Birthright Denied

On Monday, September 23, 2013, Juliana Deguis Pierre was mopping the floors of the house of a wealthy family in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo when a journalist from the daily newspaper El Caribe appeared at the door. “They can’t give you your document because your father came from Haiti,” the journalist told her before snapping her photo without permission and abruptly departing.

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Q&A: Quebec Charter of Values Controversy

In the Canadian province of Quebec, religious groups have been up in arms over the past several months regarding a controversial piece of secularism legislation known as the Quebec Charter of Values, or Bill 60. The bill, which was announced by the governing, separatist Parti Quebecois back in March, and officially proposed in September, would ban provincial civil servants from wearing “overt” religious symbols or garb in the workplace—a move that would, of course, have far-reaching consequences for the thousands of teachers, doctors, nurses, and so on, who go to work each day wearing a hijab, kippah, turban or even a large crucifix. While the Charter of Values has been condemned as xenophobic across the federal and provincial political spectrum, and lambasted as a misguided crackdown on religious observance, the PQ appears intent on carrying it...

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