic.

2013: Dominican Supreme Court Ruling declares that children of undocumented migrants will be denied citizen rights.

GRAPHICS BY LAUREN WILLIAMSON AND WHITENEY HARSCH. SOURCES: BBC NEWS AND WORLDATLAS.COM

cracked earth. On the other side is the Dominican Republic, forested mountains in the distance, hinting at prosperity.

But the road itself, blotted with trash and puddles, is nobody’s land. On this island, the border isn’t a border at all.

It’s a space. It’s a porous membrane, not marked by any sort of wall or barrier. But though crossing the line into a new country is as easy as five steps, it would also involve avoiding about eight casual checkpoints. Los Cacaos sits only meters west of La Línea: not Dominican, but far enough from the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, to be invisible.

This is a story about isolation. About lines, both invisible and substantial. About two countries, squeezed together on an island and divided by a single road. A story about one family, trapped on either side of that road – La Línea – and sacrificing one kind of isolation for another.

———————— On New Years Day, the Gerneús family cooks.

After breakfast, children circle the shrubbery serving as a chicken pen, pointing and plotting their attack. A couple quick movements blocking a half-hearted escape, and the white speckled rooster is an easy catch.

The black one puts up a good fight, though, eluding both Elísténe, 18, and Orimane, 17. They sprint after the bird, yelling and launching rocks. One, two, eight pieces of rock are thrown at the chicken before one finally pounds the bird’s head. Elísténe whoops and hurdles the cactus fence, catch in hand, its broken neck dangling.

Meanwhile, fifteen-year-old Yltaméne picks up a dull knife and slices oranges outside of the family home. It is the only knife the family has, and is also used to stoke the fire.

When her brothers deposit their catch, she saws the skin

around both birds’ necks, throwing them in the dirt to bleed out. She and her mother, Fanilia, 63, each bathe a chicken in boiling water and begin plucking.

Down the side of the dusty mountain, Ernéus Gerneús, 56, hacks at an aged stump. Sweat, dirt, water and woodchips fly. He and his sons trade turns with the machete as a gaggle of town children bathe and urinate in the river nearby. After the stump is demolished, the crowd marches up the mountain singing. Ernéus drops the pile of wood outside the kitchen where Fanilia is unraveling chicken intestine.

The next five hours are a practiced dance of crushing, sorting, stirring, boiling, straining and mashing. Rice, beans and chicken wait their turns to be cooked over the small fire, which all of the family members help in coaxing to life with puffs of breath. At dusk, the family, with too many members to fit inside the small home together, finally sits around the fire to eat.

———————— After the January 2010 earthquake near Port-au-Prince, Los Cacaos, located some 100 kilometers away, became a transit point for displaced families trying to migrate from Haiti to the Dominican Republic. Those refugees not seeking to migrate stayed in Los Cacaos, hoping for better opportunities than what remained in Port-au-Prince.

The influx of these refugees doubled the population of Los Cacaos to more than 16,000, but this was nothing compared to the number of immigrants continuously flowing across the border.

“The question of numbers is problematic in that people on both sides give highly inflated numbers to accentuate ELISTENE JUMPS a cactus fence with a freshly killed chicken in Los Cacaos, Haiti, in January 2014.

The chicken represents the beginning of a day of meal preparation for him and his family’s meager New Year’s dinner. “Here we don’t have anything,” he said.

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ELISTENE GERNEUS WASHES himself in the stream by his home in Los Cacaos, Haiti, in December 2013.

Earlier in 2013 he spent a year’s worth of savings, 5,000 pesos, to hire a driver who transports Haitians into the Dominican Republic illegally. He lived in Santo Domingo and neighboring San Juan de la Maguana for one year, and was robbed multiple times before returning to Los Cacaos empty-handed. “I’d rather just stay here, even if I’m suffering,” he said. “I would rather be here in this shanty house planting and eating beans than to go back. They almost killed me.”

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In 2012, 87 percent of immigrants in the Dominican Republic were Haitian.

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Haitian immigrants made up 4.5 percent of the population of the Dominican Republic.

ERNEUS SITS in a chair in his home in Los Cacaos, Haiti, in January 2014. Though Ana is not his biological daughter, Ana has always recognized Erneus as her father, and thinks of him and Fanilia often. “I want to be with all of (my family),” she said. “...I miss the love of my mother.

The love of my father. My siblings. The food.”

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FANILIA GAZES at a portrait of her daughter that sits near a mirror next to the mud walls wallpapered with pages torn from magazines in her home in Los Cacaos, Haiti, in January 2014. Her daugher now lives in the Dominican Republic, where she’s kept her mother from knowing about her miscarriage, or the time a landlord attacked her with a machete. “What if something happened to me?” Fanilia said. “She won’t be able to help me, and I can’t help her.”

the gravity of the problem,” said Samuel Martinez, an anthropology professor at the University of Connecticut who specializes in the Caribbean, migration and human rights.

Though Martinez says modern immigration data for the Dominican Republic is difficult to trust due to these inflated numbers, by 2012, approximately 87 percent of Dominican Republic immigrants were Haitian, making up about 4.5 percent of the total population.

This is not a recent phenomenon; Haitians have fled to the Dominican Republic since the beginning of the 20th century, when they were recruited as cheap labor in sugar cane fields. When the sugar industry declined, other sectors – coffee, rice, commerce, construction and tourism – began to demand cheap Haitian labor.

In 1697, France and Spain resolved competing New World conquests by splitting Hispaniola into two countries.

Haiti declared independence in 1804 after a 13-year slave rebellion. Shortly after, in 1822, Haitian troops invaded and occupied the Dominican Republic, abolishing slavery, but imposing heavy taxes and restrictions on Dominican landowners. Dominicans won freedom from Haitian rule in 1844 and Haiti began to fall behind.

Geographically, the Haitian half of the island suffers from a semiarid climate and decades of deforestation.

Economically, years of abuse from foreign powers and corrupt internal leadership left Haiti in substantial debt. Today Haiti is the lowest developing country in the Americas due to its low human and socioeconomic development levels, so Haitians continue to flow toward the Dominican border through border towns like Los Cacaos.

———————— Fanila Oce and Ernéus Gernéus brought their nine children to Los Cacaos 13 years ago, from where they once lived in the western hills of Haiti. At least in Los Cacaos, the family has the support of a community during times of

sickness and famine, Fanilia said.

But for migrants, Los Cacaos is a dead end.

Los Cacaos is the kind of town where the tips of toddlers’ hair glimmer orange from malnutrition. In 2011, residents had to dig a mass grave for 16 people who died of cholera in a single day. Though signs of foreign aid linger in the form of the rough connecting roads that Jesuit nuns bulldozed in 2011, and cluster of pastel concrete houses built by the international nonprofit Food for the Poor and its Dominican partner Mi Casa a tu Casa in 2007, Los Cacaos is the kind of town where neighbors live in one another’s yards, forced to share essentials because no one has enough. The town stopped asking for help from the Haitian government years ago.

Mayor Geshar “Yinet” Desir said the roads from Portau-Prince are too dangerous and the distance is too far for the Haitian government to distribute aid to border towns like Los Cacaos.

“We are abandoned,” Yinet said. “We are living in both countries here, but we are not Haitians.”

Then Yinet smiles, impossibly big, like the smiles of the children who race down the road after vehicles, hands outstretched.

Retreating back, the center of Haiti offers disease, chaos and limited resources, but pushing farther across the border east risks illegal immigration to the Dominican Republic.

Last year, Fanilia and Ernéus’s second son, Elísténe, hired a smuggler and paid about 5,000 pesos in bribes, funds he had been saving for more than a year, at the checkpoints. He made it to Santo Domingo, where the beauty was overwhelming in its extravagance. He wandered through parks with benches, trees that offered shade and flowers planted for their beauty. It was all so clean, and the houses, with siding and trimming, painted seafoam and magenta, were all so vibrant.

Santo Domingo welcomes cheap labor, domestic servants and construction workers. The city does not embrace young Haitian farmers. Weeks passed. Elísténe’s

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BRAINI WATCHES as two Dominican children play in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in January 2014.

Her mother, Ana, came to the Dominican Republic so that Braini and her siblings could have better opportunities, but Braini isn’t allowed to leave the porch.

“Here, I walk and I am afraid,” Ana said.

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funds dwindled. But he couldn’t leave the Emerald City.

He backtracked west about 200 kilometers, where he found work in the fields outside San Juan de la Maguana.

Each night, he carefully hid his wages, but thieves found them anyway. They came to his house, they knew he had money, and they had weapons.

“I worked hard, and earned money, and they just robbed me,” he said. “I learned a lesson: You have to have money to stay there.”

He went home disillusioned and defeated. Now he lives with his brother in a 12-square-meter hut on his parents’ property. He slathers mud on the exterior twice a year, but he hasn’t forgotten what he saw in La Capital.

“Look at my house; I don’t consider this a home,” Elísténe said. “Most of the homes here are made of mud and sticks. It’s ugly.”

But he doesn’t have a choice anymore.

“I’d rather just stay here, even if I’m suffering,” he said.

“I would rather be here in this shanty house planting and eating beans then to go back. They almost killed me.”

Outside the family’s house, a skin-and-bones cat screams 24 hours a day from hunger. Inside, the mud is wallpapered, floor to ceiling, in May 2013 editions of the Spanishlanguage newspaper El Caribe, and torn advertisements with honey-skinned models dancing on Dominican beaches. In the corner, on a dresser with no drawers, are two portraits in cracked frames. The two eldest daughters, Ana, 30, and Fifi, 28, left for Santo Domingo a little over 10 years ago, seeking jobs, prosperity and stability. Unlike Elísténe, they stayed.

Fanilia smiles and points to the portrait of Ana, who shares her infinite eyes and pointed chin.

“They send some aid sometimes, but when they don’t, I can’t complain,” Fanilia said. “But if they all lived near, we would be able to help one another.”

Happiness, Fanilia said, is a house, a place where she can cook for her family. It doesn’t need to be large, just large enough keep her eight living children together in their home country.

“What if something happens to me?” Fanilia said. “She won’t be able to help me, and I can’t help her.”

———————— Though she has lived in the city more than a decade, Ana panics when her daughters wander into the yard. The Santo Domingo neighborhood of Villa Mella swallows her tiny turquoise house into its belly, an overcrowded labyrinth of street vendors, struggling family businesses and domestic workers.

Ana tries not to go out after dark. Stories of theft, attack and rape are more than rumors. She tries to keep her two daughters close. Braini, 6, rarely leaves the porch area, even when beckoned by the giggling swarm of neighbor girls.

Ana Lucia, 2, doesn’t leave her mother’s lap.

Like the previous generation living in Haiti, Ana’s family is split. On a rare visit home two years ago, Ana brought her 4-year-old son, Luis, to Los Cacaos and left him there, hoping that Fanilia and Ernéus would be able to support him financially in ways that she could not – at the very least,

CHILDREN WITHOUT RIGHTS “Little Fockers” is playing on TV. The voices are dubbed to Spanish and the black and white picture mixes with static. But Ghertha rearranges a couple handfuls of live wires – electricity borrowed from neighbors – and Ben Stiller entertains the family all morning.

Gherta and Juan Roberto live in El Cercado in a cracked wooden house that sits a couple meters back from the street. “Johnny Pollera” is painted in peeling letters on the side. Though they are not the only Haitian family in town, as Haitians, they still stick out.

The kids lose interest in the movie. Ten-year-old Berlinda dances in and out the door, and 2-yearold Julia slides around the floor on empty charcoal sacks, screaming and giggling. Five-month-old Diefly naps and endures Berlinda’s pokes. He doesn’t cry.

Diefly was born in El Cercado in July. He has a birth certificate, labeled “extranjero,” or foreigner.

I ask his mother if Diefly is Haitian or Dominican.

She doesn’t know. He was born in the Dominican Republic, Ghertha says. That doesn’t answer the question.

Over the past decade, Dominican court policies have been modifying and blocking birthright citizenship laws for children of Haitian parents.

A child born in the Dominican Republic is not automatically a citizen. Citizenship goes only to those who can prove they have one documented parent. Finally in September, the Dominican Republic’s high court legalized the policy that ruled

citizenship can only be granted to children born to one Dominican parent since 1929.

Diefly is neither Haitian nor Dominican.

The infant’s father had been traveling back and forth between the two countries for years before he brought his family to live in El Cercado 18 months ago. Life is better here, he says.

Life for the family is a slow rhythm of shelling peas, greeting neighbors and making sure Berlinda’s games don’t injure other children. Juan Roberto finds about two weeks of construction work for every two months of unemployment, and he fills the time with Dominoes and farming a few acres of rented land.

But if you’re Haitian, and you’re poor, you are nothing, Juan Roberto says.

“Our only value is to work.”

I ask Ghertha what she wants. Not what she needs, but what she really wants. A house, she says, of my own. Johnny Pollera, translated “Johnny hencoop” or “Johnny chicken run” is rented for 600 pesos a month. Ghertha does not know Johnny or his pollera, and neither does Maricia, her neighbor. But I can’t stop staring at the foreign label, on a house they’ve worked to make a home, in a country that won’t really take them in.

- ANNA GRONEWOLD

BERLINDA, A 10-YEAR-OLD HAITIAN LIVING IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, CLEANS her family’s home in El Cercado, Dominican Republic, in December 2013.

In September 2013, the Dominican Supreme Court ruled that citizenship can only be granted to children born to one Dominican parent since 1929, so Berlinda, whose parents are both Haitian, will not receive citizenship.

Though her mother says that Berlinda’s brother, Diefly, was born in the Dominican Republic, he faces the same challenge.

BERLINDA STANDS in front of her family’s home in El Cercado, Dominican Republic, in December 2013, lit by a passing car.

Her Haitian family is ostracized in the Dominican Republic, and because she was not born to a Dominican parent, Berlinda is denied citizen rights in the country she calls home. “Our only value is to work,” her father, Juan Roberto, says of the families position living in a foreign country.

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ANA’S SON, LOUIE, PLAYS with neighborhood children in Los Cacaos, Haiti, in January 2014. Louie’s mother left him in Los Cacaos to live with his grandparents, because she was unable to support him alone in the Dominican Republic.

