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  • The Homelands Blog

    The high cost of sugar

    Sandy Tolan returns to the Dominican Republic after 30 years to find out what happened to a young Haitian sugar cane worker he met in 1991. He reports what he discovered in an hour-long program on Reveal and an in-depth feature in Mother Jones.

  • Sandy Tolan, Alan Weisman

    Vanishing Homelands

    Caribbean Dreams

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    Sandy Tolan, Alan Weisman

    Vanishing Homelands

    Caribbean Dreams

    Different sorts of dreams collide in the Dominican Republic, where industrial parks, sugar cane fields, and a posh resort all belong to a single U.S. corporation.

    To most Americans, a Caribbean holiday sounds like a dream. For many, the dreamiest of all is a stay at the Dominican Republic’s Casa de Campo, a place where people can, for up to $2,000 a night, luxuriate in the region’s poshest, most complete resort. Even the maids here are postcard perfect, dressed in kerchiefs, peasant skirts, and aprons designed by Oscar de la Renta.

    But outside the oasis of pleasure lies the rest of the Dominican Republic, one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, where, increasingly, the people who live and work there are seeing their own dreams dissolve.

    Narration is by Edward James Olmos, who hosted a series of 13 half-hour Vanishing Homelands specials.

    Date

    August 1992

    Outlets

    All Things Considered

    Tags

    Themes: Lives, Economy
    Regions: Caribbean
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Sandy Tolan, Alan Weisman
    Other Tags: Dominican Republic, Haiti, Sugar cane, tourism

  • Sandy Tolan, Alan Weisman

    Vanishing Homelands

    Sugar and Sorrow in Hispaniola

    Play Now Download

    Sandy Tolan, Alan Weisman

    Vanishing Homelands

    Sugar and Sorrow in Hispaniola

    Haitian sugar cane workers in the Dominican Republic live in squalid conditions. Although the sugar they produce is exported to the United States, the U.S. government has declined to intervene.

    On his second voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus brought sugar cane to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Sugar is now the biggest industry in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island with its impoverished neighbor, Haiti.

    Early in the 20th century, and American company began importing Haitian field hands to work its Dominican sugar holdings. Every since, the backbreaking task of cutting cane in the Dominican Republic has belonged to migrant Haitians and their descendants.

    The cane cutters live in hundreds of rural ghettos known as bateys. The living conditions of these permanent labor camps are considered to be among the worst in the hemisphere.

    Recently, reports by human rights groups denouncing treatment of the cane cutters prompted the United States to review trade relations with the Dominican Republic. The U.S. concluded that workers’ conditions are improving and decided not to impose economic sanctions, thus preserving the Dominican Republic’s broad duty-free access to U.S. markets.

    But, in much of the country, little has changed.

    Narration is by Edward James Olmos, who hosted a series of 13 half-hour Vanishing Homelands specials.

    Date

    July 22, 1991

    Outlets

    All Things Considered

    Tags

    Themes: Lives, Economy
    Regions: Caribbean
    Media: Audio
    Other Contributors: Sandy Tolan, Alan Weisman
    Other Tags: Dominican Republic, Haiti, migrant workers