Being Authentically Dominican

When people ask me what I am, I immediately, without hesitation, respond saying "Dominican." but that would be a lie. I like to think that I am Dominican because I was conceived by Dominican parents and I was born there. A few summers ago, however, I found out that those facts were not enough to make me "fully" Dominican. "You left when you were a baby, that doesn't count. You might as well have been born there!" my friends and cousins teased as I sat with them on a porch on a warm summer night. There comments enraged me because I always thought of myself to be just as Dominican as they were. The rest of the summer was filled with more mockery and insults about what a gringa I was.

This upset me, in part, because they were right. Sure I do not need a tourist card to enter the Dominican Republic. Sure I grew up listening to Aventura, Antony Santos, and Juan Luis Guerra. Sure I consider plantains their own food group, live for baseball season, rock tubis out in public more times than I would admit to, think Vick's VapoRub is the cure to any illness known to man, and I’m probably still subconsciously scared of El Cuco. Is any of that enough to make me "fully" Dominican? Or am I some fraction thereof? Regardless of all the culturally relevant things I do, I have always battled with the idea that I wasn't Dominican enough. Deep down, even though I would never admit it or say it aloud, I know that I am Dominican-American.

My mother and I immigrated to the United States when I was only two months old. Although I grew up with a deep love, pride and respect for my Dominican roots and culture, I am also Americanized. I celebrate Thanksgiving. I drive a car, not a motorcycle. I have electricity twenty-four hours a day. I know how to take buses and trains, I am fluent in English, and I really, really like McDonald's. But is it really fair for them to think of me as a lesser Dominican because I was raised in the US? After all, I am a victim of circumstance. It was my parents' choice to move to the United States. It was my parents' choice to become naturalized citizens.

This is where it gets really confusing. Not only do the Dominicans in the Dominican Republic think of me as a lesser Dominican, but the Americans in the United States think of me as a lesser American. I am looked down upon because my parents never went to college and have regular, low-paying, blue-collar jobs. To white America, I am just another Hispanic girl chasing the American dream, working part-time and attending college in order for my family to progress. In order to make my parents proud and not regret their decision to leave everything they had ever known to give my siblings and me a better life.

The faces that I received in response to me telling people that I went to McNair Academic High School are still etched into my brain. They would open their mouth and eyes really wide and say "You got into McNair?" as if it was impossible for a person of my status to be intelligent. My senior year of high school, one of my teachers confessed to me that he would have never imagined that I was such a good writer based on my appearance. Years later, I am still processing what that means. Do I not look as smart as my peers because I am Latina? I did not know that a certain type of person looked more intelligent than another. Sometimes I feel as though I have to work harder to prove myself because my ethnicity is used against me; that it’s a hindrance rather than an advantage.

In the end, you are what you identify with. Nobody can tell you to pick a side or a culture. Nobody can tell you who you are. I choose to be proud of my Dominican heritage, my traditions, my cuisine, my music and my culture. I choose to keep my roots alive. I may never be as Dominican as those who live in the Dominican Republic, but Dominican identity should not be put on a scale. I will not let others make me feel as a lesser Dominican because I do not live there. I am blessed that my parents brought me to the US for greater opportunities, and I am eternally grateful for that. I am not against assimilation into American culture, because everybody wants to fit in. I admit that I have adopted American traditions and even an American way of thinking. So what am I? I am an American by circumstance and I am a Dominican by choice. I am both. 

Nelcida L. Garcia, G.O. Team: Dominican Republic

Some Thoughts on Growing Up Black & Caribbean in the US

The initial title for this post was “To Be Doubly Dispersed.” I finally decided against it thinking that it might be too esoteric of an allusion to the African diasporas – dispersions – of which I am a part. My grandmother, Shirley, and my mother, Patricia immigrated to the US in 1968 and 1970, respectively from Trinidad & Tobago. My older brother, Alex, and I are the first US-born generation in our family. Much of my worldview, including how I think about and experience my blackness, continues to be shaped by the distinct ways that African culture was distilled in these communities.

After living and working abroad, I have come to realize how beneficial of an experience it has been to occupy these three distinct but often converging roles: that of being a US citizen in the world, of being a black man in the US, and of coming from foreign roots in a black American population that largely traces its roots to the southern states. I am aware of the power that I wield when I travel around developing countries with a US passport. Coming from a traditionally oppressed group in the US I find that viscerally I am sympathetic to populations on the unfortunate end of some of our foreign policy decisions. That is, I understand myself in relation to those people in a way that I imagine is different from many of my compatriots. The majority of my family, on their small, oil-rich island nation, is, after all, subject to US foreign policy.

Despite the rewards of this diversity, I have lived with a persistent – but not ever-present – sense of dislocation. This may be a shared experience among first generation Americans, but I have never been able to fully escape the feeling of being neither American enough, nor Caribbean enough to not feel as though one or the other part of me was not setting me apart from whichever group I was trying to blend in to. After all, my grandmother still calls me “Yankee boy,” and my friends always seem to catch the slight change in my accent when I talk to someone from the English-speaking Caribbean.