ANA WASHES her daughter, Ana Lucia, at the public water spout behind her home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in January 2014. Though Ana Lucia was born in the Dominican Republic, she receives no Dominican constitutional rights because her mother immigrated from Haiti. “I understand if someone was not born here,” Ana said, “but if someone was born here, they should have the same rights as here.”

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A BOY AND GIRL HOLD hands in Los Cacaos, Haiti in 2014. In their home town, many children are malnurished, and in 2011 residents had to dig a mass grave for 16 people who died of cholera in a single day.

FIFI OLIAMENE GERNEUS HOLDS hands with a Dominican church member during the service in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in January 2014. Since leaving her home in Los Cacaos years ago, in search of a better life, Fifi has only encountered further hardships. “One day, after all this suffering, I have hope that God will let me smile again,� she said.

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he would be surrounded by family. Bringing him back to Santo Domingo is 6,000 pesos worth of bribes and another mouth to feed, so he stays with his grandparents on the Haiti side of La Línea.

Her 11-year-old son, Carlos, lives about an hour away in the Dominican beach town Boca Chica with his father, who has remained otherwise distant from Ana and the children.

Neither parent can afford to support all four children.

Ana cleans and cooks for a wealthy Colombian family in Santo Domingo for minimum wage: 6,000 pesos, or $45, a month. Rent is 2,500 pesos; Braini’s school is 1,000, and the babysitter is 2,000. At the end of the month, she has 500 pesos left to stretch for food and other expenses. About $12.

The financial stress gives Ana headaches – the thinking, the math, the money, the fear. She said she misses her parents’ unconditional love, her siblings, the food and the peace she feels walking along the Artibonite River back home in Haiti.

But she’s been gone too long to go back.

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“I have no home in Haiti,” she said. “I have no house, no job, no money, nothing.”

———————— Until 2004, Haitian children born in the Dominican Republic received the constitutional right to Dominican nationality. Children of Haitian migrants were recognized as citizens and received cédulas, Dominican identity documents essential for voting and licensed business like banking.

In September 2013, a Dominican Supreme Court ruled that individuals of migrant background born in the Dominican Republic since 1929 must be transferred to a separate civil registry. Committees would examine the list, one person at a time, to determine if an individual’s parents were documented. Children of undocumented migrants, regardless of where they were born, would be denied access to healthcare, employment and higher education.

It was a bold move that outraged international human

rights organizations. Amnesty International estimates the ruling instantly stripped 250,000 people of Dominican nationality. But the Dominican government does not see this as a bad thing. To them, birthright citizenship was never intended for the children of illegal immigrants, and the new laws patch up the cracks where old policies fell short.

To ease the blow, Dominican President Danilo Medina signed a law in May classifying those affected into two groups: those with foreign parents whose births were officially recorded between 1929 and 2007, when the Dominican Republic still recognized birthright citizenship, and those that were not.

The first of the two groups, an estimated 25,000 minority, should be granted automatic citizenship. But the issue for the majority of stateless individuals is that their parents never registered their births in the first place. They remain in a stateless limbo.

“People who might have in an earlier generation desired to assimilate into mainstream Dominican society might find themselves trapped,” anthropology professor Martinez said, “not by the border they crossed, but the border their parents or grandparents crossed centuries ago.”

Ana’s Dominican-born children never had a life in Haiti, but have no future in the Dominican Republic. Ana worries that her struggles to build a life in the Dominican Republic as an unwelcome immigrant will mean nothing for the next generation.

“I understand if someone was not born here,” she said, “but if someone was born here they should have the same rights as here.”

———————— On Dec. 4, a Wednesday, Ana woke up bleeding.

On Monday there had been no blood. But Ana, 30, had gone to the doctor anyway, because suddenly, seven months pregnant with her fifth child, she felt nothing. No nudges, no kicks, no cramps, no life. Ana knew the stillness was wrong, but the doctors said the baby was fine.

Two days later, she took a public car to the closest hospital she could find. She remembers a pink-lipped nurse telling her both she and the baby would die.

Five days later, Ana regained consciousness. Her baby was dead. Her belly was scarred. Her bill: 53,683 pesos, or about $1,300 she didn’t have.

She didn’t have insurance, either, and each day in the hospital dug her deeper into debt.

When the doctors found out she was broke, they wouldn’t let her leave until she had paid a portion of the increasing bill. She scrounged up 15,380 pesos from her employer, family and church – enough to buy medication and permission to go home.

But in her Dominican home, she has no peace, avoiding the landlord and longing for family, her children and her miscarried child.

“I want to be with all of them,” she said. “For our needs, we have to live separated. I miss my mother’s love in this moment. What can I do? I have the hospital bill, the rent, and I have no one to call for help.”

———————— Ana’s sister, Fifi Gerneús, 28, fidgets when she’s not working. But Fifi is always working: hand-stitching her clothing, brewing body soap she sells on the streets for 200 pesos a gallon, embroidering a hairpiece to wear to church, cooking and cleaning more than 60 hours a week for a Dominican family on the other side of town.

Fifi listens as her older sister talks about “Corazon Valiente” and “Senor de los Cielos,” her favorite soap operas. She says they parallel her life.

“All men are the same,” Ana announces. “He (they) will have many girlfriends, and you will suffer.”

Fifi absorbs the tears of her sister who attracts drama wherever she goes, worries for her nieces who are growing up without a father and battles expectations from her family in Haiti to whom she sends money when she can.

At church, she sways and murmurs prayers to God, tears rolling down her face, but she doesn’t tell anyone at Iglesia Pentecostal about the children she desperately wants but that, thus far, her and her boyfriend have been physically unable to have.

She talks to Fanilia and Ernéus maybe once a month, clipped sentences soaring hundreds of miles through from her plastic cell phone to Elísténe’s. She doesn’t tell her parents about her sister’s miscarriage or how Ana lies in bed and cries for her lost baby. She doesn’t mention how she narrowly escaped the crowd of men with knives who followed her through the neighborhood one night on her way home from work.

But at night the tears seep out.

Fifi said God gave her a vision in September, but she doesn’t know why: “In the street there were many Dominicans killing Haitians and beating children. … I grabbed a poor, innocent child from the crowd. We went down another way. … And I yelled ‘Christ is coming’ into a camera and microphone. I yelled it many times. I went higher on the island screaming ‘Christ is coming,’ and I saw each Haitian going back to Haiti one by one.”

Her only guess is that the vision was meant to warn her people of the dangers that they face trapped in a country they can’t call home.

FIFI OLIAMENE GERNEUS CRIES while praying at church in Santo Domingo in January 2014.

Since leaving her home in Los Cacaos many years ago, she only communicates with her family about once a month, usually via text message.“In heaven, there will be no sadness,” she said, “no bitterness, no suffering, no problems. There will be a better life filled with glory.”

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Born to fight

Men train roosters to fight to the death in order to put food on the table.

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PHOTOS AND WORDS BY MATT MASIN AND CARA WILWERDING 25

FINDING YOUR CHARACTER Everyone is yelling, screaming, waving money around and drinking. It all looks pretty interesting to me.

During the first few cockfights I attended, it was nearly impossible to figure out how to find someone to tell my story through, but that’s why talking with Bruce, Brian and others on the trip is so helpful. I think I’m close -– so wish me luck!

There is a real problem of addiction in cockfight betting. Everyone acknowledges this and talks about people they know who have lost significant possessions due to making a bet they can’t cash.

There’s also a lot of shame involved. No one wants to talk about it. They want to have fun at the fight and not think about money or addiction.

This is why going to the same neighborhood day after day has paid off. Finally, someone was willing to show me a man who lost his home and car from betting on fights. This man was too drunk today to talk with me for long, but he told me to come back Friday to the fight and we could talk then.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Stanly and Alexis, two children who work at the ring, at a fight the other day. They were running in and out of the ring, grabbing the losing rooster and bringing it out to the curb to smash its neck against a wall, tear off the feathers and bag up the meat. Turns out, they disembowel the roosters for about $1 a pop and give the money to their father.

These quirky, smiley and innocent kids are also really good mechanics. If there was more time, I’d love to do a story solely on them.

- CARA WILWERDING

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A FIGHT NEARS Its end at a cockfighting arena in East Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Once a fight begins, men yell across the room to make verbal bets with one another. The bets are not officially written down and require a man to own up to his word. In a society where men are seen as dishonest, some say the arena is the last place a man’s word means everything in the Dominican Republic. (Photo by Matt Masin)

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TWO ROOSTERS FACE each other in the arena before a loud audience.

Cock fights are broadcasted on television screens in order for attendees to easily watch from all over the arena and restaurant area. “Sometimes you have a good rooster that has a lot of fight that always wins.

That’s satisfying because you were the one who raised it and it’s yours,” gamecock owner Isandro Vargas said. (Photo by Cara Wilwerding)

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CHRISTMAS EVE ON A GAMECOCK FARM Christmas Eve in the Dominican Republic is a feast day, said to be comparable to an American Thanksgiving. Dominicans travel across the island to dine on roasted pig, rice with corn, Russian potato salad, grapes and apples with their families. But rather than feasting, Matt and I took a two-hour journey to San Francisco de Macorís to visit Richard Hernande’s gamecock farm.

Many of these roosters, born and bred to fight to the death, will eventually become meals themselves. It’s tradition to cook the losing rooster after a battle lasting 10 minutes (or until one of the roosters dies). Last week, one of Hernande’s roosters killed his opponent in 15 seconds.

- CARA WILWERDING

THE MAN WITH THE GAP IN HIS TEETH The defining characteristic of Elinson Diaz Ramirez is the slight gap in his front teeth, only noticeable when he smiles. His father is a chef supporting a family of five. The family lives in a two-bedroom apartment with concrete walls, no plumbing and no doors. Elinson’s white teeth glimmer in the Caribbean sun as he washes sedans and rusty pickups outside of a cockfighting arena in Lo Fraile. He clenches his strong teeth as he slices up dead roosters, or gallos, after each fight, watching the blood dribble from their necks. He yanks off stiff feathers with his reddened fingers and scoops out the entrails. The birds’ stomachs are still full of corn from the morning feeding. The gap in Elinson’s teeth appears as he grins at old friends leaving the arena, often lending them money for 40-ounce Presidente beers and menthol cigarettes. But Elinson doesn’t go out drinking with them. Instead, he takes the remaining cash, sometimes as little as 200 pesos, home to buy rice and beans for his family.

Cock fighting: a brutal, loud and bloody affair commonplace to Santo Domingo’s neighborhoods, street corners and barrios.

Every man dreams this sport will serve as an escape from his family’s poverty. They leave high school to spend afternoons covered in dirt, gravel and rooster guts, surrounded by men shouting “Blanco!” and “Azul!” as they place bets on which gallo will survive another day. They are part of a brotherhood and camaraderie in a place where one bird’s death is another’s triumph. This is a story about the adrenaline, power and pesos many derive from cock fighting, which isa long shot at putting a meal on the table, or a means of survival.

- CARA WILWERDING

ROOSTERS ARE WEIGHED before each fight to determine a fair opponent.

They are then matched up with another rooster of a similar body weight and size to fight. The match is usually finished in about ten minutes.

Especially aggressive roosters can kill their opponents in as little as 15 seconds.

(Photo by Cara Wilwerding)

MEN EXCHANGE money after a round of betting on roosters. Few will admit that cock fighting is an addiction many struggle with in the Dominican Republic.

“Cockfighting is a legal deal-maker problem. There’s not much you can do but try to educate the littles, the kids, you know, so they can be different when they grow up,” animal rights activist Marcos Polanco said.

(Photo by Cara Wilwerding)

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ISANDRO VARGAS HOLDS a rooster chick in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in December 2013. The rooster will be trained to fight once it is grown. (Photo

by Matt Masin)

ISANDRO VARGAS (ABOVE) SITS outside his home in East Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic with his wife, son and daughter in December 2013. (Photo by Matt Masin) ISANDRO VARGAS (ABOVE RIGHT) STANDS near his home with one of his five fighting roosters. Vargas takes part in an age-old tradition of cockfighting in the Dominican Republic. During the lengthy training period, Vargas develops a special bond with his roosters and is always crushed when they die in a fight. “You can imagine that any creature that you raise, you have to love them,� says Vargas. (Photo by Matt Masin)

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ISANDRO VARGAS Residence: East Santo Domingo Family: Wife and two children (one son and one daughter) Occupation: Deliveryman and gamecock farmer / trainer.

Isandro raises about five roosters at a time for fighting. He attends fights about four days a week. Isandro uses the money from fights to support his family and raise more roosters.

GRAPHIC BY ALEX BAUER.

STEPPING INTO THE RING Yesterday, Cara and I photographed a cockfighting tournament with about 40 fights in San Francisco de Macorís . We were told it would be “beautiful” by a few different Dominicans.

While personally I didn’t find it beautiful, I can understand what they meant.

We rolled into a parking lot made up of rocks and pebbles at the coliseum and walked into the arena. From the outside, I couldn’t imagine just how crazy things were going to get.

Before we got to the ring, we walked through a restaurant area. Men drank Presidente beers, ate chicken noodle and shrimp soup and watched the fights on big TVs. Meanwhile, about two dozen roosters paced back and forth in cages and peered through a large glass window as men watched them, taking notes on who to bet on later.

Through the next door, we were shown the locker room, where owners tape shanks onto their roosters. Imagine a mix between a boxing locker room and a NASCAR pit, and you’ve pretty much got the idea. The shanks are inspected for size, then the roosters are ready to go.

Finally, we were inside the arena, and

everything got much louder. A man came through a door with two cloth sacks, stepped into the ring and hung them from a scale. The roosters have to be in the same weight class – another similarity to boxing. Then the fun began.

The arena erupted with yelling, screaming and the waving of fistfuls of cash. Bets were made.

Men made eye contact, waved some cash and began to negotiate the bet. I couldn’t understand how anyone could hear each other or take the bets seriously.

The roosters fought until one died or gave up.

