The effects of the massive entry of Haitian agricultural workers into rice, coffee, and other agricultural production in the Dominican Republic over the past 15 years are analyzed using data from surveys conducted in 1985 and 1987. Unlike the classic Latin American cases of labor migration, the movement of Haitian workers to the Dominican Republic crosses national borders and involves a landless proletariat rather than peasant farmers seeking to supplement their subsistence. Most of the Haitians finding work in coffee and rice cultivation were former sugar cane workers with several years of residence in the Dominican Republic who were forced out of sugar cane cutting by the collapse of the industry in the 1980s. Although Haitians have been employed in Dominican agriculture since the early 1900s, their massive movement to crops of great labor demand other than sugar began in the 1980s. Most of the Haitian workers in rice and coffee are illiterate men with no more than 3 years of primary education. Their average age is 28.4 years for coffee and 29.1 for rice workers. 40% of coffee workers and 53% of rice workers had children. The survey found a greater proportion of migrants from the North zone of Haiti than have previous studies, probably because of the accelerating crisis in the peasant economy in the North and the curtailment of movement to the Bahamas. The technical and social organization of agricultural work goes far in explaining migratory flows. Rice cultivation has heavy labor demands year round, while demand for labor in coffee cultivation is concentrated between August-December. The more complex and better paying jobs in rice cultivation are performed primarily by Dominican workers, who have formed a landless agricultural proletariat in place for at least 2 generations. Dominican workers thus meet the condition of staying in place all year that is not completely possible for Haitian workers. No such ethnic separation occurs in the coffee harvest, and Haitian and Dominican workers are at the same hierarchical level. For various reasons, including the fact that the majority of coffee workers on large plantations are not Haitian, the field bosses tend to be Haitian as well. Assimilation of Haitian workers into coffee production has been easier than into rice cultivation, where social factors in addition to division of labor have hindered their progress. 3 different labor migration microsystems were detected among the workers studied: a circular system including sugar and coffee, a circular system in which peasants from the North of Haiti worked in rice cultivation, and noncircular settlement of former sugar cane cutters in coffee and rice. Haitian workers use their kin and friends as sources of information on labor demands and relative wages at different places in the Dominican Republic.

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