Ulysse, Shoaff and Massey

Ulysse, Shoaff and Massey

            ICI and migrant women face several intersection of discrimination that limit their mobility including, but not limited to, their race, gender, class and, in some cases, citizenship. Mobility is one of the most important aspects of working in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica; it will determine whether some families are able to eat that day or not.

            As Massey (1994) stated, “mobility, and control over it, both reflects and reinforces power.” Limited/hindered mobility shows up in the writings of both Ulysse and Shoaff. Shoaff’s example pointed to the mobility issues Haitian women face when attempting to cross over to the Dominican Republic. It was interesting to note the need of the government to limit access to Haitians because they didn’t want the Dominican Republic to become too Haitian. Although their basic premise is simple, limit the amount of Haitians allowed in the Dominican Republic, their methods are harassment and oppression. The government officials use this limitation as an excuse for despotic oppression of these women trying to make a living. It is evident that this is a tactical move by the government to show these people that they have a power over them that can invade their everyday so pervasively that they can change the course of whether a family eats that day or not; thereby reinforcing their power. What is interesting about this power dynamic, especially where the Haitian women are concerned is the tickle down to the everyday civilian. The story Shoaff referenced about the women who was trying to get a taxi, but was being ignored for the lighter skinned women, and a man even tried to light a match on her. The driver attempted to reinforce his power with colorist ideals and sexist mistreatment of her simply because of her skin tone/presumed status as a Haitian woman.

            While the trip to Miami was a great example of Mobility it was interesting to note some of the things they encountered along the way. Miss T and Miss M have made several journeys to the US to shop for items to sell in the arcade. While they were not harassed in the same manner as the Haitian women trying to migrate to the inner areas of the county, they did have mobile differentiators. When they were preparing to leave for Miami they had to go to a plane that was filled with mostly ICIs. On their way back into Jamaica they were separated from Ulysse so they could go through a different screening process from her, since she was an American citizen. It reminded me of A Small Place. When Kincaid pointed out that local country people had to stay in a separate line, with a more thorough screening process, to get back into their own country was mindboggling. To combine the accounts of customs from Ulysse and Kincaid, there is an obvious power structure at play attempting to show it’s despotic rule over the people it governs and reinforce in their mind the power they do not possess.

            The added layer of the gendered harassment makes an interesting intersectional analysis. Because these people are women, especially women of color, they are targeted and further harassed because they are easily identifiable victims and ICI, higgler or etc has been attached to their identities as mobile transnational female merchants. While they are deemed a protected class, of sorts, in Jamaica, but there are other women (Haitian workers) who are still susceptible to abuses from government, police and civilians.

            The emphasis on mobility, or lack thereof, was interesting. These women are very dependent on being mobile that they find creative solution to ease or circumvent the obstacles that are attempting to limit them.