The most interesting thing to me, though, was the way the crowd reacted. I’ve photographed just about every sport you can imagine, from football to cricket, and this crowd was so different. The yelling and cheering came in short 10-second waves, then died down. The tension, however, was always present.

- MATT MASIN

A TRAINER HOLDS glass talons that are attached to the roosters’ legs before each fight. Each rooster wears a talon of a different color, one with blue and one with white. During the fight, “Azul!” can be heard from those betting on the rooster with the blue talon, and “Blanco!” for the rooster wearing white.

(Photo by Cara Wilwerding)

TWO MEN BET on a cockfight in San Francisco de Macorís, Dominican Republic in December 2013. Bets are placed through hectic shouting matches throughout the ten-minute fights. (Photo

by Cara Wilwerding)

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WORDS BY JOSEPH MOORE | PHOTOS BY NICKOLAI HAMMAR

Sweatshop workers unite

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A garment factory experiment transforms the lives of Dominican women, but requires support from American consumers to survive.

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A

racelis Upia Montero once faced down soldiers who bore automatic weapons.

They threatened to launch tear gas canisters through the windows of the factory she occupied with more than a dozen other workers.

Lucretia Sanchez once punched her manager in the face on the factory floor.

He had elbowed a pregnant co-worker in the stomach.

Maritza Vargas had to send four of her five children away to live with extended family because she couldn’t afford to feed them all. She made 33 cents an hour sewing Nike baseball caps.

These women now make more than three times the average salary of garment workers in the Dominican Republic. They are all members of a democratic union.

Aracelis – whose nickname is “Kuky”– has built an addition to her home that she rents out to supplement her income. She has plans to add a second story in the near future. Lucretia’s daughter will soon enroll in the university to study architectural design. All five of Maritza’s children are now living with her under one roof. She has learned how to use a computer.

The stories of these three women are uncommon in the landscape of the global garment industry where workers – mostly female – often labor long hours in poor

conditions for very little pay. They struggle to feed and clothe their children on meager salaries. Many women face physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their employers, who operate with impunity under weak labor laws. Governments in developing countries like the Dominican Republic use lax regulatory regimes and pitifully low minimum wages, coupled with subsidies and tax breaks, to attract the business of multinational corporations.

Apparel brands, such as Adidas and Nike, contract with manufacturers in these countries to keep costs low and ensure that profits remain high. Consumers in the West continue to buy these brands, unaware of the sweatshop conditions in which they are made. This is the logic of the global garment industry.

But in a mountain town of 80,000 people, about 25 miles northwest of the Dominican capital, a group of women stood up in defiance of this logic. After years of exploitation and abuse, they refused to take anymore and – reaching out to allies in the United States – initiated a project that would turn the industry’s logic on its head: a factory that pays its workers a living wage, allowing them to provide their families with nutritious food, housing, healthcare and education for their children.

A factory that has the potential to become

A WOMAN FEEDS cloth through a sewing machine at Alta Gracia factory in the Dominican village of Altagracia, 25 miles northwest of the capital, in January 2014.

Alta Gracia is the only factory in the country to pay its workers a livable wage and protect their right to form a union.

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KUKY AND HER SONS SPEND time together in their home in January 2014.

After losing her previous job for protesting, Kuky is now a factory operator at Alta Gracia.

She says of her former boss: “He was terrible. For example, on pay day it was nothing for him to come out and say, ‘There’s no money today.’”

a model for the garment business globally, but only if consumers in the U.S. and other developed countries decide that the treatment of the people who make their clothing matters.

that sewed waistbands on the women’s underwear the factory manufactured. Often, she recalls, Marco would not pay his employees for up to two weeks at a time.

“He was terrible,” she said. “For example, on ———————— pay day it was nothing for him to come out and say, ‘Hey, you’re not getting paid today. There’s no Kuky and about 20 of her coworkers lounged money today.’” on scraps of cardboard on the factory floor, telling After Marco refused to pay his employees the jokes and exchanging personal stories throughout 10,000 pesos, about $238 U.S., they had earned for the night. The women had decided to stage a the completion of a oneprotest. They drank water month contract in 2006, the and ate toasted bread garment workers decided ‘THE LESSON I LEARNED IS delivered by a compañero to occupy the factory. The – a friend – on the outside.

THAT IF YOU DON’T KNOW sit-in lasted overnight and The workers continued their WHAT YOUR RIGHTS ARE, YOU into the morning when protest into the morning, Marco arrived with five ARE NOTHING.’ refusing to attend to their – Aracelis Upia “Kuky” Montero or six soldiers dressed sewing machines at the factory worker and single mother of five in Dominican military regularly scheduled start of fatigues and armed with their shift. They vowed not automatic rifles. The soldiers to leave until they were paid threatened to use tear gas against the occupying the money the factory owed them for one month’s workers if they did not immediately vacate the labor. factory.

Marco Betancourt was the owner of the MG “It’s not legal for you to be here,” Kuky recalled Apparel factory in Hato Nuevo – an industrial one of the soldiers shouting. “You need to leave park with 149,000 square feet of warehouse space now.” situated on the outskirts of Santo Domingo. Kuky Uncertain of their labor rights and afraid, the remembers him as a tall, handsome, overweight workers complied. They never received their money Columbian with powerful political connections and and, soon after, Marco closed that factory and a penchant for verbally abusing his employees. She worked for him for three years, operating a machine relocated farther north to Santiago.

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“The lesson I learned is that if you don’t know what your rights are, you are nothing,” Kuky said.

Kuky recounts the hardships she faced as a single mother of five working 12 hours a day for little pay.

Her broad smile never fades. It pushes her rounded cheeks to the edges of her face.

“I had to wake up very early in the morning because I had to be at the highway by 5:45 a.m.,” she said. “There was a guy who drove an 18-wheeler. He gave me a ride to the town that was one kilometer away from the factory. He dropped me off there, and I walked to my work station.”

In the Dominican Republic, a gallon of gas costs about $6 U.S., and the resulting high transportation costs often present a steep obstacle to factory workers. Workers like Kuky spend an average of 30 to 40 percent of their income on transportation, according to Massiel Figuero, a labor lawyer with the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center in Santo Domingo.

Many of them don’t make enough to pay for a bus or a taxi to and from the factory every day, and owning a car or even a motor scooter is unthinkable.

Instead, workers must wake up long before the start of their shift to walk or hitch rides with generous strangers. Sometimes they don’t make it home until several hours after their shift has ended.

“Sometimes I ended my shift at 4:30 and didn’t get home until 8 p.m.,” Kuky said. “I had no time to take care of my children or clean my house. That made me feel very bad.”

Waiting for a ride on the shoulder of a dark highway, anxious to get home to her children, Kuky never imagined she would one day own a motor scooter and be saving up for a car.

———————— The minimum wage in the Dominican Republic

is 9,000 pesos per month, about $212 U.S. Yet in certain specially-designated industrial zones, called free-trade zones, or FTZs, the minimum wage is less – 7,000 pesos per month. Companies located within these areas are exempt from paying customs tariffs on imported raw materials and exported manufactured goods. They also benefit from the lower minimum wage requirement and exemptions from some labor and environmental regulations.

For developing countries with struggling economies, FTZs offer an influx of jobs and the potential for rapid industrialization. For multinationals, they offer cheap labor, low taxes and weak regulations.

The free-trade zone system in the Dominican Republic started in 1969 with the arrival of a few U.S. textile companies, according to economist Felipe Santos, who works as a freelance consultant for several Dominican labor unions. But it wasn’t until the decade between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s that government policies, including currency devaluation and the construction of industrial parks around the country, opened the floodgates to foreign investment.

Forty-eight free-trade zone parks operated in the Dominican Republic as of 2010, according to

STACKS OF T-SHIRTS AWAIT shipment from the Alta Gracia factory to countries like the United States in January 2014.

The wages Dominican women earn by making these shirts helps them support their families and send their children to school. “I can say that I am rich now,” said Maritza, an employee at Alta Gracia. “My children have a future.”

AS CLOUDS PASS over the Alta Gracia factory in January 2014, the intermittent sun reminds workers inside that there is hope for the future. Since its beginning in 2010, Alta Gracia shirts have appeared on more than 350 American university campuses.

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TWO EMPLOYEES WORK beneath track lighting at the Alta Gracia factory in January 2014. Most sweatshops are poorly lit, forcing laborers to strain their eyes in order to see their work. “(Consumers) should know about the brands, where they are manufactured and what the conditions are like in the factories,” said Maritza, a worker at Alta Gracia.

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data from the Dominican National Free Zones well-known union leader in the factory, to help Council, a group composed of representatives from make their case. The manager, who was leaving his FTZ industries. Within these parks, 555 companies office at that moment, was not interested in listening employed more than 120,000 workers. Exports from to the women’s complaint. When they persisted in Dominican free-trade zones totaled more than $4 their appeal, he became enraged and elbowed one billion U.S. in 2010, with textiles making up about of the pregnant women in the stomach, Lucretia one-quarter of that number, or $965 million. recalls.

The garment industry dominates the Dominican Jumping to the defense of her coworker, 5-footfree-trade zone sector, manufacturing clothing 2-inch Lucretia pushed her manager back. He then for Western brands like Levi Strauss and Fruit came after her. of the Loom, but textile companies were even The general secretary of the union grabbed the more prevalent during the earlier period of FTZ manager from behind to prevent him from attacking development in the 1970s and 80s. Female workers Lucretia. Several times he broke free and managed were greatly preferred over men for these lowto push her down before being wrapped up from paying garment manufacturing jobs. behind again. Aware of the commotion near the “They thought women would be easier to front office, workers had stopped working and were control,” said Ignacio Hernandez, Secretary-General standing up from their sewing stations to get a better of the Dominican Federation of Free Trade Zone look. The last time the manager broke free Lucretia Unions, or Fedotrazonas. “They would work harder, was ready for him. She cocked back her fist and they would not unionize, and also they would be connected with his face before he could touch her. more skilled at sewing.”

This time he called the police.

Many of these women At her trial the judge told were single mothers, Lucretia that she was guilty and factory management of assault. Unable to post the ‘YOUR CLOTHES SHOULD believed they would 15,000-peso bail, she was forced NOT KILL PEOPLE.’ work longer hours to to spend two days in jail. The – Dylan Roberson support their children, manager faced no consequences. co-president of the United Students Against Sweatshops chapter at the the secretary-general That was six years ago. Since University of Nebraska-Lincoln said. In 1988, Hernandez she came to work at Alta Gracia, presented a report to the Lucretia has never seen a boss Dominican Congress mistreat an employee. highlighting cases of abuse in free-trade zone “Alta Gracia is more like a family,” she said. “We factories, including physical assaults by management treat each other like a family.” against female employees, spitting on workers and ———————— using threatening language. In one case, a pregnant woman was beaten so badly she miscarried, Labor lawyer Figuero identified two major issues according to Hernandez. He said instances of this facing women working in free-trade zones – low level of brutality became less common after the salary and sexual discrimination. Female workers in labor code was strengthened in 1992, but abuses Dominican FTZs make 19 percent less on average persist. than their male counterparts. During the hiring ———————— Lucretia Sanchez is familiar with such abuse.

While working in a sweatshop, she had a violent altercation with her manager. It ended with her fist landing hard on the side of his face. Later, in court, the manager would claim the blow left a gash that required 13 stitches.

“But he’s right here and I don’t see the stitches,” she remembers thinking to herself.

The incident started when a group of pregnant garment workers at Loadway Enterprises Inc. in Bonao approached the manager to demand unpaid medical assistance. The women asked Lucretia, a

process women are often forced to undergo a pregnancy test, Figuero said. Pregnant women are not hired. More than 40 percent of women surveyed in three FTZs around the country had experienced sexual harassment in the factory, according to a 2003 report by the International Labor Rights Forum, a U.S.-based nonprofit.

Eulogia Familia is the general secretary of gender politics for the Dominican National Confederation of Trade Unions. She conducts sexual harassment training workshops in free-trade zone factories.

“When women are sexually harassed or abused, they don’t often say anything because they don’t want it out, because they’re afraid,” she said. “A

THE WOMEN WHO WORK at the Alta Gracia factory enjoy better working conditions than they experienced in sweatshops.

Pictured here in January 2014, Dominican women stay busy at their workstations while music plays in the background and light streams through windows. “Alta Gracia really is the only working model of a living wage factory,” said Dylan Roberson, co-president of the United Students Against Sweatshops chapter at the University of Nebraska– Lincoln.

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situation that starts in the work environment may end in violence in the family because their boyfriends or husbands blame them for the harassment.”

Familia sees the problem of sexual harassment as endemic to Dominican society. “This doesn’t just occur in the labor sector,” she said. “Many male workers don’t know what sexual harassment is because it’s so ingrained in Dominican culture.”

She says the government needs to do more to protect women working in free-trade zones.

Figuero says free-trade zones are not a benefit to the Dominican Republic because of this abuse coupled with low pay and poor working conditions.

“In my opinion, it would be better if free trade zones left our country,” she said.

Economist Santos believes FTZs have granted economic independence to many Dominican women, who had few opportunities for employment previously. But he says that FTZs have also had a negative impact on some Dominican families, often forcing single mothers to send their children away to be cared for by a relative while the mother works in the factory. Even in cases where the woman is married and living with her husband, the responsibilities of childcare and domestic labor still fall squarely on her shoulders, regardless of how many hours she works outside the home.

———————— Maritza Vargas worked for several years at the BJ&B garment factory in Villa Altagracia’s freetrade zone, a gated industrial park surrounded by lush, green mountains 25 miles northwest of Santo Domingo. There she earned about 50 cents an hour sewing KUKY WALKS home from a local store with a bottle of soda in January 2014. Her job as a factory operator at Alta Gracia enables her to support her children financially. Not only that, but she says, “Now I can spend more time with my family, which I didn’t have time for (before).”

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baseball caps for brands such as Adidas and Nike.

Nike brought in revenues of $25.3 billion in 2013, $2.5 billion of which was profit, according to the company’s financial statement. Nike CEO Mark Parker received compensation – including salary, stock options and incentive pay – totaling $15.4 million in 2013. For Maritza, the pay was so little she could not send her five children to school because she couldn’t afford supplies or clothing.

