NOTE: Please forgive me if this topic has been discussed before or if this site shuns controversial topics. While I am not new to the site per se, I don't post often or visit often as I am not Dominican and will often not know what is going on. I am a part of this site because a whole wing of my father's side of my family are of Dominican heritage even though I really don't know them. I am trying to learn more about them as I anticipate a trip down there in the near future. I come here to get to know a little bit more about the Dominican people on a whole.
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After 20 years in Florida, I moved back to N.Y. I lived here before on two occasions but lived in the southeastern Bronx, ha a 7-year stint on my home island of St. Thomas and then moved to Brooklyn. I never really had much contact with Dominicans until within the past 10 years or so when in trips back home (St. Thomas) I started noticing their growing numbers there as well as on other nearby islands such as Nevis where my mother was born and also on St. Kitts where my dad is from and where I was raised.
I now live in middle Harlem just a few blocks southeast of the large Dominican population. I also hang out in a few Dominican clubs with my brother in the south Bronx. He just loves him some Dominican women (lol). Interestingly enough, the Dominicans always think I am Dominican for some reason but I think I know why.
Anyway, I found this opportunity quite inviting. I want to either write a book or do a documentary about the eastern Caribbean and their contribution to the Dominican society in the Dominican Republic. When I mentioned this to my girlfriend who grew up in Harlem, she offered me a word of caution. She said that I should not be surprised if [some] Dominicans, notably the "white" ones or the more fairer ones came off as racist. At first I did not pay it too much attention because I was wondering how racist could people be about their own skin color. I wondered because most of the Dominicans I met were my complexion (caramel color) or sometimes a little darker or a little lighter.
I then met another guy who grew up in Harlem who is married to a Dominican woman. I told him I wanted to go down to the D.R and he told me he has been there a few times. We eventually got around to the people and culture and I told him I had family there and wanted to meet them. Assuming my family were "outsiders" and probably of a darker complexion, he pointed to his dark skin and told me that down there in the D.R there are issues with skin color and he went on to tell me of some stories to back up his claim.
Just yesterday I was in Bloomfield, N.J buying some things when I asked a guy for some directions. While he was talking to me an older darker skin lady came up to him talking in Spanish and he replied in Spanish. Turns out that the woman was his brother's mother in law and she was Dominican as well as her fair skinned daughter next to her. I asked the guy if he was Dominican and he told me "no." He said he was from Belize. In the course of conversation we began to talk about the Dominican Republic a place he has been to many times and will be going back to in April. We got around to my plan and he said to me, "don't be surprised if there is some reluctance when talking to Dominicans about the segment of their society that comes from Haiti or your end of the Caribbean?" While he was saying that, he began to pinch his skin as if to imply skin color/tone is an issue down there.
What caught my attention in what he said, however, was that the "indoctrination" of the Dominican psyche in relation to skin color and the subsequent racism owes its prevalence to the dictator Trujillo. This was something I never even thought about. When he mentioned Trujillo, I immediately thought of Ulises Heureaux, the Dominican president who held power in the latter 1800s. His father was Haitian and his mother was from the THEN Danish West Indian island known as St. Thomas, my own home island now under U.S control. There are rumors that he exterminated native "white" Dominicans and may have been responsible for freely allowing Haitians as well as people from his mother's end of the Caribbean (the eastern Caribbean) into the Dominican Republic which the native Dominicans resented. Was Trujillo's reign retaliatory in part?
I just want to know our thoughts on this? I'm REALLY interested in getting more knowledge on all of this. Are the claims that I have mentioned unfounded? Is there really a history of racism in the D.R?
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After 20 years in Florida, I moved back to N.Y. I lived here before on two occasions but lived in the southeastern Bronx, ha a 7-year stint on my home island of St. Thomas and then moved to Brooklyn. I never really had much contact with Dominicans until within the past 10 years or so when in trips back home (St. Thomas) I started noticing their growing numbers there as well as on other nearby islands such as Nevis where my mother was born and also on St. Kitts where my dad is from and where I was raised.
I now live in middle Harlem just a few blocks southeast of the large Dominican population. I also hang out in a few Dominican clubs with my brother in the south Bronx. He just loves him some Dominican women (lol). Interestingly enough, the Dominicans always think I am Dominican for some reason but I think I know why.
Anyway, I found this opportunity quite inviting. I want to either write a book or do a documentary about the eastern Caribbean and their contribution to the Dominican society in the Dominican Republic. When I mentioned this to my girlfriend who grew up in Harlem, she offered me a word of caution. She said that I should not be surprised if [some] Dominicans, notably the "white" ones or the more fairer ones came off as racist. At first I did not pay it too much attention because I was wondering how racist could people be about their own skin color. I wondered because most of the Dominicans I met were my complexion (caramel color) or sometimes a little darker or a little lighter.
I then met another guy who grew up in Harlem who is married to a Dominican woman. I told him I wanted to go down to the D.R and he told me he has been there a few times. We eventually got around to the people and culture and I told him I had family there and wanted to meet them. Assuming my family were "outsiders" and probably of a darker complexion, he pointed to his dark skin and told me that down there in the D.R there are issues with skin color and he went on to tell me of some stories to back up his claim.
Just yesterday I was in Bloomfield, N.J buying some things when I asked a guy for some directions. While he was talking to me an older darker skin lady came up to him talking in Spanish and he replied in Spanish. Turns out that the woman was his brother's mother in law and she was Dominican as well as her fair skinned daughter next to her. I asked the guy if he was Dominican and he told me "no." He said he was from Belize. In the course of conversation we began to talk about the Dominican Republic a place he has been to many times and will be going back to in April. We got around to my plan and he said to me, "don't be surprised if there is some reluctance when talking to Dominicans about the segment of their society that comes from Haiti or your end of the Caribbean?" While he was saying that, he began to pinch his skin as if to imply skin color/tone is an issue down there.
What caught my attention in what he said, however, was that the "indoctrination" of the Dominican psyche in relation to skin color and the subsequent racism owes its prevalence to the dictator Trujillo. This was something I never even thought about. When he mentioned Trujillo, I immediately thought of Ulises Heureaux, the Dominican president who held power in the latter 1800s. His father was Haitian and his mother was from the THEN Danish West Indian island known as St. Thomas, my own home island now under U.S control. There are rumors that he exterminated native "white" Dominicans and may have been responsible for freely allowing Haitians as well as people from his mother's end of the Caribbean (the eastern Caribbean) into the Dominican Republic which the native Dominicans resented. Was Trujillo's reign retaliatory in part?
I just want to know our thoughts on this? I'm REALLY interested in getting more knowledge on all of this. Are the claims that I have mentioned unfounded? Is there really a history of racism in the D.R?