‘Real Bahamians’ and ‘paper Bahamians’: Haitians as perpetual foreigners

ABSTRACT

In the Bahamas, children born to undocumented migrants grow up without citizenship but are entitled to apply for it upon their eighteenth birthday. However, due to the stigma of having Haitian origin, Bahamians of Haitian descent continue to be othered racially and ethnically even after eventually becoming Bahamian citizens. In this essay, I argue that second-generation Haitian Bahamians are viewed as perpetual foreigners by mainstream Bahamians and continuously struggle to access the benefits of cultural and legal Bahamian citizenship. Structural and individual practices of ‘othering’ and exclusion have created notions of a two-tier system of citizenship in the Bahamas where some people are considered to be ‘real Bahamians’ and others are considered to be ‘paper Bahamians.’ Using semi-structured interviews with second-generation Haitian Bahamians with and without citizenship, participants reveal the ways they continue – or expect to continue – to experience discrimination and exclusion from Bahamian citizenship because of their Haitian ethnicity. Second-generation Haitians are often treated as perpetual foreigners and practices of individual and structural discrimination reproduce inequality and reflect the failure to fully integrate Haitians into Bahamian society.

KEYWORDS:

• The Bahamas
• Haitian migrants
• second-generation Haitian Bahamians
• perpetual foreigners
• citizenship
• ethnicity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. As a Black woman with Haitian heritage, I represent intersecting identities as a member of historically marginalized and stigmatized groups in the United States, where people of African descent have historically been located outside of the parameters of inclusion and belonging, and have struggled for access to first class citizenship. Research participants’ interviews revealed similar experiences of exclusion, stigma, and racialization as those experienced by Black people in the United States. While, in many ways different, there is a similar negotiation of questions of citizenship, belonging, and identity. Interviews with research participants also revealed a larger pattern of anti-Haitianism and anti-blackness in the African diaspora.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charmane M. Perry

Charmane M. Perry as an Africana social scientist, her research interests include the Haitian diaspora, Haitians in the Bahamas with a focus on stigma, citizenship, identity, and belonging. She is particularly interested in the global stigma of being Haitian, the relationship between anti-Haitian sentiment and anti-Blackness, and representations of Haiti in the media.