She could not even afford to give them proper food. Eventually she was forced to send three of her children away to live with extended family.

“That made me feel like a bad mother,” Maritza said. “It made me feel useless.”

Along with her domestic struggles, Maritza faced abuse inside the factory. One day she came to work and noticed a liquid being sprayed on the roof of the factory. The workers were told it was a chemical to protect the roof from humidity and that it was harmless. As the day wore on, workers became sick. Many were vomiting and fainting. Despite the workers’ illness, BJ&B management refused to allow them to leave their sewing machines. When managers began feeling sick, the factory was finally evacuated.

“That was the drop that spilled the cup,” Maritza said.

Shortly after that incident, several workers at BJ&B attempted to organize a union in 2001 but were fired by the company. It was not until the Workers’ Rights Consortium, an independent labor rights monitoring group based in the U.S., put pressure on Nike and Adidas that the fired workers were finally reinstated several months later. In the face of persistent worker demands, BJ&B formally recognized the union in 2002 and signed the first

collective bargaining agreement in any Dominican FTZ to offer wages above the legal minimum.

Almost immediately after the agreement was signed, BJ&B’s parent company began reducing its workforce and shifting production to other factories in countries like Bangladesh. By 2004, the company had slashed more than 1,200 jobs, reducing the workforce by 63 percent, according to the Workers’ Rights Consortium. The company permanently shut down its operations in Villa Altagracia in 2007.

After the factory closed, a group of five women from the BJ&B union, including Maritza, launched a campaign to reverse the closure. They partnered with Fedotrazonas, the Workers’ Rights Consortium and United Students Against Sweatshops, a U.S.based student organization pressuring universities to adopt codes of conduct for factories that produced their licensed merchandise. Together they were able to convince representatives from BJ&B and Nike to meet with union officials in Santo Domingo for a conference in 2007. Nike claimed it was not responsible for the actions of its contractor and refused to offer help.

After it became apparent that BJ&B was not coming back, the five women and their partner organizations in the U.S. shifted strategies and

focused on bringing a new company to Villa Altagracia. “We made a commitment to fight for another brand to commit to bringing business to Villa,” Maritza said.

As part of this process, the Workers’ Rights Consortium conducted a living wage assessment to determine the level of salary necessary to provide basic goods for a family of four in the Dominican Republic like food, clothing, housing, healthcare and childcare. The number they came up with was $115 U.S. per week, 3.4 times the country’s legal minimum salary of $34 per week. This would be what Dominican’s factory workers refer to as a salario digno – a “dignified salary.”

Recognizing a potential market on U.S. campuses for humanely-made clothing, Knights Apparel, a leading apparel supplier based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, decided to open a new factory in Villa Altagracia in 2010. The factory, named Alta Gracia after the town, would make college-logo T-shirts and sweatshirts for American universities while paying its workers a living wage. Knights also agreed to provide a safe and comfortable working environment for its 130 employees, 62 percent of whom are women, mostly in their 20s and 30s. The workers also receive benefits like paid sick leave,

KUKY STANDS in front of her home with her two sons in January 2014.

Her factory job has enabled her to build a concrete addition to her home that she hopes to rent out for additional income. Her 5-year-old son enjoys playing games on her new laptop computer. Kuky says her life has improved dramatically since Alta Gracia opened in 2010.

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KUKY AND HER 5-YEAR-OLD SON EMBRACE in front of their home in Villa Altagracia in January 2014.

Kuky cherishes the extra time she has with her children now that she works at the Alta Gracia factory. While working at a sweatshop, “I had no time to take care of my children or clean my house,” she said.

“That made me feel very bad.”

KUKY’S SON PLAYS in the suds made by the family’s new washing machine in January 2014. Kuky was able to afford the luxury because of Alta Gracia’s higher wages.

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IT’S STILL AN ISSUE

Women in developing nations face many of the same challenges as American women in the workforce. Dominican women gross 80 cents for every dollar a man earns. Nearly half of the women report workplace sexual harassment.

Female workers in Dominican free-trade zones make an average of 19 percent less than their male counterparts.

GRAPHICS BY LAURA KOST AND LAUREN WILLIAMSON. SOURCE: 2003 REPORT BY U.S. NONPROFIT INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS FORUM

and their right to form a union is fully recognized.

The factory is subject to regular inspections by the Workers’ Rights Consortium to guarantee adherence to these commitments.

One month before the factory began interviewing for positions, Maritza received a phone call from a union official at Fedotrazonas informing her of the victory. “I was jumping with joy,” she said.

“I was going to have a job that would allow me to bring my family back together. I could live in Villa (Altagracia). The heavens opened up to me.”

Maritza would become the general secretary of Sitralpro, the union at the new factory.

———————— The Knights factory in Villa Altagracia occupies only a small area of the building that housed the much larger BJ&B operation, but the differences between the two factories extend much further.

Today, rather than sitting on a backless wooden bench, Kuky sits comfortably in her ergonomic chair, rocking back and forth to bachata music as she feeds pieces of bright pink fabric through her machine. A few workstations over, Lucretia talks excitedly to a group of coworkers. Fans positioned all around the factory floor keep the place relatively cool during the scorching Dominican afternoon.

Bulletin boards display notices informing workers of their rights. Several fire exits and extinguishers are prominently identified throughout the factory.

Maritza works at her desk in the Sitralpro union office, located directly on the factory floor.

40% 60%

More than 40 percent of women surveyed in three free-trade zones had experienced sexual harassment in their factory.

But the most profound changes cannot be seen inside the factory.

Maritza can now afford to keep all of her children at home and send them to school. “In comparison, I can say that I am rich now,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of personal growth opportunities. Now, I know how to use a computer. My children have a future.”

Kuky does her laundry in an electric washing machine in front of her house. She is the envy of her neighbors. Her five-year-old son sits at the living room table, playing memory games on a laptop computer. She shows off the one-story, concretebuilt addition to her home. Strips of rebar protrude from the roof in anticipation of the second story she will soon add. Kuky no longer has to hitch rides to work.

“Now I can spend more time with my family, which I didn’t have the time for,” she said. “We have dinner together now which we couldn’t do before. We go out together and go to the store together. Even just watching TV. Now we can go to bed and watch TV together.”

Lucretia Sanchez, the woman who was arrested for defending a pregnant coworker, is now an operator at Alta Gracia. She said the factory has completely transformed her life. “Now I don’t have the stress of worrying about the needs that my family has that I can’t afford,” she said. “By the end of the year my daughter will be enrolled in the university. She wants to study architectural design.

Before, I thought my children had no chance at all.

Not even in my dreams could I think of sending her to high school.”

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———————— Not everyone is equally enthused about this nascent experiment in Villa Altagracia. Luis Abreu Gautreux is a sub-director general of labor at the Dominican Ministry of Labor. He does not believe the Alta Gracia model can be replicated in other free-trade zones. “I don’t think it’s possible,” he said, “because this sector of the free-trade zone system is competing with companies in other countries. We have to be very careful about what we demand. We need these companies, and we don’t want them to leave.” Gautreux believes FTZs have benefited the Dominican Republic by bringing job opportunities, regardless of how little these jobs pay. If that pay were to increase, he believes companies would move to Asian countries where the minimum wage remains low.

Alta Gracia itself has yet to turn a profit. The factory’s operations are being subsidized with revenue from Knight’s other brands – manufactured in countries like Bangladesh. Workers in those countries do not make a living wage, or enjoy most of the same benefits as the employees at Alta Gracia. United Students Against Sweatshops is determined to make Alta Gracia a viable business model for garment manufacturers throughout the developing world. To do this, they are raising awareness of the brand on college campuses through campaigns to convince university bookstores to buy more Alta Gracia products.

Dylan Roberson is the co-president of the United Students Against Sweatshops chapter at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her organization is petitioning the university bookstore to increase its supply of Alta Gracia products to $250,000, with higher visibility in the store and better promotion.

“Alta Gracia really is the only working model of a living wage factory,” Roberson said. “It was created to give Alta Gracia workers in the Dominican Republic a better life, but the broader aspect of it is making sure that that model can become the model for all other factories, so ultimately we can eliminate sweatshops all over the world.”

Roberson says the key to making this happen is educating consumers. “Your clothes should not kill people,” she said.

For some garment workers in the Dominican Republic, those words echo a grim reality. When Genaro Rodriquez attempted to form a union at the M Group garment factory in Santiago’s free-trade zone, he found notes left next to his sewing machine by management threatening to cut him up into pieces and dump him in a garbage bag.

One morning in 2001, Rodriquez, along with four other organizers, was ambushed by a group of armed men 15 feet from the factory where Levi jeans are made. One of the organizers was also armed, and a shootout ensued. An attacker was shot twice in the chest but lived. Rodriquez survived two more attempts against his life before successfully forming a union in 2003.

Maritza agrees with Roberson that informed consumers can make the difference. “They should know about the brands, where they are manufactured and what the conditions are like in the factories,” she said.

But she believes the ultimate responsibility for informing the consumer rests with the brands. “Brands say one thing, but the reality is completely different,” she said. “All they want is money. All they care about is money.”

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‘ALTA GRACIA IS MORE LIKE A FAMILY. WE TREAT EACH OTHER LIKE A FAMILY.’

– Lucretia Sanchez Operator at Alta Gracia

ALTA GRACIA’S 130 EMPLOYEES RECEIVE $115 U.S. per week for their work, 3.4 times the Dominican Republic’s legal minimum salary. The factory also offers benefits like paid sick leave, and workers have the right to form a union.

Over 60 percent of the factory workers are women, mostly in their 20s and 30s.

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Back no more PHOTOS AND WORDS BY JAKE CRANDALL

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A recovering addict tries to change his life and reconnect with his family.

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(PREVIOUS PAGE) GOING HOME Torridio takes a bus from Santo Domingo to Santiago, the first leg of a 3 ½-hour journey to his sister’s house in Puerto Plata. After years of chasing addiction on the streets, followed by six months of drug rehabilitation at Meson de Dios, Torridio arranged a visit with his family. “I have a long time not see my mom, like nine years, you know,” Torrido said. “And all that I was thinking, I was nervous about that.”

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TEODORO WALKS THROUGH Nuevo Market in Santo Domingo in January, 2014, collecting food donations for Meson de Dios from sympathetic vendors. Before he began rehabilitation six months prior, he begged on these same streets. “I was sleeping right there,” Tedoro said.

T

eodoro de Leon Torridio had spent the last six months at Meson de Dios, a drug rehabilitation center in Santo Domingo. He was trying to overcome an addiction to cocaine, crack and alcohol that left him living on the streets for 10 years.

“He was always crazy, drinking all the time,” his brother, Silvestre said. “He got home and wanted money. …

Everything started to disappear little by little. He always said he was going to change, but he never did. It was really painful for my mother.”

Eventually, Teodoro’s family kicked him out of the house. At age 12, Teodoro moved from Santo Domingo to Puerto Rico. From Puerto Rico, he traveled to New York, but was later deported back to the Dominican Republic.

Teodoro got married after returning to the Dominican Republic. After his wife discovered his drug addiction, she gave him an ultimatum: clean up or get out.

“I say, ‘OK, forgive me, I am going to change,’ and this and that,” Teodoro says. “But I never do it. Boom – and she went. So I went to the street.”

He remained on the Santo Domingo streets for nearly a decade, begging for scraps and chasing his next high. The memories make him pensive.“Drink alcohol, listen to music.

I was fucked up. I was sleeping right there,” he says, pointing to a curb. “That’s fucked up, man.”

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TEODORO DE LEON TORRIDO Born: Santo Domingo Moved: Puerto Rico (age 12), New York (age 18). Deported to Dominican Republic (age 22).

Family: He had a child with a woman in New York; however, he has never met his son. He has only seen pictures.

Addiction: Cocaine, crack and alcohol.

Rehab: Homeless for 10 years and now he lives in a rehab house with a variety of other men who are also struggling with addiction.

GRAPHIC BY HALLE MARR

TEODORO WALKS the streets he used to sleep on. After six months of rehab, he prepares to return homze. He has not seen his family for nearly nine years.

WALKING THROUGH RECOVERY

The daily routine at Meson de Dios.

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5 a.m.: Wake up and go to church service

6 a.m.: Chores that include sweeping, mopping, dusting and other misccellaneous jobs

‘GOD GIVE YOU THE FORCE AND THE KNOWLEDGE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE. IF I DON’T THINK I CAN CHANGE MY LIFE, IF I DON’T BE POSITIVE THAT I AM GOING TO CHANGE MY LIFE, I WILL GO TO THE STREET AND DO THE SAME SHIT.’

– Teodoro de Leon Torrido Meson de Dios program member

At Meson de Dios, Teodoro has a bed and three square meals a day. On top of that, he has structure.

When he is not cooking, cleaning or eating, he attends church and a Bible study. “You got your mind busy, busy,” he says.

Every afternoon except Sunday, Teodoro fries 240 handmade doughnuts in a small shack attached to the home. After coating them in sugar, he hands them off to four other men who sell them on the streets for 10 pesos each. All proceeds go to Meson de Dios, a means of funding room and board for all 20 residents.

Twice a week, in another effort to put food on the table, Teodoro and four others pile into a beat-up van and drive to a muddy, mile-long street packed with stalls. Here, at Nuevo Market, they carry large flour sacks from vendor to vendor, asking for food donations. It is a humbling but valuable experience, the group’s leaders say. Most vendors can spare a scrap or two for the charity, and at the end of each trip, Teodoro returns with a bag full of discarded bits of food.

In January 2014, Teodoro broke his routine. The program directors gave him two days to visit his family in the countryside outside Puerto Plata, 3.5 hours from Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s capital city.

9 a.m.: Breakfast

10 a.m.: Bible study

It was his first time returning home in nearly a decade.

On the bus to Santiago, Teodoro was quiet. His mother, Ramira, has severe dementia and is recovering from a stroke. Though he was excited to see her, he worried about how she would react to his return. Two buses and one small truck later, he arrived in his old neighborhood, but he could not remember which house was his sister’s. A neighbor pointed him in the right direction.

