Day 6: Immigration Day

Hello everyone,

Today Brooklynn and I (Isabella) explored what its like to be the leader of the day. Today brought many challenges that we have overcome as leaders and as a family. We woke up at 6 AM and had breakfast, and took a long drive to Juan Dolio. Once we arrived, everyone settled in very quickly to our villa which surprisingly had a pool! Shortly after, we traveled to ASCALA, where we were given insight about how difficult it is to obtain documents as a migrant. During the presentation, the members of ASCALA focused on how it is especially difficult to gain citizenship as a Haitian or darker skinned person.

After the presentation, we drove through a Batey. A Batey is a community where sugar workers and their families live. One of the workers, Dictadura, was kind enough to give us a sample of the sugar cane, and explain the importance of sugar cane workers to the Dominican economy. We learned that while the sugar cane is not in season, workers like Dictadura are faced with the possibility of making little to no money.

When we arrived back to the villa, we had some free time when some of us played in the pool.

We then had dinner (which was surprisingly made in the villa) and shortly after, had our nightly meeting. We discussed our leading question “How does a country’s politics, history, and economy effect immigrants?” So far this trip had been a very humbling experience. All of the Glimpsers can’t wait to tell you more when we come back home.