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September 13, 2024

Rally against anti-immigration rhetoric in Springfield, Ohio.

• Two teachers from Equity Focus Schools are looking for support for their classrooms on DonorsChoose in Springfield, Ohio. This is a simple and direct way to pour back into the local community. Remember, all donations will be matched next Wednesday, September 18, so set a notification to donate then!

• Donate to the Haitian Community Help & Support Center, a community-based nonprofit in Springfield, OH, supporting local Haitian residents.

In the first few minutes of Tuesday's presidential debate, Trump reiterated a baseless accusation previously made by his running mate, JD Vance, that Haitian immigrants in the small town of Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating pets belonging to their American neighbors.

Local officials of the town, where an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian immigrants have moved in the past few years after fleeing civil unrest, assure that there have been no credible reports of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by people in the city's immigrant community. And judging by the social media memes, it’s unlikely many people are taking these allegations seriously. Regardless, this public display of racism and xenophobia isn’t anything to laugh at and has lasting implications for immigrant communities across the U.S.

Accusing immigrant populations of eating dogs is nothing new, and is often found at the butt of insensitive jokes in film and television. In 2016, Oregon Senate candidate Faye Steward suggested that Vietnamese refugees were “harvesting people’s dogs and cats” to discourage taking in refugees from Syria. Last year, a Thai restaurant in California was forced to close just six months after opening after allegations that they sold dog meat went rampant on social media (they later re-opened with support from a newfound national community). NPR dives into this deeper, and Soleil Ho wrote a fantastic deep-dive on the subject.

These particular allegations are also rooted in a long history of anti-black sentiment related to religious views. The perception of voodoo in the United States has a long and complex history intertwined with racism, xenophobia, and cultural misunderstanding. Originating from West African spiritual traditions and syncretically blended with Catholic elements, Voudou was brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans. In the U.S., particularly in Louisiana, it became associated with Haitian immigrants and African American communities. 

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, these practices were sensationalized as “voodoo” and demonized in popular culture, literature, and media, portrayed as a dark, primitive, and dangerous practice. This misrepresentation served to reinforce racist stereotypes and justify discrimination against Black people and immigrants. The fear and misunderstanding of voodoo were used as tools to marginalize practitioners and their communities, leading to legal persecution and social ostracism.

Regardless of how silly it sounded, Statements like those both Trump and Vance have purported against immigrant communities in Springfield have real and lasting consequences. In fact, that's what they hope. Stoking public fear has been proven to be an effective tactic to get discriminatory legislation passed.  We saw this unfold in 1882 with the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first legislation to ban a specific group of people from entering the United States. This legislation was justified through misleading and racist stories that Chinese people were stealing jobs (sound familiar?), bringing diseases, and eating rats and cats. 

Racist rhetoric against food only grew in 1915, when Chinese people were able to secure a visa to work as restaurant employees. Chinese people pooled money and used family and community ties to acquire merchant visas. Legally prohibited from residing in all-white neighborhoods, these businesses were concentrated in Chinese communities, forming the Chinatowns of today. Wealthy white people began taking “slumming tours” of growing Chinatowns to gawk at their “depravity” and eat Chinese food.

In the day since the debate, the town of Springfield, Ohio, has received death threats, prompting the state government to send additional troops and resources to the city to combat growing unrest. One Haitian woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told Al Jazeera that her niece was afraid of going to school. It's despicable that a presidential candidate and members of the party that supports him are willing to further alienate a vulnerable population for the sake of anti-immigration legislation. This is a burden that immigrant communities are forced to bear, regardless if these political goals are met.