He was met by his mother, sitting in a chair outside.

At the sight of Teodoro, however, she panicked. Upset and confused, she lunged at her son, swinging a broom and spitting at him while he and his sister tried to calm her down. Teodoro backed off, heartbroken.

“I was thinking that it was my fault, you know, she was like that. I felt guilty,” he said. “When I saw her, she didn’t look like before, you know? She didn’t look like when she was young.”Teodoro waited five feet away while Ramira grabbed medication to calm her mother down. Eventually, her face softened. Though she could not speak well, her eyes showed recognition as she gazed at Teodoro’s face. For the next two hours, mother and son sat together, embracing one another for the first time in nine years.

2 p.m.: Teodoro fries doughnuts

9 a.m.: Bedtime

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RAMIRA GAZES UPON HER SON Teodoro after nearly a decade apart. She developed dementia while he was away and did not recognize him when he first arrived.

Instead, she welcomed him by spitting and swinging a broom at him because she thought he was a stranger.

“I was thinking it was my fault, you know, she was like that,” Teodoro said. “I feel guilty, you know. When I saw her, she don’t look like before. She don’t look like when she was young.”

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AT A LOCAL BAR, Teodoro watches his brother drink and proposition their waitress. In the past, he relied on alcohol and cocaine to gain confidence in social settings. He reflects on his own life and begins to feel uncomfortable with the situation. “If I don’t think I can change my life, I can’t be over here,” Teodoro said.

That night, Teodoro and his brother Silvestre celebrated their reunion at two local bars. At the first, a carwash that doubles as a dance club – a common business model in the Dominican – spirits were high as they chatted against a blast of loud bachata music. Silvestre gave Teodoro a new watch.

But the mood became tense when Teodoro ordered a beer, and there, blocks away from his sister’s house, from his mother, he shattered six months of hard-sought sobriety. Silvestre drank his own beer and said nothing, but his discomfort was apparent. Meanwhile, Teodoro’s disposition began to sour as he battled the implications of his action.

The next bar was quieter. Silvestre continued to drink and flirt with their sex-worker waitress, courting her for a lower price. When Teodoro started to sip Silvestre’s drink, though, his brother intervened.

Silvestre took it away and replaced it with a nonalcoholic beer.

For the rest of the night, Teodoro sat and watched the evening unfold before him. He did not dance or talk to sex workers. Without drugs or alcohol, his standard social crutch, he felt uncomfortable and out of place, a feeling that was easier to avoid in the company of his fellow Meson de Dios residents.

At the end of the night, Silvestre decided to stay with their waitress,

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and Teodoro went to his sister’s house. Teodoro did not resent him.

“He tried to take care of me,” Teodoro said. “They don’t want to see me drinking because they know I can fall down and I have to start again. And they don’t want that for me.”

His family has seen Teodoro’s progress and wishes to see him move forward more than anything.

“I want him to work and have a good life … because his family loves him,” his sister said. “He has to apply himself and he has to change. He has to come out ahead now … not for everybody else, but for himself.”

Two days later, Teodoro returns to Meson de Dios. He shows off his new bottle of cologne, a gift from his family, and tells no one about the beer for fear that they will kick him out. He settles back into the routine of doughnuts and flour sacks, awaiting the day, six months from now, when he will be allowed to leave again. Recovery is an everyday challenge, but worth it.

“Sometimes I want to go back, but I say, I can’t,” Teodoro said.

“I say, ‘Keep on going.’ That’s the only way I got. If I want to get my family, if I want to get my children, if I want to get my wife, I have to change my life because I can’t go back no more.”

(Additional reporting by Paige Polinsky.)

TEODORO’S MOOD SINKS when he trades six months of sobriety for two beers. Silvestre later bought him a nonalcoholic beverage, but the damage was done.

“He tried to take care of me,” Teodoro said. “They don’t want to see me drinking, because they know I can fall down and have to start again. And they don’t want that for me.”

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Not a little girl anymore Teenage motherhood cycles through families in the Dominican Republic.

PHOTOS AND WORDS BY ANNA REED

YABREISIARIA IS 8 MONTHS PREGNANT. She says she is 15, but older women in the neighborhood believe that she is actually 12 or 13.

The Dominican Republic’s rate of teen pregnancy is nearly six times that of the United States, with close to one-third of teen girls becoming mothers.

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DAY-TO-DAY TEEN PREGNANCY Every mother I’ve met so far has told me she is happy to be pregnant or to have children of her own.

All of them were between 14 and 16 years old when they first became pregnant. When asked what they had planned or wanted for their own or their children’s futures, none had a concrete answer.

The Dominican Republic holds one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Latin America, with almost 30 percent of teenage girls becoming pregnant.

A maternity counselor I spoke with said these girls are hoping for a way out of their family’s poverty. They find a boy who promises to feed and shelter them.

They then have children as a way to stay with him and have something, or someone, of their own.

The grandparents of these babies are usually indifferent to the situation because they were teenagers as well when they first had children, the counselor said. A cycle of poverty perpetually leaves girls out of school and out of work.

(Reporting assistance by Carina Rodelo.)

– ANNA REED

‘I FELL BEHIND A LOT IN LIFE. I COULDN’T GO TO SCHOOL. IF I WANT TO GO OUT, I CAN’T. IF I HAVE TO GO ANY PLACE, I AM OBLIGATED TO TAKE HER WITH ME. SOMETIMES I CAN’T HANDLE THEM BOTH.’

– ROSMERI AGUERO LORENZO 16-year-old Dominican mother

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ROSMERI AGUERO LORENZO, 16, HOLDS her youngest child. The baby’s father, Henry, stops by every few days and gives Rosmeri a few pesos. “Sometimes he shows up.

Sometimes he doesn’t. It’s a very normal life for him,” Rosmeri said.

ROSMERI LIES on the bed she shares with her two daughters, Rosmeiry, 2, and Vitali Marie, 2 months, in her grandmother’s home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in January 2014.

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ROSMERI LAUGHS with her two-yearold daughter, Rosmeiry Custodio, on the steps outside her grandmother’s home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in January 2014.

“I’m happy because of my daughers.

Because of God,” Rosmeri said.

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ROSMERI’S BABIES With her 2-year-old daughter crawling on the table, her young brother coloring underneath, her grandmother yelling to help her in the kitchen and her infant daughter crying for milk, Rosmeri breathes. She needs some time to relax amongst the chaos.

Rosmeri is 16 years old and cares for her two children, her siblings, cousins, neighbor children and her grandmother everyday.

Rosmeri had her first child when she was 14 years old. Her grandmother first became pregnant when she was 12 years old and Rosmeri’s mother became pregnant at 17 years old.

In the Dominican Republic, teenage pregnancy rates are among the highest in the world. Many Dominicans don’t

see these rates as a problem because teenage pregnancy is so common, but others see the need for a solution.

Generations of young girls are dropping out of school and working at low-paying jobs because of the responsibilities they face as young mothers. They are taking care of their own children while they are still children themselves.

Rosmeri says she was the first in her group of friends to become pregnant.

Now she doesn’t have time to be a typical 16-year-old girl. She wishes she could still sing with the other girls and roam carefree around the neighborhood. She knows it will be a long time before she has the freedom to be a kid again.

-ANNA REED

BABIES HAVING BABIES Family timeline of the generational pattern of teenage motherhood in Rosmeri’s family. “I didn’t want Rosmeri to have kids that young because I knew what was coming, having just come from there,” said Rosmeri’s mother, Vitalina Lorenzo Garcia.

Rosmeri’s grandmother was

Rosmeri’s mother was

Rosmeri was

12 17 14 when she had her first child

when she had her first child

when she had her first child

ROSMERI SITS with her daughter in January 2014.

“Sometimes I don’t have money to buy them what they need. That’s why you should prepare yourself to have kids,” Rosmeri said.

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OF THE 17 GIRLS IN ROSMERI’S CLASS, 12 OF THEM HAVE BECOME PREGNANT.

DESIRE MATEO VALVERDE, 15, FEEDS her 4-month-old daughter a bottle after arriving home. The baby’s father frequently takes the infant with no intent of caring for her in an effort to cause mental anguish for Desire. She has a black eye from her most recent fight with him to get her daughter back.

TEENAGE MOTHERHOOD NEARLY

1/3

OF TEEN GIRLS BECOME MOTHERS.

YOCASTI MUNOZ MARTES, 34, HOLDS her granddaughter Yocarlin Michell Pujos Munoz, 4 months, as her daughter, Yokaira Munoz, 16, sits outside the family beauty salon in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in December 2011.

Teenage pregnancy in the island nation is a generational cycle that is only recently being seen as an issue that needs solving.

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THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC’S RATE OF TEEN PREGNANCY IS NEARLY 6 TIMES THAT OF THE UNITED STATES.

LILIANA LORA SANCHEZ, 16, HOLDS her 2-month-old son, Doruing, at QuereBebe, the only organization dedicated to caring for pregnant teenagers in the capital of the Dominican Republic. It is a small solution to the widespread problems faced by young mothers.

BY THE NUMBERS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC THE DOMINICAN HAS THE 5TH HIGHEST RATE OF TEEN MOTHERHOOD IN LATIN AMERICA.

MARIBEL STANDS with her four children and others in the rural area outside La Victoria, Dominican Republic, in December 2013. She first became pregnant at 14 years old.

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For sale

in Samanรก Three young Dominican mothers enter the sex industry to provide for their families. With a constant stream of foreign cruise ships entering the harbor, business is always booming.

PHOTO BY BRIANNA SOUKUP AND JEN GOTRIK WORDS BY ANNA GRONEWORLD

BERENISE NUNEZ PUTS on heels before going out to work in January 2014. Family members or people in the neighborhood keep an eye on her children while she is out working. Berenise has been a sex worker for almost ten years and is a mother of an 11-year-old and 4-year-old. She acts as a mentor to both of her younger friends, who are also sex workers.

(Photo by Brianna Soukup.)

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S

ome tourists travel to the Dominican Republic for more than a beachside vacation. They come to explore fantasies and escape their routines.

They come for a good time. They come for sex.

Berenise Nuñez, 23, Yoleidi Martinez, 20, and Chabeli Mejia,15, have been best friends for several years. They met as children in a neighborhood just steps away from Samaná’s tourist-packed waterfront.

Now grown, they earn money through sex. Their clients are American and European men who come to the island looking for young Dominican girls. All three women are single mothers and work together for money and resources to support their children.

There are about 100,000 sex workers in

‘SHE DOESN’T HAVE A LOT OF EXPERIENCE WITH RAISING A CHILD...BUT SHE IS LEARNING. SHE IS A CHILD WHO HAS A CHILD.’

-BERENISE Haitian mother living in the Dominican Republic

the country of 9.4 million people, according to the Center for Integral Orientation and Investigation, a Dominican reproductive health non-governmental organization (NGO). The clients, mostly from North America or Europe, pay as little as $20 to have sex with a Dominican woman.

Santo Rosario, director of the NGO, said the sex work industry reveals a misogynistic culture

that prevails in some regions of the country.

“They see the woman as an object,” Rosario said. “Not just in sex but in society. She is sold as a type of good, not as a human being who has values and rights.”

Chabeli started having sex for money when she became pregnant at 13 and her parents gave her three days to get out.

She moved in with her boyfriend. He used a lot of drugs, she said. One evening, he came home drunk and beat her, so she left, homeless and pregnant.

She met a 60-year-old man who rented a house for her. In exchange for sex, he paid for her medical bills during pregnancy. But after giving birth, she couldn’t do it any more.

“The man looked like my grandfather,” she said.

Now Chabeli lives in a one-room concrete house with her daughter. She doesn’t bring her clients there.

Though they have their own homes, Berenise, Yoleidi and Chabeli live collectively, often cooking, eating and parenting at Berenise’s house.

Like the tourists who come and go, the fathers of their children have left, leaving the women to raise their children alone.

Berenise is a high school graduate and has taken a few nursing classes. She’s been a sex worker since she was 15 and has two sons. She also acts as a mother to the younger moms, especially Chabeli, who has been forced into a mangled adulthood.

CHABELI MEJIA, A SEX WORKER IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, SITS with her daughter in their one-bedroom apartment. Chabeli began having sex for money at 13, after she became pregnant and her parents kicked her out. With no one to help support her and her daughter, she turned to sex work.

(Photo by Brianna Soukup.)

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YOLEIDI MARTINEZ (LEFT) TRIES to pop a blemish on her face while Berenise dyes her hair red in December 2013. The girls are very concerned with looking attractive. Sex work is their only source of income, and they must do it while the are still young, before their beauty fades and they don’t receive as much money. (Photo

by Brianna Soukup.)

“She doesn’t have a lot of experience with raising a child,” Berenise said of Chabeli, “but she is learning. She is a child who has a child.”

The women often look for clients together. Sometimes they find work on their own; other times they go through pimps who find the clients and take a portion of the money the women earn. There is no shortage of men looking for sex. Men visit with the idea that Dominican women live to please. When asked why he likes to vacation in Samaná, one Canadian tourist said, “This is a paradise for men. These Dominican women just love to have sex.”

The three women say it is only a job. and nothing more.

“When we are having sex, I only think about him finishing quickly, so he can give me my money and leave,” Chabeli said. “Because it is something very unpleasant to have a man on top of you, kissing you, and you don’t love him. It is something terrible.”

Berenise, Yoleidi and Chabeli don’t find romance, pleasure or personal gain in the sex they sell. They do it for

their children and their makeshift family, the only people they truly love.

In the Dominican Republic, prostitution is a legal gray area. It’s neither prohibited nor regulated, putting young and desperate girls like Chabeli at risk for HIV, rape and abuse, according to Jacqueline Montero, a former sex worker turned politician and activist. And as youth and beauty fade, clients offer less and less money.

“I tell the women that if you don’t leave sex work, it’ll leave you,” Montero said.

Berenise, Yoleidi and Chabeli say they want to find a way out. They could get work as maids for wealthy families in the area. But domestic work wouldn’t pay as much, and sex work allows the women to spend daylight hours with their children. They don’t like their jobs, and they aren’t proud of what they do. But they will do anything for their kids.

