You mentioned Ernesto Sagas, his book is a big exaggeration of racial identificaton attitudes of DR at the end of the 20th century.
He is probably Haitian decent. We'll need to do a background check. I've done mine, my family are Whites and Mulattoes, we don't deny any African roots, and we were kicking Soulouque's ass back in the 1850's.
I've noticed that younger Dominicans who have lived in the DR their entire lives are aware of their African heritage. Of course, I'm talking of the one's who attend school and actually put attention to what's being taught, etc.
The "problem" (notice the quotation mark, its meant to state that its not a real problem, but more of a misunderstanding that needs to be understood) is that many non-Dominicans, particularly some Dominican obsessed Haitians and Afro-anything who have been heavily influenced by US definition of race, ethnicity, etc expect or want Dominicans to develop a pride in "blackness", whatever that is.
The truth is that Dominicans (nor Afro-Cubans, Afro-Colombians, Afro-Venezuelans, Afro-Brazilians, Afro-Peruvians, Afro-Haitians, Afro-Jamaicans, Afro-insert whatever nationality) don't base their pride and identity on race or ethnicity, Dominicans base their pride in their nationalism.
There is no pride in being black, there is simply a pride in being Dominican, a pride in being Cuban, a pride in being Jamaican, etc.
Everyone shares a Dominicanism regardless of skin tone, facial features, or even socio-economic standing similarly how in Cuba everyone shares a Cubaness that trasends all other differences that in a country like the US poses such a challenge.
I've met Jamaicans who have told me that the day they realized that they were "black" was when they arrived to the US for the first time. Shocking to hear that from Jamaicans, since according to some authors and "experts", Dominicans are the only one's who don't have a pride based on race and they attribute such to some sort of denial.
It never enters their minds that the reason why race is such a central focus within African-American identity and pride is because they have been systematically denied full participation and recognition as Americans in the past. Because of that, because their own country made it a case in point to make them feel less than human, treat them less than animals, and denigrate them to a level of "otherness" because of their race, their skin color, and their subservient historical legacy (ie. slavery). Afro-Americans had little else to hold onto other than race and skin color for their pride, identity, and to combat systematic racism and exclusion, racism and exclusions that was not as severely imposed in many Latin American countries and whenever it was imposed, it was more on the basis of socio-economic status more than anything else.
Dominicans of all social level are now aware of the African contribution and component of Dominican society, more so the younger educated population than the older and the less educated. But, this will not lead and there is no need to develop some sort of kinship and pride based on race/skin tone because we all share a certain Dominicaness that unites all Dominicans regardless of our personal ethnic/racial make up.
And "Dominicaness" embodies the full mixture and spirit of all the peoples and cultures that have populated that country since the day Columbus first set his foot and decalred such as territory of Spain. This is true in the music, the language, the food, literature, art, arquitecture, in everything at all levels of society.
If anything devides harshly Dominican society is class and money. The rest is negociable based on the position an individual finds himself in the socio-economic latter, nothing more and nothing less.
People who fail to understand that aspect of the Latin American experience are bound to judge anything Latin American on a tangent so far off that to call it unrealistic is an understatement.
-NALs
