By Amaury Rodríguez
April 8, 2026
As a ruling class ideology, Dominican nationalism is a distraction mechanism from the social problems created by the capitalist system. It functions by obscuring the reality of class struggle and redirecting attention away from material conditions.
For the nationalists in Santo Domingo and elsewhere, it is the defense of the nation or to be more exact, the nation-state, that is at stake rather than organizing to demand decent wages or improve horrendous working conditions.
Unlike the anti-imperialist and nationalist movements from below of the early twentieth century that mobilized against US military interventions in Nicaragua, Haiti and Santo Domingo, and which fostered regional unity and solidarity; present-day Dominican nationalism is a particular conservative ideology that solidified during the thirty-one year dictatorial rule of Rafael Trujillo. The Trujillo regime reproduced dominant class ideology by promoting backwardness, pseudoscience, nuclear family ideology and obscurantism. To that end, and similarly to fascist Dictator Francisco Franco in Spain, Dictator Trujillo, a close ally of Franco, the US and the Zionist state, put Catholic nuns and priests in charge of public instruction and idealized the colonial period.
The Trujillo dictatorship’s well-oiled propaganda machine spread anti-Haitianism while at the same time it maintained cordial relations with both Haitian dictators Élie Lescot and François Duvalier who negotiated and signed bilateral agreements with the Dominican state to send thousands of Haitian workers to the Dominican side of the island to work in the sugar industry.
Furthermore, anti-Haitian racism, which is not a unique phenomenon to Dominican society but rather a widespread reactionary ideology, is at the heart of Dominican nationalism. Rooted in the colonial elite’s counter-revolutionary response to the Haitian revolution, pseudoscientific racism as well as the need of the sugar industry to segregate foreign workers, anti-Haitianism and anti-black racism in Santo Domingo became the ideological pillars of the Dominican state which in turn became the main vehicle for capitalist accumulation and the preservation of the status quo for both the white ruling elite and the criollo elite.
But it is important to mention that a large segment of today’s Dominican ruling class is non-white and of mixed ethnic origins. At the same time, a large segment of the black Dominican population has accepted some of the culturalist and political arguments that are the bedrock of both anti-Haitianism and nationalism. Hence, many people, especially non-Dominicans, see Dominican society as having a distinct peculiarity compared to other Caribbean societies because people of color have also accepted the logic of racism and right-right nationalism.
The reality is that the ruling class is more diverse and multicultural than it was in the past. In addition, Afro-Dominican propagandists, ideologues and fascist thugs are more predominant these days as in the case of the writers Manuel Núñez and Roberto Marcallé Abreu (who is also a diplomat) as well as Ángelo Vásquez, one of the leaders of the far-right paramilitary organization Antigua Orden Dominicana (Ancient Dominican Order, AOD). There is also the lumpen-capitalist Alofoke, a wealthy influencer and businessman who spreads conspiracy theories and all kinds of far-right propaganda.
Besides social conditioning, a fact of life in Latin American and Caribbean societies due to the prevalence of authoritarian regimes, what accounts for the proliferation of black Dominicans within reactionary politics and the nationalist movement? Is it the fact that many, if not most, hold politically-appointed government jobs and they have to abide by the political line of the party in power? Or could it be that because some of them come from middle and petit bourgeois backgrounds they typically lean more to the right? Or is it because some of them have an extreme aversion to socialism? In our view it is a combination of all of these factors which shows the complex nature of Dominican society and the fact that not all Dominicans hold the same views.
Our point is not that all racist propagandists are people of color but that many individuals–including black Dominicans– are also invested in spreading racist views because they benefit from the status quo. From that perspective, it is essential to mention some of the white, European-descended and light-skinned Dominican right-wing pamphleteers who in recent years have played (and continue to play) an instrumental role in the reproduction of racist stereotypes, anti-blackness and anti-Haitian racism so we can get a better sense of where these nationalist and racist views originate from and the role the dominant class plays in manufacturing the reactionary system that dominates every sphere of Dominican life.
The act of naming names is crucial for following the dominant class’s paper trail and determining who are the perpetrators and their collaborators. This list here is an abridged version of key conservative ideologues: the renowned intellectuals Federico Henríquez Gratereaux (1937-2024) and Pedro Delgado Malagón; the sociologist and journalist Consuelo Despradel, a former militant of the Communist Party; the writers Efraím Castillo and Bruno Rosario Candelier as well as the historians Frank Moya Pons (an elite intellectual) and Roberto Cassá (a former left-wing intellectual) who has been in charge of the National Archives since 2004.
Uses and Abuses of Dominican Identity
Although Zionism and Dominican nationalism differ in some respects they share some similarities as dominant class ideologies at the service of systems of oppression and political domination. For example, both Zionism and Dominican nationalism are ideological pillars of authoritarian states under pro-market ruling classes subservient to US imperialism.