“What is the worst part? This job isn’t good in any sense,” Chabeli said. “The only good thing on my mind is the money.”

CHABELI (RIGHT), 15, YOLDEIDI (CENTER), 20, AND BERENISE, 23, POSE for a portrait in their neighborhood in January 2014.

The three close-knit women have been best friends since childhood. They support their children by selling sex to tourists. (Photo by Brianna Soukup.)

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YOLEIDI AND BERENISE (ABOVE) GET DRESSED to go out and work in January 2014. Male tourists pay as little as $20 to have sex with them. (Photo

by Brianna Soukup.)

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BERENISE AND CHABELI SIT with a client at a restaurant in the tourist part of town in January 2014. The Canadian tourist is a regular client for Chabeli, and he believes that she is 21, not 15. When asked why he likes to come to Samaná for the winter, he said, “This place is a man’s paradise.”

(Photo by Brianna Soukup.)

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SAMANÁ : A MAN’S PARADISE

Samaná, a cruise ship port town on the northeastern coast of the Dominican Republic, draws thousands of tourists to the island each year. Colorful sarongs, postcards, and Dominican paintings fill souvenir shops along the main road. The locals can lead you to authentic restaurants, idyllic beaches, and, if you can spare a few pesos, girls of all ages.

“This place is a man’s paradise,” said one tourist. “These girls just love to have sex.”

Berenice, Yolei and Chabeli – best friends, mothers and sex workers – will do whatever it takes to feed their children. So in the town of Samaná, where job opportunities are limited, the three women sell their bodies for money.

Jan. 6 was Dia de los Reyes, a national holiday for Dominicans. To celebrate, the girls packed their bags with bikinis, snacks and orange soda, and headed to the beach with

their children.

With polka dots on her shirt and a light blue bow in her hair, Chabeli looked more like a child than a mother. The 15-year-old was 13 when she told her parents she was pregnant.

She was given three days to pack her things, leave the house and find her own way.

But Berenise, 23, has been a sex worker for almost 10 years. With two children, ages 11 and 4, she knows what it takes to support a family through sex work. She has taken the responsibility of teaching Yolei and Chabeli their lifestyle leaves little time for fun and games.

“No eres tan pequeña, eres grande ya,” Berenise said to Chabeli at the beach.

“You’re not little anymore, you’re grown now.”

- JENNIFER GOTRIK

AN ITALIAN TOURIST GREETS a sex worker on the street in Samaná in January 2014. Sex work is not uncommon in Samaná, and the Dominican Republic is one of the most well-known sex tourism destinations in the world. One men’s website listed it as the number one place for sex tourism, saying, “Anything and everything you want in a sunny destination, and in a beautiful woman, is right here for the taking.”

(Photo by Brianna Soukup.)

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CHABELI (LEFT), 15, FEEDS her daughter, Isabel. Chabeli got pregnant at the young age of 13 and turned to sex work to earn money. (Photo by Jen Gotrik.)

CHABELI 15, AND BERENISE, 23, SIT with Chabeli’s daughter, Isabel, on a beach in Samaná, Dominican Republic, in January 2014. They are celebrating Dia de Reyes, a national holiday.

Chabeli and Berenise are both single mothers and work in the sex industry as a source of income to support their families.

(Photo by Jen Gotrik.)

BERENISE, 23, GREETS her youngest son at a government-run toy giveaway in Samaná, Dominican Republic. (Photo by Jen Gotrik.)

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A CANADIAN TOURIST PLACES his hand on Berenise’s back in January 2014 in Samaná. Moments later, they go to his friend’s car so Berenise can perform oral sex on him. Their clients believe that the Dominican women live to please them. (Photo by Brianna Soukup.)

TAKING PORT IN SAMANÁ

Cruise ship ports in the Northeast Coast of the Dominican Republic. Displayed below are examples of popular countries that have cruises that travel to Samaná.

CANADA

ATLANTIC OCEAN

PrincesS Cruises, American Queen Steamboat

EUROPE

Norwegian Cruiseline, Holland America

USA

Silversea Cruises, Holland America Line

SAMANÁ HAITI

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

GRAPHIC BY PEYTON WITZKE. SOURCE: CRUISE COMPETE: SAMANÁ CRUISE

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Living in limbo

New court ruling looms over Dominican husband, his Haitian wife and their two children.

PHOTOS AND WORDS BY SHELBY WOLFE

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YOU CAN’T BE BOTH The first thing that strikes you about Bernadette Pierre is the way she bundles her long skirt together when she walks, tiptoeing around her own family members as if to avoid drawing attention. She glances at her husband and kids, smiles sweetly and looks away. She spends most of the day in her small, crowded kitchen, mashing plantains and cooking rice. She serves her family first and takes whatever is left.

Pierre hasn’t felt accepted since she decided to come to the Dominican Republic, but taking care of her family and members of the community comes first. Pierre came to the Dominican for a chance at a better life. She met and married Deriuse Augustine and started a family in the Dominican Republic.

Because of a new court ruling, which denies citizenship to individuals of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic, she worries about her family’s future. This story is about a family of both Dominican and Haitian descent in a country that says, officially, you can’t be both.

– SHELBY WOLFE

BERNADETTE PIERRE IMMIGRATED to the Dominican Republic to find work more than 25 years ago. Here she met her husband Deriuse Augustine and had two children, Benjamin and David Castillo. Because of the court ruling denying Haitians citizenship, Pierre wishes to return to Haiti to start a new life. “When I first heard about the law, I regretted coming here,” she said. “Sometimes people say I don’t belong here and call me bad names but I take it because I’m Haitian and there is nothing I can do.”

DERIUSE AUGUSTINE, PIERRE’S DOMINICAN HUSBAND, (RIGHT), STANDS outside in front of their house.

Although it occurs less often in rural locations, Pierre and her children face the possibility of deportation. “There are times when there are problems, but as long as you have harmony with your partner and family you feel happy even if you don’t have money,” Augustine said.

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‘I’M NOT FROM HERE, SO WHEN THEY SAY I DON’T BELONG HERE, I’M HURT. MY FAMILY WANTED ME TO COME HOME WHEN THEY HEARD ABOUT DOMINICANS TREATING HAITIANS LIKE ANIMALS, BUT I AM STUCK HERE. I CAN’T LEAVE.’

– BERNADETTE PIERRE Haitian mother living in the Dominican Republic

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DERIUSE AUGUSTINE CLEANS his face after a long day of labor in the agricultural fields in January 2014 at his home in Nato Nuevo Batey in the Dominican Republic.

Most days, Augustine and David trudge about 8.7 miles from home to harvest plantains, yucca and potatoes for income. “The difficulty we have is that because there aren’t that many jobs, it makes it a little hard to find support for the family,” Augustine said.

BENJAMIN CASTILLO, 17, STUDIES English independently in his home in January 2014. Despite being denied papers and the right to education, Benjamin hopes to become a medical doctor and a translator for Englishspeakers who travel to the Dominican Republic. Benjamin may have to seek other opportunities abroad in order to get an education, but his mother fears separation from her children.

“If I went back to Haiti, I would feel sad. I would be somewhere and my kids would be somewhere else,” Pierre said.

DAVID CASTILLO, 12, RECLINES after injuring his toe during the 8.7 mile hike from home to the agricultural fields. David wants to attend college to achieve his dream.

“I want to be a lawyer to defend the accused so that they can get their papers to get their land back,” he said. “If I go to the university to study, they won’t accept me because I haven’t gotten my papers.”

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RULING CHANGES EVERYTHING

On Sept. 23, 2013, the Dominican Republic’s court passed a law declaring that children of undocumented Haitian migrants – even those who were born and raised in the Dominican – have been stripped of their citizenship. For decades, Haitians were brought over to the Dominican Republic to cut cane for unlivable wages. Even though sugar cane is not harvested as often today, most of these plantations are still occupied by Haitians. The plantations have become shantytowns known as bateyes (buhTAYZ).

Pierre and her husband live on a batey called Nato Nuevo. The family members own their land, but they are still poor subsistence farmers. Both Bernadette and her husband want a better life for their children, but the new law denying Haitians citizenship threatens their ability to break the cycle of rural poverty. This law denies their children access to higher education. However, the family still has faith that somehow their lives can change for the better. “Well, God knows he is almighty and hopefully everything will be OK by the time the kids go to university,” Pierre said.

David is Pierre’s youngest son, born and

raised in the Dominican Republic. Most days, he walks about 8.7 miles from home to help his father harvest plantains, yucca and potatoes as a source of income. His dream is to become a lawyer so he can help people achieve justice and peace, but the law won’t allow it.

When David returned home one day after work, he laid down in the middle of the concrete floor next to the worn and feeble dining set. He stayed like that, staring at nothing for a long time as if he was stuck, knowing he’s destined to follow his father’s footsteps in the plantation fields.

David’s father converted to Christianity through a Catholic friend. Shortly after his conversion, members of the community chose him as their pastor. Augustine worked in a school and in community development, but now only works in agriculture. Augustine wants his children to have an opportunity to attend university and prays for a solution. “The kids are studying, so when they get to the age where they need to get their ID’s, they’re going to be told they don’t have the right. So the future, for them, is going to be hard,” Augustine said.

– SHELBY WOLFE

DERIUSE AUGUSTINE WALKS home from Nato Nuevo Batey carrying vegetables he harvested from working in the agricultural fields with his sons in January 2014. Along with working in agriculture, Augustine is a pastor. “I like teaching the people the word of God,” Augustine said.

“Because the word of God is so that the soul can be saved, all the people that hear his word.”

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STATELESS KIDS

When I arrived yesterday at Batey Palave the children begged me to take their photos. They posed for pictures and laughed when they saw themselves on the screen of my camera. Batey Palave is a slum just east of the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo, predominantly inhabited by Haitian migrants .

One little girl took my hand and guided me to where the children play. I watched as they played on the slide, swing set and some old tires. I couldn’t help but think of the uncertainty of their futures. These children are just some of the stateless faces affected by the nation’s recent ruling, which put the lives of Dominicans of Haitian descent into limbo.

When they grow up, these children will be in similar situations as David and Benjamin Castillo.

Benjamin wants to study medicine and become a doctor, but his half-Haitian descent threatens any opportunity for further education.

“They’ll say, ‘No, you’re the devil,’ but that doesn’t matter to me,” Benjamin said. “I consider myself to be Haitian because that’s who I am.”

With the new law in place, Dominicans of Haitian descent are denied basic human rights, as well as a sense of belonging. I hope to learn more throughout our stay about the issue of citizenship and how it affects individuals and their families.

– SHELBY WOLFE

NATO NUEVO BATEY

The batey is a former plantation in Eastern Dominican Republic where Pierre and her family live.

History: The community was once a sugar cane plantation filled with slaves, many were ancestors of current residents. Haitians and Dominicans have been sharing their island for generations. Now, the 2013 court ruling will not allow the sharing of the land. Deruise Augustine is a pastor and a farmer in Nato Nuevo Batey. He says he is sad because the Catholic Church can’t defend humanity, but he continues to pray for a solution. For now, everyday life must go on. “The farm, agriculture, that’s what I do now,” Augustine said.

HAITI

Biggest issue today: Children with Haitian ancestry were stripped of citizenship rights by Dominican Republic courts in December 2013, even if they were born on Dominican soil. “The worry is that if the children go to the university, then when they’re finished they’ll be told they won’t have any rights,” Augustine said.

But the children of Nato Nuevo Batey will not give up. “I would tell them no, that I was born here so I belong here to the Dominican Republic and they can’t deny me my right,” Augustine’s son David said.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

NATO NUEVO BATEY

NATO NUEVO BATEY WAS A SUGAR PLANTATION TURNED into a slum where many of the residents’ ancestors worked the sugar fields.

Since 1933, immigrants from Haiti would travel to the Dominican to work in the batey.

Now, Haitian workers fight for citizenship in their own home.

“The Dominican Republic and Haiti is one island,” Augustine said.

“It’s been many years that the Dominicans have been sharing with the Haitians.”

BENJAMIN AND DAVID CASTILLO WAIT to cross the street toward the agriculture fields to meet their father in January 2014 in Nato Nuevo Batey. Benjamin and David share their income with their family.

“It makes me happy to share with my family, live with my family and studying,” Benjamin said.

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Unbearable odds PHOTO BY NICKOLAI HAMMAR WORDS BY FAIZ SIDDIQUI

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Dominican teens take shots at living out baseball dreams in the U.S. If they don’t make the majors, they become a statistic – or much worse.

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A

year after signing a contract with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Gipsy Veras sat shotgun in his new ’92 Camry, sipping a 40-ounce Presidente beer as the man driving took a swig of Johnnie Walker, Black Label.

It was a fitting end to a sleepless weekend, the conclusion of a 72-hour beach getaway that had the men sleeping with more women than they could remember and running up obscene bar tabs. They jumped from city to city, stopping ashore in Cabarete, Puerto Plata and Gaspar Hernandez. They drank rum and Cokes and piña coladas on the water as their real girlfriends awaited them 200 miles away in Coutí. In one weekend, Veras alone blew more than 50,000 pesos, about $3,000, on alcoholic beverages.

Alone on the open road, and still wearing the baseball pants they put on three days earlier, they shared memories of the mini-vacation as the aqua-colored Toyota whisked around S-shaped turns at 70 mph. Exhausted, Veras leaned his head on the cold car window and fell asleep.

Minutes later, his heavy eyelids flew open.

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“Where are we?”

A tree stump laid arms-length away, the new car resting calmly against the trunk. The car’s hood was smashed in.

Blackness engulfed them.

“Mi carro,” Gipsy thought to himself. “My car.”

The men were lucky they didn’t plunge off the nearby cliff.

If Gipsy’s foster brother, Frank, hadn’t hit a tree, the two of them might have been dead, and Gipsy never would have become a pitching coach in the Blue Jays’ system, his most recent job. He wouldn’t have become someone who took all those pills.

He wouldn’t have become anything.

