Globalization seeks to provide more trade, more markets, more business, more information, more jobs, and more opportunities. In just a short amount of time, globalization was able to pursue its goals. Some of its results are faster economic growth, higher living standards, accelerated, and new opportunities for individuals and countries,
This is true in the case of Dominican Republic. In the book, The Devil Behind the Mirror, a community in Dominican Republic called Boca Chica reflected the negative effects of global capitalism in class, race, and gender. By observing the daily lives of individuals instead of focusing on the Multinational Corporations, the book adequately explained how much the common citizen is being exploited by the current system in their fight against social division of labor, informal economy, imperial masculinity, and economic restructuring (Gregory 11).
In the study conducted in the book, the author found two main issues that are dragging down the people of Dominican Republic. First was the inability of the natives to comply with the state and tourist board of governance. Second was the cherry picking of the government on who should be presented as a real Dominican Citizen. Most of the natives in the country are paperless. To be able to acquire citizenship, natives must first have cedula or national id. These documents are already hard for the natives to procure due to their lack of knowledge and financial resources. Moreover, these documents are issued to a citizen upon birth but are usually denied from those residing in the rural areas. In fact, a recent study concluded that 25 per cent of the total population of Dominican Republic was paperless. This situation has been taken advantage of by the government by instigating some kind of a social hygiene. Since the decline of sugar industry, they cannot find any job aside those from labor-intensive jobs because of being illiterate and paperless. The state tends to isolate the tourists from the natives because the former tend to be easily irritated by the former who begs on the street. For a country like Dominican Republic, the effectisgrievous as the poor becomes poorer and the rich foreign business owners become richer.
The case was much worse for the Haiti people residing in the Dominican Republic. Here, racism is taking a huge toll against them. Aside from being denied of national I.D., which is issued upon birth, the dark color of their skin is being used by the government as a manifestation for them to be treated as third class citizen. In extreme cases, they are no longer considered as human beings but instead as properties. The know phrase within the country was “Haitians will work like slaves.” Because they are denied of legal papers and are illiterate, they do anything just to earn money even sell their own children or encourage them to be beggars. In fact, part of the country’s tourist promotion was the Haitian because they are viewed to be less civilized thus creating a sense of nativity among those who can see. However, they are never allowed to get close to the tourists by working in fancy hotels.
Aside from these problems, globalization was reflected in the forms of power outages and tourism. For the hotels that the tourists stays in for some 200-300 US dollars per night, the power is free flowing along with food and water, However, in the areas of the country where the natives reside, power outage was so grave that it drives the people to the brink of riot. In the case of tourism and the informal economy, the Luxury Tourism degrades the people both economically and socially. It was defined as a form of tourism which only caters to the imperial masculinity of the Western people and does not allow natives to earn money in a decent manner. Luxury Tourism only allows the natives to take on menial jobs. Most of the jobs with proper pay are given to foreign workers therefore not supporting the local economy enough.
Because of lack of opportunities for decent jobs, natives and Haitians tend to be prostitutes. They work without permit or ID card making them illegal aliens in their own lands. Dominican Republic has been a prime destination of Western people who are looking for sex. Consequently, the values of the predominantly Catholic society are being degraded.
Works Cited
Gregory, Steven. The Devil Behind the Mirror: Globalization and Politics in the Dominican
Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Print.
