5.11.15

The Price of Sugar.  This technically is a movie that I just watched, but it is much more than that.  Before watching this documentary I had no idea what was happening.  I did not even know this problem existed.  Now, I feel guilty.  In the Dominican Republic at the Bateys human trafficking occurs on the sugar plantations.  People are smuggled into the Dominican Republic from Haiti for cheap labor.  These workers have no rights, no papers, no home, no food, they are lucky to even be alive.  The conditions they live in are horrible, but they are improving thanks to Father Christopher Hartley.  He is fighting for the rights of workers and helping them get what they deserve from the government and the family in charge of everything, the Vicini Family.  This family owns 250,000 acres of sugar cane, all being cut down by Haitians.  They are working as hard as possible just to stay alive, and I did not know any of this.  All I knew was that the Dominican Republic and Haiti shared a boarder on an island in the Atlantic Ocean.  Now I know that almost all of the sugar that is cut down is transported to the United States and this is the sugar we see in almost everything.  I had no idea where it was coming from.  I had never thought about it, but know, I wish I didn't enjoy sugar as much as I do.  Father Christopher Hartley is doing everything he can to help these people in the Bateys, but the Dominicans hate him.  They claim he is "Haitianizing" the country.  I don't understand why the people are so against him and what he stands for.  I mean, I guess I can kind of understand though.  People in the United States hate the illegal immigrants that come into this country.  I want to feel like that is different, but it is not.  The immigrants that come into the U.S. are doing the jobs that Americans do not want, they are working in the fields for a low pay.  I don't know.  I don't want to sit here and act like I am innocent, because I know I am not, but I want to feel in someway that I am helping the Haitians cause.  I guess in less than a month I will be helping them.  I will be in the Bateys.  I hope I can make a difference while I am there because, that documentary made me feel helpless here in the U.S.