Are the Puerto Ricans "getting rich on the backs" of the Domenicans? 
</ sarcasm>
Posted on 08/05/2002 6:48:49 PM PDT by 4Freedom
For two days across the treacherous Mona Passage, Enerolisa Paredes prayed, clasped the wooden slab beneath her until her fingers went numb and kept her eyes tightly shut until the canoe-like vessel packed with other Dominicans finally made landfall.
But the most intimidating part of the harrowing journey came as a shivering Paredes hid beneath the thick brush that grows along Puerto Rico's western coast, barely breathing, for fear that U.S. Border Patrol agents searching nearby would find her.
"I could see them and hear their footsteps," said Paredes, 26. "There was a cow that kept stepping all over me. I kept thinking, 'God, please don't let them see me.'''
Eight months later, Paredes has become the mother of a newborn girl who is entitled to the same U.S. benefits as Puerto Ricans. The two have become part of a flourishing immigrant community whose growth is fueling tension between locals and the newer arrivals.
Dominicans have been using Puerto Rico as a stepping stone to the U.S. mainland for years, but with increasing vigilance over illegal immigration to the continental United States, a more permanent community has settled here.
An estimated 250,000 of Puerto Rico's population of 4 million, or one out of every 16, are Dominican. Although hard data does not exist, officials estimate that about 10,000 immigrants enter annually, and more than half stay.
The overwhelming majority of illegal entrants are Dominicans who venture across the Mona Passage in smuggling vessels known as yolas.
Here, where at least 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty level, accomodating the newcomers is a challenge.
"We are doing what we can to address the needs," said Mariana Binet Mieses, director of the Department of State's office of Orientation and Services for Foreign Citizens. "The biggest problem is that most of the immigrants are not documented," making it difficult to enroll them in government funded programs.
The culture clash between locals and foreigners has become apparent with numerous allegations of discrimination over the years involving the police, employers and government services operators.
But the most sensitive complaints surround educators accused of altering Dominican students' grades to keep them behind, punishing them more severly and even barring them from eating in the cafeteria or drinking from the water fountain "because they might get them dirty," said Pedro Ruiz, director of San Juan's municipal Office of Immigration Services and Civil Rights.
Even though most of the claims are difficult to prove, the perception that Dominicans are unwelcome has fostered resentment among many in the immigrant population.
"If you are Dominican, you don't get treated the same," said Rafael Tejeda, a grocery store owner who has lived here for 20 years. "You can feel it just from walking in through the door of government offices and businesses owned by Puerto Ricans. Even the homeless will say that being in the streets is better than being Dominican."
Tejeda, who lived in Miami for five years before moving to Puerto Rico, became a U.S. citizen in 1990. Still, he is making plans to sell his successful business and return to his homeland.
"The majority of Dominicans here don't really want to be here," Tejeda said.
As temporary stays become more permanent, Dominicans are slowly gaining clout by launching successful businesses and filling low-wage positions in restaurants, agricultural fields and other manual labor sectors.
"There is a little bit of jealousy because Dominicans take jobs that Puerto Ricans don't want," said Iris Figuereo, a vice consul at the Dominican Consulate. "People complain that Dominicans are taking over. Racism does exist here."
Not everyone agrees.
Paredes said that when she arrived in Cabo Rojo, she turned to a Puerto Rican family for help. The family took her in for a few days, clothed and fed her. Then they drove her into San Juan.
There, she found a job taking care of two disabled Puerto Rican children, earning enough to pay $50 a week for a room in a cramped apartment. And when she began to weaken from hunger and pregnancy, it was a Puerto Rican social worker who came to her rescue. She even named her daughter, Adriana Maria after the social worker.
"I am very grateful to the Puerto Ricans," Paredes said. "They have helped me more than my own people."
Among the latest concerns expressed by community leaders and the Puerto Rican government officials who help them is the apparent rising number of pregnant women arriving in yolas.
"We are seeing a lot more of that," Ruiz said.
More than half of the 49 Dominicans on Parede's trip were women. Although she was among only four people who slipped away, smugglers tend to have a better success rate.
The Border Patrol sector here is understaffed by at least 15 agents, and it estimates many more Dominicans get away than they apprehend.