Dominican nationalists (also known as nazionalistas), advocate for genocidal, exterminationist policies to achieve their respective anti-immigration policies, Zionist demographic policies and colonialist political goals (see here, here and here]. One major difference between these two reactionary ideologies is that, while Dominican nationalism represents the political agenda of the local bourgeoisie of a semi-colonial country (Santo Domingo) whose popular sectors defeated Spanish imperialism in 1865; Zionism, represents the core tenet of an European and US-backed imperialist and colonialist project which took the form of a White supremacist and ethno-nationalist settler-state, that is, the Zionist state of Israel. Finally, and while there is so much we can unpack, both Zionists and Dominican nationalists weaponize cultural and religious identity for political gains.
Within that framework, nationalists (irregardless of whether they adhere to right-wing, far-right and liberal worldviews) exploit Dominican cultural identity or dominicanidad to create a sense of national unity, and to idealize a shared cultural heritage (from music to food and sports) while concealing cultural, class and regional differences that make up the fabric of Dominican society and its diaspora. Denialism is also a central component of Dominican nationalist ideology as Dominican nationalists deny the existence of anti-black racism directed at Dominicans and people of Haitian origin.
So when nationalists weaponize Dominican cultural identity they do so to create a perception of homogeneity that does not exist in real life. This nationalist narrative casts society as an united, big family with no class divisions or socio-economic grievances.
Another consequence of weaponizing Dominican identity is the propagation of the conservative ideology of the dominant class which sees Dominican history as one that is both static and unchangeable.
Since the Dominican state was born out of the political separation or decoupling of neighboring Haiti, for Dominican nationalists the state is the guardian of dominicanidad and national sovereignty. In their nationalist worldview, the state is in charge of preserving dominicanidad or Dominican identity.
As a consequence, nationalism becomes inseparable from Dominican identity and Dominican existence itself, turning the defense of the nation/homeland—more precisely, the defense of repressive state policies that determine who belongs to it—into an existential imperative.
In this way, nationalism demands blind obedience to the state and ultimately, loyalty to exclusionary and reactionary policies rather than to the people who live under them. When activists, intellectuals or ordinary people raise their voices to oppose anti-Haitian racism, for example, the nationalist crowd reacts by accusing those who fight for civil and human rights of being traitors of a so-called “Dominican cause” and “Dominican sovereignty” as though the nation-state that imposes injustice represents the will of the people. Since Dominican nationalists are anti-democratic and some are even fascistic, their conservative and nationalist rhetoric hides the fact that fighting against racism and other forms of oppression is actually a way of democratizing Dominican society.
Examples of anti-democratic figures with a long authoritarian record pollute the Dominican political arena. As a matter of fact, two of the most well-known Trujillists, Vincho Castillo and the late Joaquín Balaguer, took part in the failed attempted coup of 1978 as Balaguer lost his grip on power due to the electoral defeat by the then-nominally social-democratic Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD).
Dominican nationalist politicians oppose democratization because it threatens their social standing and economic interests. Democratization of Dominican society has the potential of ending impunity, granting full rights to denationalized Dominicans of Haitian origin, LGBTQ people and working class women. For working people and other popular sectors, nationalist politics is a dead end simply because it delays both the fight for democracy and the class struggle.
In the short and long term, the working class does not benefit from the racist and xenophobic policies implemented by Dominican nationalist politicians who either control the state or are part of the vast bureaucracy that engages in government graft. Those who do benefit materially from nationalist politics hail from upper class sectors such as the Vicini family whose wealth is tied to the overexploitation of foreign workers particularly those of Haitian origin.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Ultimately, in both practical and ideological terms, nationalism seeks to maintain the status quo because it is the political expression of conservatism and anti-democratic sectors rooted in authoritarian political projects such as the proto-fascist Trujillo dictatorship (1930-1961) and the right-wing, anti-communist Balaguer regime (1966-1978).
When we say that Dominican nationalism is reactionary we do not mean it as an attack on the Dominican homeland or an attack on the Dominican people as a nation but rather as an attack on the very notion of equating Dominican identity with the modern nation-state which represents the interest of capitalists.
Roots of right-wing hegemony
The rehabilitation of Trujillismo or Trujillist ideology in the 1990s gave a boost to Dominican nationalism. With the left in retreat after the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellites in 1989, the Dominican Right filled in the ensuing political vacuum.
One of the most crucial events that moved mainstream politics further to the right was the 1994 racist campaign led by a far-right/right-wing/liberal alliance known as Frente Patriotico (Patriotic Front). The racist and anti-Haitian campaign led by the leadership of the formerly center-left Dominican Liberation Party (Partido de la Liberación Dominicana,PLD), the far-right politician Vincho Castillo and right-wing strongman Joaquín Balaguer sought to detail the presidential campaign of José Francisco Peña Gómez from the Dominican Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Dominicano, PRD) by spreading racist, anti-Haitian propaganda. Peña Gómez, who was of Haitian origin from his maternal side, was a charismatic black Dominican politician and one of the leaders of the democratic revolution of April of 1965.
By using Haitian stereotypes and anti-Vodou imagery that suggested Peña Gómez was Haitian and a Vodou practitioner, the right-wing nationalist Patriotic Front campaign exploited economic anxiety, entrenched traditional religious fervor and fear to drive important segments of the middle and working class to the nationalist milieu.
