Dominicans in Switzerland: noise and a dispute over public space

Dominicans in Switzerland: the noise that reopens the migration debate

Switzerland has no beach. And yet, every summer, some people head down to the shore of a lake with folding chairs, a cooler and a speaker, ready to spend the day there as if they were at the seaside. That scene, banal in any Mediterranean country, has become the trigger for a discussion about the Dominican community in Switzerland that mixes coexistence, integration and plenty of prejudice.

The issue circulates under a vague label, "third-worldism", which has no academic definition or economic indicator behind it. What does appear, once you scratch the surface, is a fight over public space: who gets to occupy the lakeshore, at what volume and under what rules. Some messages attribute it to a cultural clash; others, to the simple discomfort of sharing a lake.

What is being debated: chairs, lakes and loud music

The recurring image is that of groups sitting in chairs by the water, with loud music, in a country where silence and order function as a hallmark of identity. For some, they are ordinary people spending the day in a place with no beaches. For others, it is proof that a model of coexistence is cracking. The same scene, two opposite readings, and hardly any data in between: figures on coexistence, complaints or sanctions appear nowhere.

There is a nuance that often gets missed. What is criticised is not so much the use of the space as its volume. Nobody disputes the right to sit by the water. What is disputed is the speaker.

The jobs attributed to the Dominican community

Here the narrative becomes more fragile. Some claim that many women work in cleaning —one participant says he sees them at his own workplace— and that many men work in construction. These are typical occupations of any recently arrived migrant group, with high rates of informal economy across Europe. Not a single figure supports the scale, but the observation has its logic: these are sectors with a low language barrier.

Another part of the comments makes a far riskier leap and attributes to the community a link with activities outside the law in specific areas of Zurich, such as Langstrasse. It is a repeated claim and, as far as can be verified, with no evidence whatsoever offered. It should be kept separate from the former: one thing is discussing which sectors people work in, another is pointing to crimes on nothing more than suspicion.

Integration and the German language barrier

Language underpins a good part of the complaints. People are described talking loudly on the phone, in Spanish, in train carriages where silence reigns. A recurring detail: hardly ever is a word heard in German. Whether that is a matter of time or of will is precisely what is in dispute: no newly arrived community masters the local language on day one.

The historical comparison made by another part of the debate is uncomfortable and sharp. Four decades ago, Spanish tourists occupied that same place in the European imagination: loud, gregarious, with their music blaring and litter everywhere. Civility is learned through coexistence and generations, not through a passport. If that worked for the Spanish, the question is why it would not work for others.

The mirror: Spanish tourists and the same noise

The most revealing anecdote does not take place in Switzerland. In a rural area of Spain, some holidaymakers rent an entire house and arrive like a bull in a china shop: shouting, music at full blast, balls on the rooftops and cars that do not fit on roads built for carts. The person telling the story adds the definitive detail: a father yelling at his daughter in the middle of the street, with the whole village aware. They are Spaniards.

That contrast, backed by several voices, dismantles the quick narrative. Uncivic summer behaviour does not distinguish borders: it distinguishes holidays. What changes is how it is interpreted depending on who is behind it.

The third world is people, not the country

There is a thesis running through the exchange from start to finish: development is not determined by territory but by the mindset of those who inhabit it; hence, according to this view, lifting a country out of poverty requires far more than infrastructure. It is a suggestive claim and also a slippery one: it turns a complex phenomenon —income, institutions, the labour market— into a trait of collective character.

The final irony comes from the one pointing out the double standard: in the Dominican Republic, Haitians are rejected for reasons very similar to those now invoked in Europe. The migration complaint, it seems, always travels in one direction only.

What the debate leaves unanswered

On the table remain opaque labour sectors, an integration moving slowly, public spaces shared grudgingly and a label that sounds like a diagnosis but explains nothing. Nobody has yet provided a figure that would allow the phenomenon to be measured. How much of this unease responds to a real problem of coexistence, and how much simply to the discomfort of sharing a shoreline with people who do not look like us?