Ever since the US presidential debate two weeks ago, much has been made of Donal Trump’s unsupported claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio eat dogs. Local officials and Haitian leaders quickly denied the charge. And, as usual, the mainstream media gleefully piled on to imbue it with sinister motives.
Trump’s “racist smear” the Washington Post proclaimed, “demonizes immigrants” mirroring claims used against them since the 1800s.
“The notion that immigrants of color are to be feared,” the Boston Globe chimed in, “is a terrible racist trope.”
I don’t have any evidence either way regarding the former president’s specific assertions. What I can say with certainty, however, is that immigrant dog-eating has a definite history in America.
I first realized that back in1989 when, as a Southern California-based reporter for the Los Angeles Times, I covered a notorious case in which three Cambodian immigrants got caught in the act of skinning a young German Shephard for breakfast. Put on trial for animal cruelty, they never denied the charge, instead presenting a “cultural defense”, i.e. that eating dogs was commonly accepted where they came from, so how were they to know that Americans would view it with less favor?
Eventually, the judge threw the case out because he couldn’t find any laws that had been broken. But not before the defense attorney got death threats, and bumper stickers appeared around town urging citizens to “Save a Dog, Eat a Cambodian.”
Representatives from major Asian support groups loudly insisted that dog eating would never happen in their part of the world, except maybe among uneducated, lower-class Cambodian peasants. And animal lovers lost no time in enacting a new state law specifically outlawing the eating of dogs.
So, like most people, I soon forgot about it, except maybe in occasional boisterous cocktail conversation. Until decades later, when, after emigrating to the Philippines with my Filipino wife, the supervisor of our construction crew met us one day at the gates of our soon-to-be completed house.
“There’s good news and bad news,” he informed us. The bad news was that our favorite dog, Sandy, had been killed by a car. The good news? Our diligent-but-hungry workers had transformed her into a scrumptious meal; perhaps we’d like to partake?
If, as Philippine Inquirer columnist Michael L. Tan huffily claims, accusing people of eating dogs is inherently racist, then why are the laws against it in the Philippines so rarely enforced? The other morning, for instance, my 18-year-old niece told me her mother served mutt meat during a recent visit to their provincial island home. Though she’d tasted it before and found it “delicious,” the niece took a pass.
And it wasn’t until earlier this year that South Korea—whose citizens, like Filipinos, often emigrate to the US—finally outlawed the farming, slaughter, and sale of canine meat, effective in 2027. Why the delay? Just to give prolific dog farmers, who fervently opposed the new law, time to find alternative means of support.
“Dogs are dogs,” one of them grunted to the Associated Press, “they’re not humans.”
So, what does all this have to do with Trump’s trumpeting that US immigrants eat dogs? Just that immigrant dog eating in America certainly isn’t unprecedented. And, if not, well—forgive me Sandy—but what the heck’s the big deal?
I still vividly remember the first time I heard the gut-wrenching squeals of a young pig being carried in a sack up my driveway to its slaughter. It happened shortly before my guests, and I enjoyed a delicious lechon dinner.
Let me end by saying that I own no dogs, nor would I ever eat one for breakfast. In good conscience, though, I can’t condemn those who would. Which is just my way of saying: Haitians, whatever the truth or lie of your culinary habits, please feel free to feel free around me.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist, author, and radio broadcaster with homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Norther Mindanao, Philippines. His latest book, A Tooth in My Popsicle, is available on Amazon. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
