Marriage, Church Membership Blocked for Couple

BY NICK NEWMAN
Cronkite Borderlands Initiative

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – Gazcue is a middle-class neighborhood by Dominican Republic standards. With its tree-lined streets and apartment buildings, it looks as if it could fit comfortably into almost any American city.

But follow a laundry line that disappears down a dirt alley and you’ll find Domingo Fan Fan and Ulda Luis.

The two live here with their son, Osiris, 4, in what can only be described as a shack nearly hidden between tall apartment buildings.

How Fan Fan and Luis met is your typical boy-meets-girl-next-door story. Their parents lived in a village in a rural part of the Dominican Republic and the two grew up together. When Fan Fan moved to the city to find work 16 years ago, Luis followed and they have lived together ever since.

The two would like to get married and make their son legitimate, but new laws in the Dominican Republic have made that virtually impossible.

Over the past seven years, a series of new laws have been enacted that eliminate birthright citizenship. Now, anyone born in the country must have at least one documented Dominican parent in order to be considered a citizen, and for many people of Haitian descent who lack the correct paperwork, that’s almost impossible to prove.

Fan Fan has the correct papers, so he is considered a citizen of the country. But Luis said her mother did not obtain the correct documentation for her when she was born, so she is now living illegally in her native country.

And without her citizenship papers, the couple cannot legally marry.

That became an even bigger problem for the two after they decided to convert to the Mormon faith. Early in 2011, the two began talking to missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and after many discussions and visits to the local church in Gazcue, Fan Fan and Luis asked to be baptized.

But in order to become a Mormon, the two can’t live together as an unmarried couple.

“To get to the kingdom of God we have to be married,” Luis said.

Church elders Jordan Hunter, of Peoria, Ariz., and Daniel Marte, a native Dominican, said they have discussed ways to resolve the problem. But for a struggling couple living in bad conditions in an unlikely part of town, the choices are not good.

Luis’s parents, who were born in Haiti, are both dead and cannot testify as to where she was born. She could go to her hometown about 60 miles away and get two family members to testify that she was, in fact, born to her mother and born in this country, but the trip would be expensive and there’s no guarantee that they would be believed.

“My last name … is Haitian-sounding and my skin is black,” Luis said. “It’d be easier if I had a Dominican name.”

She could try to find a Dominican citizen willing to pretend to be her parents. Or she could find someone who has died, but hasn’t been declared dead, and use that identity to obtain a cedula, a national identification card.

The easiest and cheapest option would be to have someone pretend to be her parents. But in a church that values its standing with foreign governments and preaches “honesty to all your fellow men, it’s not an attractive option, Hunter said.

“The least of all evils would be for her to go to her hometown, and that’s the most honest option,” Hunter said. “But economically and logistically, it’s impossible.”

Hunter, 20, who is scheduled to complete his mission and return to the U.S. this summer, said the couple’s situation is not unique.

“It happens a lot. In my 18 months here, I’ve had to help four,” Hunter said. “And I’m one person among 200 missionaries in my mission.”

The members of the Gazcue LDS Ward assist hundreds of residents, many of them of Haitian descent, with food, clothing, money and sometimes shelter, said Bishop Cristian Olivero, the leader of the local Mormon congregation.

“We have to take care of those who are poor and in need,” said Olivero, a convert of 27 years who works for the U.S. consulate. “But at the same time, we teach people to be self-sufficient. There’s nothing that can bring more joy and happiness to our lives (than) when we can provide for ourselves and our families, spiritually and temporally.”

Fan Fan and Luis are doing their best to achieve that goal. Luis works at a clothing store for a little more than $150 a month. Fan Fan parks cars, in a good month earning about $40.

The two work, save as much as they can and raise their child, hoping all the time that they can find a way to marry and officially join the church.

“You first have to have faith in God. Without faith, you are nothing,” he said. “Our dream is to get married, buy ourselves a little house somewhere. With faith in God, we can do that.”