im sure this has been discussed before but me and my mother are having a discussion, i am half dominican and my mother is italion. my father had black features except he had wavy hair it was kinky and course when he was younger though. i have researched race and black and dominican and everything on race and ethnicity since i was around 13 or 12 im now 16 ive written piles of essays and my mother continues to try and tell me my father is not black. black is a race and dominican is an ethnicity. i never have been to the D.R. and never even was raised to speak spanish. my customs were all american. so when people ask me i am not ignorant i no my father conisdered himself black, when people would he would say he was black dominican. he would make black jokes and he was basically treated as black since he lost alot of connection with the spanish speaking world. so when i am asked what race i am i say i am black dominican and italion. i sometimes say im black and white and sometimes dominican and italion because one cannot identify as a half a race and half an ethnicity its like saying your half cat and half german shephard. but even though i never knew anything about my dominican culture i still resaerch and learn and claim my dominicaness, and even when people ask about my name being jose when i say im half black and half white i say im half dominican, i do not deny it im proud and i wished i learned spanish when i was young because it is so diffucult when your older. but what im saying is i need dominicans to express there opinions on this so i can present this to my mother because she says im not black im dominican when dominican is not a race.....