There is a limit to what we can absorb during our most formative years. When one is drawing upon several traditions – each one diverse in its own right – one is bound to miss many bits of cultural knowledge and experience. In my case, these lost opportunities can manifest themselves in minor, at times comical, confessions. To my black American friends, I might note that I still cannot play spades, and that it took me 19 years of life on this planet before I ate a single fiber of collard greens. (Have a black friend explain.) On the other hand, I am terrible at all the Trinidadian card games that my grandmother taught me growing up – and my cousins enjoy reminding me of that. Individually, this sort of thing is not devastating, but taken together with similar occurrences, I quickly began to realize growing up that my blackness was taking on a slightly different flavor than the groups by which I had been influenced.

Dwayne David Paul, Asst. Director of Campus Ministry, G.O. coordinator

Rachel Wifall

I am a caucasian woman. While I would say that my current circle of friends and associates is quite diverse, I grew up in a predominantly white, middle to upper-middle class community. My European ancestors were farmers and blue collar workers who came to the United States well over a hundred years ago. Their ethnic traditions were not actively maintained over the years, outside of religion; if I were to choose a community with which my family closely identifies, I would say "we are Lutherans." I call myself "American," but I have always been highly interested in different cultures and therefore have traveled widely, have studied three foreign languages in school (French, German and Russian), and know quite a bit of Spanish through my frequent interactions with Spanish speakers--including my niece, whose mother hails from Ecuador.

While I am obviously part of the dominant racial and ethnic population of the U.S., I have always identified strongly with my subordinate status as a woman. I was a precocious child in the 1970's who was well aware of the Women's Rights Movement, and I tried to show at every stage of my life that I could keep up with the boys and men--especially in academics.

Professor Rachel Wifall, G.O. Team: Dominican Republic

Thinking about Race & Ethnicity and Identity

The next few blog posts are from members of G.O. Team: Dominican Republic. The prompt was for them to explain their racial or ethnic background, and to say a bit about their experience occupying that social location. Of course, one does not live one's race or ethnicity in isolation from other dynamics (gender, class, disability, etc.) ; therefore, folks were encouraged to think about how those themes intersect with others in shaping their identities.

Dwayne David Paul

Dominican-American Star Gives Free Super Bowl Concert

In preparation for the Super Bowl, PepsiCo, an official sponsor, hosted three days of free concerts at Bryant Park in New York City to thank the area for hosting Sunday's game. A limited number of free tickets were distributed online prior to the performances. On Thursday, January 30th, Dominican-American bachata singer-songwriter, Prince Royce, was announced to perform.

Prince Royce, born Geoffrey Royce Rojas, was raised in the Bronx by his Dominican father, who was a taxi driver, and Dominican mother, who worked at a beauty salon. He began writing songs in his teens, and his first mainstream hit was the remake of Ben E. King's "Stand By Me" into a bilingual bachata. Although he has experimented with some English genres, he claims to concentrate on bachata due to his parents' influence, and his desire to explore his roots.

Prince Royce, who has has three studio albums, Prince Royce, Phase II and Soy El Mismo, is currently a coach on La Voz Kids, is working on his first English album, has recently partnered up with Pepsi and is preparing for a summer tour.

Prior to the concert, Prince Royce tweeted that he was giving away the last of the tickets to the first 25 people to enter the special promotional code. I took the chance thinking there was nothing to lose, and luckily I won a pair of tickets! Two hours later, I arrived in New York City and joined the line of excited fans braving the cold waiting to enter the event.

Prince Royce began the concert with his hit collaboration with Daddy Yankee, who was not present, "Ven Conmigo." He went on to sing other hits from all three of his albums including "Stand by Me," "Incodicional" and "El Amor Que Perdimos." The concert was intimate enough for him to sit down on the stage and sing; he even came down from his stage to throw roses and t-shirts at the screaming women in the audience. The concert ended with one of Prince Royce's greatest hits, "Corazon Sin Cara," which he dedicated to all the fans in the room. What a great night for all of us Hispanic bachata lovers in the room!

Nelcida L. Garcia, G.O.: Dominican Republic

Nelcida (L) & Valentina of G.O. Team 2013 (R)

Prince Royce (Photo credit: Nelcida L. Garcia)

G.O. Team: Dominican Republic Talks with Poet-Scholar, Joshua Bennett

Literature scholar and The Strivers Row poet, Joshua Bennett, met with G.O. Team D.R. last night during its weekly meeting. They had an amazing conversation engaging themes of race, faith, identity, anti-blackness, intersectionality, & forms of oppression using W.E.B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk as a starting point. Their conversation with Joshua will provide the content for the first series of probing reflections from G.O. Team: D.R.

Dwayne David Paul

L to R top: Sharoze, Nelcida, Cassie, Ahmed, Althea, Dwayne, Joshua, Gibson; Bottom: Rachel, Rocco, Genesis, Lindsey