Parsley Massacre - Origin of The Name

Origin of The Name

The popular name for the massacre came from the shibboleth that the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo had his soldiers apply to determine whether or not those living on the border were native Dominicans or immigrant Haitians. Dominican soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley to someone and ask "What is this?"; how the person would pronounce the Spanish word for parsley (perejil) would determine his/her fate. French and Haitian Creole pronounce the r as a uvular approximant; thus, their speakers can have great difficulties with the alveolar tap or trill of Spanish. The Dominicans realized that a Haitian would have difficulty pronouncing perejil, so if the person could pronounce perejil with a trill, the person was considered to be Dominican and allowed to live, but if the person pronounced perejil without the trill, the person was considered to be Haitian and executed.

Though this term was used frequently in the English-speaking media during the Commemoration of 75 years after the events (October 2012), most scholars recognize that this is a misnomer, as research by Lauren Derby has shown that this explanation is based more on myth than what personal accounts reveal.