Scholarships connect locals to their roots, African students to agriculture

Fifty students from Equatorial Guinea – a tiny, Spanish-speaking country in West Central Africa – climbed off a plane on the lively Caribbean island Dominican Republic in mid-February, destined for a long-standing agricultural university.

They were there “not for tourism”, said their Ambassador Teresa Efua Asangono, who greeted them at the airport, but to spend four years rigorously studying the latest techniques in agriculture and, eventually, to apply what they had learned in their home country.

The students were the beneficiaries of a pooled half-million dollar scholarship programme meant not only as a development opportunity for Equatorial Guinea, but also to reconnect Dominicans with their African roots.

“The benefit of this programme is to complete the dream of the founders of [Dominican Republic’s High Institute for Agriculture] Universidad ISA…developing human talent without distinction for race, creed, sex, socio-economic status or class,” said Francisco de Leon, admissions director for the private university, which is nearly a half-century old.

He explained that the university had more than 20 years' experience in working with international students and this was one more opportunity to contribute to international development.

African roots denied

But an ingrained racism in the Dominican people makes the Equatorial Guinea exchange a little different than just another international encounter.

Wendy Roth, a sociologist at the University of British Colombia and an expert in race relations in the Caribbean, said because Dominicans have long rejected their African ancestry, it is fascinating that they would invite African students to study on the island.

“It’s really a statement,” she said. “Dominicans have never really accepted their African roots so the whole idea that they would bring students from Africa; it’s a big deal.”

Despite the fact that 90% of Dominicans are black, few people self-identify as black or Negro, said Henry Louis Gates Jr, a Harvard University professor who hosted the 2011 PBS film Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An island divided.

“Rather, a wide majority of Dominicans – most recently 82% in a federal census – designate their race as indio, while only 4.13% designate themselves as black,” he said.

The term ‘indio’ is “a way to negate our African ancestry and then become something else,” said anthropologist Juan Rodriguez, who works with the Ministry of Culture in Dominican Republic. “Dominicans are in complete denial of who they are.”

Historically, the rejection of blackness was in part of a rejection of the Haitian people; the French Creoles who share the western edge of the island of Hispanola.

At one time, the Haitians tried to dominate the entire island, imposing high taxes and snubbing the Catholic Church. They returned as poor migrant workers years later and, since, there’s been a conscious effort on the part of the Dominicans to separate themselves from their fellow islanders.

“Blackness became a Haitian trait and a negative term for many Dominicans,” said Harvard’s Gates.

Identity has begun to shift

Today, the mentality is beginning to shift. In recent years, there’s been a push to embrace African heritage.

Groups like Fundacion Cultural Bayajonda and Casa por la Identidad de las Mujeres Afro are encouraging Dominicans to explore their identity through art and music, and eventually accept their blackness or African heritage.

Wendy Roth has noticed a shift among highly educated colleagues and it could be that the acceptance is trickling down to become more widespread, she said.

But she was still concerned about how the African students would be received. She said she was in the country recently with black students from the United States who noticed a subtle racism. Their host families would say things like: "Don’t go out in the sun cause you will get darker than you are already."

“My hunch is that any visitor might encounter cultural norms like these,” Roth said. “They might get comments. They might be teased.”

But De Leon is not concerned about the assimilation of students from Equatorial Guinea: “The Universidad ISA is characterised by…solidarity, equality, democracy, service, leadership and respect for human dignity and cultural identity.

“In this sense, the students from Universidad ISA are prepared to integrate in a diverse culture without any trouble.”

African students reconnect to agriculture

For the Equatorial Guineans, the exchange is also about reconnecting; but it’s a reconnection of a different sort. For them, the exchange programme’s focus on agriculture is an opportunity to reconnect with an industry that has long sustained them.

Their small country of a little more than a million people exploded in wealth with the discovery of petroleum in the early 21st century. But it is a wealth that has remained in the hands of the few.

Though Equatorial Guinea ranks 65th in gross domestic product per capita – above countries like Panama and Bulgaria – more than half the population lives without clean water and 20% of children die before reaching the age of five.

In preparation for years to come, Ambassador Asangono said: “We know the petroleum resources we benefit from today will run out and one way we can sustain the Guinea economy is by way of agriculture; as it has [sustained us] in prior years.

“This can only be done if we can count on qualified human resources, which is why this project was initiated.”

The 50 students who arrived in February are not the only ones expected to enrol at the Universidad ISA; an additional 200 are expected to land in the Dominican Republic over the course of the next four years.