ABSTRACT
The historic experience of Arabs and Jews in Haiti has been characterized by mutual ambivalence between host and immigrant. While racism and slavery benefited Semitic-speaking peoples as whites, mercantilism in the colonial period and nationalism thereafter placed limitations on their full participation in the Haitian community. The traditional social marginality of Arabs and Jews as traders, coupled with the comparative privilege they enjoyed, makes a revealing study of the nuances of race and class in a Caribbean society.