And nearly 20 years later, prospect Miguel Almonte wants to become something.

———————— Yewri Guillén’s head wouldn’t stop throbbing. A free

clinic doctor diagnosed the 18-year-old Washington Nationals signee with bacterial meningitis almost three years ago, but because the terms of his deal weren’t yet complete, he couldn’t foot the bill for a $1,300 stay at a private hospital.

The headaches continued. The MLB investigated Guillén for identity fraud and suspended him for a year before he lay ill in a hospital bed, with the league claiming he lied about his birthday to increase his signing bonus. Guillén was supposed to travel to Florida to play for the Nationals’ rookie league team in mid-April, after the MLB authorized his contract, but he never made it. Instead of flying to the United States April 15, 2011, as planned, he died in a clinic that day, according to a March story in Mother Jones.

Long before the incident came to light, Major League Baseball’s relationship with the island nation was regarded as predatory by Dominican and American critics. Five years ago, the MLB sent activist Charles Farrell to Santo Domingo to examine the issues surrounding baseball in the country. What he found was a system that destroyed

young lives: scouts, known as buscones or “searchers”, taking large cuts of players’ signing bonuses for themselves.

Trainers pumping illegal substances into players to increase their chances of success. Players with no sense of money management blowing their entire bonus checks in a matter of years, or even just a few months. Players routinely lying about their names and ages to increase their chances of being signed. MLB officials would never know his real name, but Gipsy Veras fell into nearly every trap.

The problem is simple: MLB teams like the Blue Jays treat Dominican players as investments, looking at the country as an arm of a larger $4 billion business model.

The minimum age to sign Dominican players, 16, reflects the league’s attitude. “And they’d take them younger if they could,” Farrell says. Players in the United States must be 18 or have completed high school to sign. Teams regard the Dominican Republic as an unregulated free agent pool. And young Dominicans feed into it.

They want to have it made. The problem is, on opening

TORONTO BLUE JAYS SIGNEEE MIGUEL ALMONTE, WHO RECIEVED a $100,000 bonus with his contract, carries his gear onto the field for his most recent practice.

Almonte has placed the hopes of his family on the dream of making the majors, against all odds.

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A YOUNG PITCHER WORKS with his pitching coach to practice his fastball one afternoon at University Field in Santo Domingo. The coach provides guidance to numerous Dominican prospects as they set out on a journey that will test the players both mentally and physically.

Sadly, many of these prospects will end up just like Gipsy.

day last year, only 83 of their countrymen appeared on rosters. Only one out of 50 signees will ever make it to the majors, and that’s just for a single day. For many, the journey to get there – or the aftermath of getting cut – will be the most difficult part.

The question now is where baseball will take 17-yearolds like Almonte, a Blue Jays prospect who signed a $100,000 contract July 2. The odds facing kids like him are “astronomical” in Farrell’s eyes.

The fates of thousands like Gipsy, on the other hand, have already been sealed. After stints as pitching coach with the Minnesota Twins, Los Angeles Dodgers and, most recently, the Blue Jays, the 35-year-old is now working as a trainer and scout for young Dominican players. But for him, life after baseball almost didn’t happen at all.

Like Gipsy, thousands will return to the Dominican Republic after seeing their Major League dreams fail, with little money, no education and no professional skills.

Miguel Almonte just hopes he’s not one of them.

———————— “Leading off for the Blue Jays, shortstop…”

The announcers still haven’t learned how to say his name. Maybe they never will. But at age 17, Miguel Almonte

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is already batting ahead of all-stars José Bautista and Edwin Encarnación.

The manager had to bench the teenager’s favorite player, José Reyes, to make this lineup possible. But early on into the season, the move is paying dividends. Through a few months of play, Almonte is batting .315 with 10 homers.

The 5-foot-11, 186-pound teen is one of the most feared hitters in the American League East. He’s dominating.

The fantasy is getting more real by the day. And sure, it’s only possible in video game form right now – Miguel, still stuck playing and managing his MLB 2K11 Blue Jays team.

But lately, the dream’s been starting to feel tangible.

On a muggy December afternoon in east Santo Domingo, the acne-ridden teenager sits in his mom’s patio hair salon, swiping through pictures on his smartphone before practice. He’s easily the best-dressed person in the neighborhood today, wearing a plaid shirt with rolled-up sleeves, fitted blue jeans and a silver wristwatch.

“This one is cheap,” he says, referring to the timepiece, the label on which reads “Bell.”

As his mother applies rollers to a woman’s hair, he begins scrolling down the website of fashion label Nautica.

Moments later, the kid with the chinstrap beard pulls up a picture of a chrome-faced watch with a blue leather strap and a set of smaller gauges.

“Eeesstyle,” the 17-year-old says hesitantly in English.

“It’s $350. I’m think I’m going to buy it.”

Coaches have warned Miguel about purchases like these.

But sometimes, he says, it’s hard not to treat himself.

On July 2, the 17-year-old inked a $100,000 minor league contract with the Blue Jays. A fourth of his signing bonus went to his coach, Augustine Ramos of the Neftali Cruz development league, where he was discovered.

Fifty thousand dollars is being put away for his mother’s new five-bedroom home in an upscale Santo Domingo neighborhood.

With the rest of the money, Miguel says he wants to buy himself a car – something practical.

Maybe a Camry.

———————— The first thing that strikes you about Gipsy Veras is his cleanly pressed Gucci polo, with red and green trimming on the sleeves and collar, conforming perfectly to a bulging chest, rounded belly and toned arms. Stress pulls at the 35-year-old’s drooping eyes, the lines running up his forehead and escaping onto a hairless scalp. He wears lime green fitted slacks. The links of his stainless steel wristwatch glimmer like the silver cross adorning his neck. Gipsy could not afford to buy the outfit he’s wearing today.

The parallels between him and a 17-year-old on the

other side of town are hard to ignore. Like Miguel, Gipsy signed a six-figure contract to play professionally as a teen.

Like Miguel, he put a large chunk of his bonus money into a house for mom. Like Miguel, he indulged in the latest fashions right away, constantly trying to outdo friends in the neighborhood.

Like Miguel, Gipsy was going to be famous.

Isn’t everyone?

Gipsy’s story is about poverty and wealth and how wealth can cause poverty all over again. It’s about having nicer clothes than your teenage friends, the Nautica watch and Nikes, and doing favors – 100 pesos here to buy lunch for a neighbor, another 500 there to pay his rent – for everyone but yourself. It’s a story about dreams consuming people and swallowing them whole. All while executives in tall buildings a country away cash in on the successes of the lucky few, on the talent of individuals mired in a limited economic system.

This is a story about sitting in your childhood bedroom and facing yourself once you’ve lost everything.

———————— Every day at 8 a.m., Miguel rolls out of bed and takes a long look in the mirror before baseball practice. He slips his mirrored sunglasses over his freshly cut three-quarter fade,

MIGUEL ALMONTE Age: 17 Born: November 26, 1996 Birthplace: Santo Domingo Centro, Dominican Republic Bats / Throws: Switch-hitter/Right Height: 5’11” Weight: 165 lbs.

Current team: DSL Blue Jays (Dominican Summer League) Batting average: .242 On base percentage: .358 OPS: .653 GRAPHIC BY WESTON DEWITT. SOURCE: MILB.COM

MIGUEL ALMONTE WORKS TO PERFECT his swing during batting practice.

Compared to many at his position, Almonte’s combination of power and fielding ability has set him apart as a prospect to watch.

Given his size, Almonte’s power at the plate is rare.

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kept perfect by weekly barbershop visits. He squirts Axe body spray onto his chest before throwing the can into his retro Toronto Blue Jays duffle bag.

After a breakfast of corn flakes, he leaves the house and heads for the metro station. In his Blue Jays cap and shirt, his Blue Jays shorts, and his blue Nikes, the 17-yearold looks as if he’s headed straight for the Rogers Centre.

Actually, he’s walking past colmados, the iconic Dominican street markets, passing a slew of check cashing shops and fruit stands and beggars on his way to Centro Olimpico baseball stadium, a field better known as the one-time playground of national heroes David “Big Papi” Ortiz, Sammy Sosa and Vladimir Guerrero.

Recently, Miguel says, something weird has been happening on his way to the train. People recognize him now, and they stop him.

“Hola. Qué lo que?”

He knows he shouldn’t stop, but he likes the attention.

Until, “They start talking, and talking for a while, and they say, ‘How’s it going?’ ” Miguel says. “And then they say, ‘Bro, do you have 15,000 pesos you can lend me to take care of something?’ ” At the field, he takes batting practice with Augustine Ramos, his longtime coach. Taking a hundred swings.

Fielding dozens of groundballs. Throwing laser after laser to first base from deep short.

Once, he bombed a pitch all the way to the adjacent bus station, clearing the 330-foot fence by a long shot and nearly landing on Avenida John F. Kennedy. Today, it’s all line drives and fly balls, but Ramos doesn’t mind. The coach says he wants four things out of his players: speed, arm strength, intelligence, and height.

Miguel’s got them down. He’ll run a 6.5-second 60-yard dash when he leaves the academy in time for the MLB’s Dominican Summer League in June. He can beam a oneMIGUEL LOOKS on as players take batting practice in January 2014.

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hopper to first in a split second. His baseball IQ is above average for someone his age, though he receives only four hours of schooling every week, well below the standard for American players. At 5-feet-11-inches, he almost has the same frame as José Reyes, the current Blue Jays shortstop.

More than anything, Miguel hates when people doubt him.

Last year, in a select tournament, his manager put him at ninth in the batting order. Miguel threatened not to bat if he wasn’t moved up. He even cried.

When he got up to the plate in the final inning, Miguel squared up, cocked his bat and launched a walk-off home run into the stands.

———————— Gipsy beamed as they wrote the checks. Every Dominican boy wants to build his mom a new house.

After signing with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1997, Gipsy decided to make good on a long-held vow: remodel his family home. It started out as two cement rooms in the Paraíso de Herrera neighborhood, the kind of place a Santo Domingo cop and housewife raising four kids could afford.

Only half the house was finished. There were blueprints for what the other side should look like, but the family didn’t have enough money to make it livable.

Now, it’s three stories high with a balcony overlooking the street, mahogany furniture and patterned sofas. Gipsy and José, now a $4 million per year relief pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, bought the family its first washing machine around the time of their signing.

“I want a stove,” their mother would say, and it would be there the next day.

The brothers must have poured $20,000 into the house, but Gipsy’s spending didn’t stop there. At parties, he’d bring extra clothes along to prepare in case someone was wearing

nicer clothes than him. He was blowing through $100,000 like it was nothing, like it was replaceable.

All the while, he was splitting time between the United States and the Dominican Republic, trying at the very least to make it onto the High-A roster. His growth was impressing coaches in the Gulf Coast. His fastball had gone from 86 mph to 88 in a matter of months, then 91 during the next few years.

In his mind, he was making it. Living his dream.

Then he got traded.

To save money before Miguel signed his contract, she says, she’d go days at a time without eating. Miguel remembers a time she didn’t eat for three whole days. Now, thanks in part to the salon carved out of the family garage, the Almontes are doing better financially.

Standing over a torn-up, black leather chair, she applies coloring to a woman’s hair, trying to make conversation over the buzz of a fan on its highest setting. Miguel looks on from the armchair next to the salon’s iron gate.

“I don’t want her to be here anymore,” he said.

————————

————————

A stack of boxes reaches almost to the ceiling in the family’s living room, making the couch nearly useless.

A dark hallway leads to the cramped kitchen, where the family’s supply of cereal, bread and granola bars sits atop a yellowing fridge. Miguel’s hole-in-the-wall room sits off to the side, next to the sliver that serves as the family bathroom. A spigot poking out of the wall serves as the family shower.

But soon, the Almontes will leave their cramped quarters for a five-bedroom house in another neighborhood. The kind of place where Miguel’s mother, Negra, has dreamed of opening a new salon for years. She opened her current one four years ago after her husband was laid off.

After saving his first game with the San Francisco Giants’ rookie league affiliate, Gipsy was convinced the move to Arizona would work out after all. But, he says, managers soon proved him wrong.

Just days after Gipsy arrived, he says, the scout who signed him began traveling on team business.

“From then on, everything turned into a nightmare,” Gipsy says.

He’d go 20 days without playing, then the manager would send him into the game with no warm up. His fastball began to slow down. A searing pain shot up his right arm. He had no scout, no ally, to advocate for him. And he barely spoke English, which made it harder to defend

AFTER THEIR MAJOR LEAGUE DREAMS FALL THROUGH, thousands return to the Dominican Republic with little money, no education or professional skills. Players train at ball fields for hours on end instead of pursuing an education.

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MIGUEL MAY END up like so many of his countrymen, back home with his hopes of a major league life shattered.

Dreams of a better life for his family will carry him on his journey. The odds may be against him, but Miguel turns a blind eye to those who say it cannot be done.

himself.

But the man who says he was formerly a Summer League leader in saves didn’t want to risk complaining.

Those who complained might be dropped from the team a day after registering a win. It happened to Dominican players all the time. His brother, José, says Dominican players would routinely gather in hotel rooms and bawl their eyes out after seeing friends sent home.

Gipsy says he reached a point where no one believed in him anymore. Even José, who was well on his way to making the 40-man roster, says he stopped answering his brother’s calls, not wanting to be distracted by negative thoughts.

Gipsy believes prejudice factored into to the way he was treated.

“The manager I got didn’t treat me well,” he says. “It seemed like he didn’t like Latino baseball players too much.

He liked the baseball players, like they say, ‘from the farm.’ ” Now, Gipsy started feeling the pressure to use steroids.

“I wanted to throw faster,” he says. “I wanted to compete with those above my level. And yes, it did cross my mind.”

But then he began to think about the consequences, the embarrassment to his family.

“Don’t do it. It’s going to turn out bad. You can die, you can get a heart attack.”

He never did do steroids, he says, and his fastball lost a little more of its punch every day. Still, there were flashes of promise toward the end of his season in Arizona.

“I remember I pitched six innings with no runs,” Gipsy said.