"If we get anywhere from 10 to 11 percent, we're doing great," said Antonio Solis, lead intelligence agent.
In two recent landings, only 10 of an estimated 30 immigrants were apprehended. According to figures from the Dominican Republic, authorities there destroy some 25 to 30 yolas a month to prevent them from going out to sea.
Paredes, who arrived on Nov. 1, had to borrow about $1,000 to pay for a trip that should have taken only a day.
Paredes said she contemplated the risks involved for a month before deciding she had no other choice.
"My mom was sick and I didn't have money for the operation; I did it for her," she said.
Paredes, who has two other children in the Dominican Republic, is the eldest of 15 siblings. The entire household shares a two-room wooden shack, and her meager earnings as a school janitor did little to help care for the family.
"Things are very critical over there," she said. "My brothers and sisters are like my children, too, because I have to help provide for them."
"My mom told me not to leave because she was afraid I would drown. But I said, well, it's my life. I'm going to die at some point. What does it matter if it is here or there?"
I guess we can see why now. "...punishing them more severely and even barring them from eating in the cafeteria or drinking from the water fountain 'because they might get them dirty,' said Pedro Ruiz, director of San Juan's municipal Office of Immigrant Services and Civil Rights."
Did Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton address this situation when they were in Vieques?
The only fact I believe you're mistaken on is this. "They also vote Democrat - somewhere around 85%."
I believe the Dominicans vote Democrat almost double that - somewhere around 155%, now.
LOL!
I believe their music sounds different, too. That's an easy way to get in trouble in Puerto Rico. Play music they don't like louder than they play theirs.
Well, maybe that's not so easy. Everybody can't afford speakers that big. ;^)
That's pretty much impossible. There is no way to play music louder than PR music.
So, enrolling illegals in government funded programs is the purpose of the state dept. That office at State should be shut down and the public tit addict quoted here tossed out on her worthless ass along with her bosses. Anyone not documented is not an immigrant, but an invader. We're doomed if this crap isn't brought to a halt very soon.
Yeah. Wait until a black hispanic lesbian female disabled pregnant military veteran civil servant comes up for promotion. Nobody else will have a chance of being considered. ;-)
Oh, they can tell. I had the same questions about fifteen years ago, when I worked alongside two Puerto Rican girls who were constantly slamming Dominicans.
Their ethnic backgrounds are almost identical and they both speak Spanish. I don't understand this.
I moved to NY from Ohio, and I was truly puzzled by this. Gee, two Spanish-speaking islands in the Carribean, what's the diff? So I asked, and brother did they answer. They can tell the difference by accent, by appearance, by education level, by the living conditions they find acceptable, by everything. Including the names Dominicans give their children, which I am told are usually "made-up" names similar to some of the names inner-city black kids are saddled with here. They rattled off about a dozen "names" as examples and laughed until they were helpless (I don't speak a lot of Spanish so I didn't quite get the joke).
In other words, Puerto Ricans think Dominicans are irredeemable hicks.
There was a Colombian girl working there who told me that every other country in South America looked down on PR and DR and didn't see much difference between the two. But by then I had gathered that Colombians considered themselves "pure Spanish" and looked down on just about everybody else, so I took that with a grain of salt. What it really told me is that there definitely is a caste system of sorts down there, if unofficial.
The Dominicans have taken up the challenge.
Puerto Rican seismologists record an average 2.5 earthquakes in Puerto Rico everyday.
I'll bet it's the car stereos!
Looks like they want some of that Far Eastern, illegal immigrant trade that Puerto Rico's been getting.
That's the main purpose of amnesty. There's not much stopping illegals from taking any job they want, it's those welfare benefits that are a little less attainable without legal residency.
It's sad that not one Hispanic country is doing well ---and it doesn't matter if they're white, brown, or black so it seems to have nothing to do with race but that culture. They can only succeed if they make it to an Anglo country. At some point you'd think they'd want to change some things in their homelands and make them a bit more liveable.
Yes, it is. More clients for the welfare state are always welcome in the view of a politician, be he 'rat or puke.
Are the Puerto Ricans "getting rich on the backs" of the Domenicans? </ sarcasm>
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.