Massacre River: The Woman Without a Country

MASSACRE RIVER: THE WOMAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY takes place in the Dominican Republic and Haiti (Hispaniola), one of the Caribbean islands of my childhood. I am Latina and was looking for a story that would allow me to spend time with family while rediscovering the places where I was raised. During research for the film, the Dominican Constitutional Court reinterpreted their constitution and reversed birthright citizenship, stripping Dominican nationality from over 200,000 Dominican-born people of Haitian descent, including one of the characters we had been following, Pikilina, in what appeared to be a racist change in policy.

Being a lighter-skinned Latina growing up in the Caribbean, I regularly witnessed disturbing prejudices against those who are darker-skinned. It felt as though this policy was one of ethnic cleansing, purging those who are darkest, and exposing a deeply rooted discrimination that has long been prevalent not only on the island, but worldwide.

Pikilina’s story is a haunting example of what happens when a government decides to deny an entire race or nation of people. With nationalism rising globally, what is unfolding in the Dominican Republic has become another illustration of the alarming and abhorrent impacts of xenophobia and lack of empathy and compassion for the “other."