When most of the old Dominican Left abandoned revolutionary politics and embraced reformism, the left adopted some aspects of Dominican nationalist ideology such as patriotic discourse. The continental impact of Chavismo also reinforced nationalist tendencies within the left.
Yet, small new revolutionary socialist organizations that reject nationalism have emerged in recent years. And while these organizations are small, they still play a vital role in combating conservative ideology including nationalism.
To fight against nationalism, progressive and revolutionary activists in Santo Domingo must also offer working-class solutions that alleviate people’s living conditions, encouraging a rupture from traditional parties and the nationalist perspective. A break from nationalist politics will allow working-class people to organize independently from bourgeois parties, build their own organizations of struggle and fight alongside class lines.
Between nationalism and class solidarity
Historically, the political antidote to nationalism has been class politics and internationalism, which confront the underlying conflict: not between nations, but between capital and labor—between those who exploit and those who are exploited.
Since the establishment of the sugar industry in Santo Domingo in the early twentieth century, Haitian workers have become a pool of cheap labor. To manage and better exploit these foreign-born workers, a system of labor segregation was put into place with the aid of US occupying forces (1916-1924). Within this context, the mistreatment and persecution of people of Haitian descent became normalized within Dominican society.
Following that logic, separation, and what has lately become defined as a form of Apartheid system within Dominican society, was instrumental in laying down the foundations of capitalist overexploitation of sugar cane workers. Simultaneously, the Apartheid system created the conditions for the spread of racial and social divisions with the aim of preventing social cohesion and working-class unity among Haitians and Dominicans. By doing so, the powerful US-backed ruling class fragmented the working class and set back class struggle for several decades, safeguarding their own economic interests and those of foreign capitalists.
But over time, as Dominican capitalism evolved and sugar production was no longer central to the economy, Haitian workers moved to other sectors of the economy like construction and tourism, mingling together with Dominicans and sharing their pain and misery together in their workplaces, their neighborhoods and their churches. Precedents of solidarity also abound: during the last century, Haitians and Dominicans fought together in April of 1965 when the US invaded the country to impede the democratization process that had begun in 1961 after the fall of the Trujillo dictatorship.
Amid the contradictions and xenophobic rhetoric, Dominican-Haitian solidarity remains a fact of life which is why today both the right and the far-right insist in creating more polarization and division through the use of both racist rhetoric and physical violence.
Dominican nationalism, as it currently stands, is causing profound harm to immigrant communities and even black Dominicans. Harassment, persecution and deportations happen on a daily basis. And since Dominican nationalism is a state-centered ideology, at its core is the need to project power by militarizing society and using the repressive apparatus (the police, the military and paramilitary gangs) to enforce draconian anti-immigration laws.
Nationalism not only dehumanizes those it targets in the name of the nation-state but also those who come to accept and reproduce its irrational and reactionary logic.
There is another way
To conclude, it is important to remember that throughout Dominican contemporary history, the most radical sectors of society rejected (and continue to reject) a conservative, revisionist and nationalist version of history by re-defining dominicanidad outside the parameters of nationalism and the state.
In recent years, the work of Dominican-based and diaspora historians, social scientists, artists, progressive and left-wing writers, activists and journalists such as Quisqueya Lora, Riamny Méndez Féliz, Hugo Cedeño, Sophie Mariñez, Ana Maria Belique, Lorgia Garcia Peña, Simón Rodríguez, Amín Pérez, Tahira Vargas, Johan Mijail, Ingrid Luciano, Firelei Baéz, Gina Goico, Amarilys Estrella, Sandy Placido, Ayendy Bonifacio and others (the list is long) have challenged the tenets of Dominican nationalism by emphasizing the historical solidarity ties among Haitians and Dominicans, and pointing out the historical erasures, falsifications and fallacies put forward by conservative historians and intellectuals. Their work highlights the evolving notions of dominicanidad, alternative Dominican identities, sexual dissidence, forbidden African legacies and resistance amid an increasingly authoritarian state.
These provocative, eye-opening counter-hegemonic interventions have not emerged overnight: they are part of a legacy of resistance that represents the continuity of the radical Dominican tradition which developed over time in the fight against authoritarianism, fascism and racism.
In a radio message broadcast from New York in 1943, Dominican Marxist writer and anti-Trujillist exile Juan Isidro Jimenes Grullón lambasted the racist propaganda spread by the Trujillo dictatorship by centering Dominican identity within a humanist tradition as opposed to a nationalist perspective:
“Dominicanidad is love for one’s fellow human beings, not hatred; it is the absence of racial prejudice; it is an eagerness to aid the oppressed and exploited; it is a yearning for liberty and justice; it is an act of rebellion against crime and violence; it is a longing for Latin American and Caribbean solidarity.
“Those who do not feel this way—those who sow hatred and prejudice; those who murder the oppressed, curtail freedom, and act with injustice; those who advocate for and cooperate in local or international crimes, thereby disrupting our region’s harmony—these are not Dominicans; and even if they were born and live there, they are traitors to [our] people.” [1]
Notes
1.Boletín del Archivo General de la Nación (Issue 124, pg. 429-449, 2009).
The opinions expressed in the article are solely those of the author and not of Esendom. The post aims to open a discussion on the topic it addresses.