He received the news a day later. Stormed out of the stadium still wearing his uniform. The flight was already arranged. Within 24 hours, he’d be back on a plane to Santo Domingo.

“The last one to find out is you.”

———————— “Tomorrow, I go from being a normal baseball player to being a professional baseball player. A professional player.”

The night before his signing, Miguel lay in bed picturing big league stadiums – Rogers Centre, Fenway, Wrigley – unable to sleep. Already imagining the stroke of the pen that would change his life.

“I wanted to sign already,” he said. “I wanted to feel that joy already.”

His trainers had informed him of the Blue Jays’ decision weeks before it was made official. Still, Miguel couldn’t shake the possibilities from his mind. People were going to see him as a professional baseball player.

Ever since Neftali Cruz took him under his wing at age 7, he’d been working for this moment. He’d devoted his life to baseball, and now it was finally paying off.

Only two years earlier, he’d lie awake on this mattress,

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stomach growling, unable to sleep on an empty stomach.

“A professional baseball player.”

———————— Farrell says the average career of a Dominican signee lasts between two and three years. He said there’s pressure on Dominican boys to succeed from birth, to lead their

‘IT’S A GOOD NAME FOR A BASEBALL PLAYER. MIGUEL ALMONTE.’

– Miguel Almonte 17-year-old Toronto Blue Jays prospect

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families out of poverty and be the salvation for entire villages and neighborhoods in the country. Those who don’t succeed immediately are regarded as failures. The pressure on signees is immense.

“There’s a saying in Dominican baseball that ‘If I don’t succeed in baseball, the devil takes me away,’ ” Farrell said.

“It’s like if their soul has been consumed. And you can see it in the eyes of some of these kids sometimes. You ask them, ‘What are you going to do with the rest of your life?’ And it’s, ‘I have no rest of my life. My life is over because I did not succeed in baseball.’ ” If such a system were to be implemented in the United States, Farrell said, there’d be mass paranoia. Nowhere else in sports is an industry solely based on the skills of 16-yearold kids. Nowhere else is exploitation so ingrained in the fabric of a sport.

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“You’d have chaos if suddenly 13-, 14-year-olds were dropping out of school to become NBA players or NFL players,” he said. “It just would not happen.”

Farrell says the sport destroys more than it saves.

Go to any taxi stand in the Dominican Republic and see for yourself, he says. Burly men line up to tell the stories of how their careers ended abruptly, without warning.

“There’s something fundamentally wrong with a system that tells you you’re a failure at age 20.”

———————— “You are not a baseball player anymore. You’re nobody.”

Now, back in his mother’s home in Santo Domingo, a home his bonus check expanded and remodeled, Veras lay in bed unresponsive. Saliva drenched his pillow.

He’d spent the day’s early hours locked in his bedroom,

pitching arm — had become unbearable. The money that fueled weekend-long beach getaways in the northern Dominican Republic had long ago disappeared. Now, back home with no Major League contract, no education and no professional skills, Gipsy had nowhere to go. Baseball was his life for 15 years. He didn’t know anything else.

He woke up. Confused, but alive.

Days after his failed suicide attempt, he attended a church group with his close friend César. The group went out to eat, and everyone started talking about work. Except Gipsy.

“They were all talking about their professions and I joked saying, ‘So who’s going to talk baseball with me?’ ” No one. It was like a joke, Gipsy said, that no one cared to give attention to. “And it got me thinking. They were doctors, graduates, architects, medicine, lawyers…

‘Oh, how are you doing at the university?’

‘I’m doing well.’

‘Oh, I’m in this university.’

‘I’m in this other one.’

And so I asked myself, ‘What are you?’ ”

MIGUEL GETS DRESSED for a morning workout. He relies on the work he has done so far to pay off in a big way, for himself and for his family. He dreams of the day that every major league fan knows the name “Miguel Almonte.”

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crying often, refusing food. Just getting out of bed seemed a monumental task. More than once, his mother came by to check on him.

“Gipsy,” she said, “Gipsy. You have to eat something.”

Gipsy remembered looking into the mirror, the feelings of failure as he made out the stocky figure reflected there.

Embarrassment and shock overtook him.

Finally, he rose with his sights set on his mother’s medicine cabinet. He grabbed the first bottle he could find and retreated to his dark bedroom. One by one, he slipped the unmarked prescription pills into his mouth until he started feeling dizzy. He faded soon after the nausea set in.

Hours passed, and darkness fell on Santo Domingo.

Gipsy lay there unnoticed.

Life in the pressure cooker of the Major League farm system had taken its toll. The pain in his right arm — his

Almonte and his mentor, Neftali Cruz, sit in the stands of an empty Estadio Quisqueya, talking baseball. Cruz has an arm around the 17-year-old. They’re watching the Licey Tigers’ batting practice, looking on as minor leaguers, Dominican prospects and marginal major leaguers send longballs over the sea of Presidente ads that make up the fence.

“Carlos Beltran used to take 500 swings a day,” Cruz tells him. “Sosa took two hours of batting practice before every game.”

Cruz, a Blue Jays scout who spent 14 years in the Pirates’ farm system, says he likes working with Dominican prospects because of their raw, unmatched desire to succeed.

“When they’re hungry,” he says, “they can learn. This game is repetition. You have to put in the brain. It’s like going to school. You study before you take the test. Baseball is the same way. If you don’t put in the mind, 50,000 people are going to be disappointed.”

Later, Miguel stands and looks on as the Escogido Lions prepare for a 7 p.m. game. Standing across from home plate, he begins listing off the Dominican MLB players he thinks have the best sounding names. Pedro Martínez.

Robinson Canó. Albert Pujols.

Miguel grabs onto the backstop and leans into the net.

He glances at the corners of the stadium and its 335-foot foul poles. Then he stares into the outfield, silent and imagining.

“It’s a good name for a baseball player,” he says. “Miguel Almonte.”

(Reporting assistance by Tatiana Fernandez.)

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Life among the dead Death surrounds 60-year-old gravedigger Ultimo Gomez Cueba every day. When he gets to heaven, he says he will continue to dig graves for God. PHOTOS BY KAYLEE EVERLY WORDS BY JOSEPH MOORE AND KAYLEE EVERLY

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Ultimo Gomez Cueba stands facing the tomb, one hand placed on top of the rectangular 6-by-3 feet structure, the other resting at his side. Gone is the wide, toothless smile that once seemed a permanent fixture on his weathered face. For several moments, he contemplates the words engraved in the stone.

He stoops to remove clumps of weeds growing around the burial chamber before continuing down the narrow, rocky path.

The public cemetery in Cristo Rey, Santo Domingo, is a byzantine labyrinth of decaying concrete tagged with graffiti and overgrown

ULTIMO CARRIES a garbage bag to perform an exhumation. Poor families often cannot afford to buy more space for burials, forcing them to dig up graves of their loved ones to fit more bodies into the grave.

Ultimo performs three to six exhumations per week.

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THE LAST TO DIE

with weeds. It’s easy for visitors to get lost in this miniature city of tombs, separated in some places by a few feet, in others by only a few inches. Ultimo has become adept at navigating the narrow alleyways between chambers. He has been carrying tools and bags of cement from one area to another for the last 16 years.

He builds tombs for the newly departed, as well as those preparing for the inevitable. Five or six times a week he performs exhumations.

He chisels away the face of a tomb, collects the bones of the deceased into a plastic bag and burns the clothing. This is done to make room for the incoming casket of a wife, a brother, a distant cousin or a perfect stranger.

Moving from one task to the next, Ultimo does not stop to read the names of the dead engraved in the tombs, with one exception.

In a secluded area of the cemetery, far from the entrance where the gravediggers await the arrival of the dead, there is a tomb that gives Ultimo a pause whenever he passes it.

Two nameplates, one on top of the other, read “Wilfrin Antonio Gomez Gomez” and “Eddy Junior Gomez Gomez.”

This tomb contains Ultimo’s sons, who were murdered in a bar fight on the same day.

25-year-old Wilfrin Gomez was an officer in the Dominican National Police. In 2009, he was given a transfer order to a new district, a promotion. To celebrate the occasion, Wilfrin went with friends to a pool hall to have some drinks. While there, one of his friends got into an argument with another group of men. The argument escalated when Wilfrin’s friend was shot in the leg. After rushing his bleeding friend to the hospital, Wilfrin returned to the pool hall to confront the gunman. He was shot twice in the head. That night, Wilfrin’s younger brother, 17-year-old Eddy Junior, received a phone call from the bar warning him that his brother was in trouble. He arrived at the pool hall in time to lift his brother’s lifeless body into his arms, turn toward the door and receive eight bullets in the back.

Nearly five years later, Ultimo does not get emotional when he tells this story. In a solemn, reflective tone, he recounts the events of May 30, 2009.

This is a stark contrast from the man who drinks beer at work and laughs with other

gravediggers as they wait for a hearse or an ambulance to drive through the cemetery’s gates, guaranteeing them some work for the day and some pesos to bring home to their families.

Earlier in the day, Ultimo supervised the burial of 56-year-old Marcelo Pena, who died of a brain hemorrhage. When members of Marcelo’s family complained that another laborer was not using enough cement to construct the tomb’s wall, Ultimo stepped in to ease the tension. He spoke loudly, gesturing wildly with his hands, his smile wider than ever.

Some family members accused Ultimo of

being drunk and warned him that he too could end up in a tomb. Addressing the crowd in a loud voice, his smile undiminished, he reminded them all that his name is Ultimo – “final” – and he will be the last one to die.

Every week, Ultimo outlives the half-dozen corpses he buries and exhumes. He says he will outlive his wife and thousands more. When he dies, he says he will go to heaven, where he will still be digging graves for God. (Reporting assistance by Jose Ismael, Sylas Bailey and Karen Graves.)

- JOSEPH MOORE

ULTIMO STOPS to visit his sons’ graves after working all day in Cristo Rey Cemetery in January 2014.

His two sons were murdered in a bar fight in May 2009. “I am always at the cemetery, so I always see my sons’ tombstones every day,” he said.

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FRIENDS AND FAMILY MOURN the loss of Aneuris Polanco Foxan in January 2014. She died at the age of 33 due to pneumonia. In order to bury her, the family had to exhume another family member because they could not afford to build a new casket.

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‘SOMETIMES I LIKE TO CHEER MYSELF UP. I LIKE TO DRINK A BEER AND FORGET ABOUT EVERYTHING.’

- Ultimo Gomez Cueba Gravedigger at Cristo Rey Cemetery, Santo Domingo

‘I DON’T FEAR ANYTHING ABOUT DOING AN EXHUMATION BECAUSE, FOR ME, NOTHING IS THERE.’

-Ultimo Gomez Cueba Gravedigger at Cristo Rey Cemetery, Santo Domingo

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THE SUN SETS in Cristo Rey Cemetery in Santo Domingo in January 2014.

Due to limited space and socioeconomic factors, when someone dies, they often share a grave with a loved one.

DEATH AND EXHUMATIONS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Watching the heartache of family after family say goodbye to their loved ones hasn’t been easy. I have never seen anyone mourn with that much emotion so openly. The cries, screams and fainting speak volumes about Dominican culture. They aren’t afraid to be vulnerable. Death isn’t the taboo that is in the United States.

The challenge is trying to focus on a single aspect. Originally I was going to take a gravedigger’s perspective and tell the story through his eyes.

But then I witnessed an exhumation, where a body is removed from a tomb and thrown in a trash bag to make room for someone who has just died.

On an island, it all comes down to space.

Families buy a spot for the first burial. Over time, as more family members pass, the

tombs are expanded vertically until the dead are stacked up to five-tall.

But without sufficient funds, families must dig up their loved ones to make room for another.

The first exhumation I saw was a mistake.

Without telling the children, the father consented to exhume the mother’s body to make room for distant relatives who let the family borrow the tomb years prior.

The mix-up upset everyone and was resolved by placing the mother back in her tomb in a black plastic garbage bag. The family built another tomb on top.

Seeing how much pain this caused a group of people hit me. The dead matter, but in Cristo Rey Cemetary, the dead don’t always rest in peace.

– KAYLEE EVERLY

ULTIMO HOLDS a skull while exhuming a grave in Cristo Rey Cemetery in January 2014. If someone dies, families have the option to remove their deceased from the grave after a period of 7 years and put their recently deceased loved one in their place. The former occupant is placed in a trash bag and re-buried alongside them in the front corner of the grave. Argentina Guzman, a woman whose mother was recently exhumed, said, “I would have liked to put her in her own place, in her own dirt. But at the moment, I can’t afford to do anything else.”

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Two wings to fly contributors

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN (JOURNALISTS). Andrew Dickinson, Scott Winter, Brian Lehmann, Nikolai Hammar, Brianna Soukup, Matt Masin, Shelby Wolfe, Faiz Siddiqui, Kaylee Everyly, Anna Gronewold, Joseph Moore, Cara Wilwerding, Jake Crandall, Jennifer Gotrik, Bruce Thorson, Anna Reed.

BETHEL UNIVERSITY (EDITING AND PAGE DESIGN). Back row: Weston DeWitt, Lauren Williamson, Christine Ramstad, Halle Marr, Tori Sundholm, Laura Kost, Scott Winter, Bennett Smed. Front row: Whitney Harsch, Paige Polinsky, Alex Bauer, Katharine Griffin, Peyton Witzke.

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Student journalists Jake Crandall

Joseph Moore

Andrew Dickinson

Anna Reed

Kaylee Everly

Faiz Siddiqui

Jennifer Gotrik

Brianna Soukup

Anna Gronewold

Cara Wilwerding

Nickolai Hammar

Shelby Wolfe

Matt Masin

Student editors and page designers Alex Bauer

Paige Polinsky

Weston DeWitt

Christine Ramstad

Katharine Griffin

Bennett Smed

Whitney Harsch

Tori Sundholm

Laura Kost

Lauren Williamson

Halle Marr

Peyton Witzke

Faculty

Special thanks to:

Bruce Thorson

Howard G. Buffett

Scott Winter

Tom Mangelsen Joel Sartore

Assistants

Liony Batista

Amy Bruce Ben Rusnak Brian Lehmann

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