Undocumented Dominican Migration

Marta

Marta a head full of lightning and hat full of rain Tom Waits Marta’s story is the least dramatic but the most common: her trip failed. When I met her shortly after her attempt at migration she was living in a rented house with her husband, Sergio, and their two young daughters. Marta is from a rural village and clearly out of place in town. She reminded me of a racehorse whose gate won’t open. Strong-willed, energetic , and eager to start living her dream—which consists simply of returning to the village where she was born—Marta was succumbing to inertia. When I arrived she was sleeping, the house felt lethargic, and the kids were hooked up to the television. “One day is the same as the next,” Marta said. She stays home and watches the kids, she misses her family, and she is eager to do something—some work, some way to move her dream along—but there is nothing to do. A life with nothing to do. Sergio was building a cinderblock house for the family on a hillside adjacent to Marta’s village, but the construction had stalled for lack of funds. Like the migration of countless migrants around the world, Marta’s yola migration in 2008 was motivated by the desire to have a home for her family, and among family. Sergio was opposed to the trip from the beginning due to a general aversion to yolas and dislike of smugglers—“People call them captains, but in other words they are criminals”—and for fear that Marta would drown. Marta originally planned to depart in secret, without telling Sergio, but finally confided her plan. There was no way for Sergio to dissuade her. The house construction would never be completed unless she worked abroad, Marta said: “I got more desperate and desperate 122 Undocumented Dominican Migration and got this idea in my mind—I’m going, I’m going, I’m going—and when an idea gets in your mind the decision has been made.” Sergio cried often, Marta said, especially when departure was imminent . Marta herself felt safe because she was traveling with a captain who had safely transported three of her relatives to Puerto Rico. There were a few false starts—the passengers gathered but then the trip didn’t leave— until finally the departure was scheduled definitively. Marta traveled by guagua to Nagua and stayed with a relative while waiting. A couple of days later, on a Friday at two o’clock in the morning, the call came. The trip left from Nagua with about 140 people. A navy beach patrol, visible in the distance, was indifferent to the migrants because officers had been paid off to allow the departure. The yola made a stop in Las Galeras , the passengers got off and were told to hide in the monte, and the crew went on horseback for gasoline. A couple of days later, on Monday night, the passengers worked their way back down the hill to the beach with flashlights, “in mud up to my knees,” Marta said. They formed a single file before boarding, and one of the recruiters looked at each face to make sure that no one was trying to travel without paying. He didn’t recognize Marta, but then another recruiter—a few had fed into the same voyage—said, “That’s one of mine,” and Marta was allowed to board. The crossing was slow—it took about thirty-six hours—because the propeller of the main engine was damaged and the yola was powered by the smaller reserve engine. The sea was calm and the sun was strong. Water and food were depleted and people began to get desperate. Marta lay on the floor between two benches and left her fate to God: “Arrive or don’t arrive—there’s no way out.” Two delirious passengers jumped overboard with the intention of walking away in search of food, but the captain U-turned to save them and the crew pulled them out of the water. On Wednesday afternoon the migrants spotted a patrol aircraft in the distance; the aircraft had also spotted them. The captain turned off the engine and told everyone to crouch, but instead some passengers—hoping for rescue—stood up and waved their arms. A helicopter arrived shortly afterward and then a cutter. The migrants were transferred to the cutter (a few were unconscious and taken on stretchers), fingerprints and photographs were...