Based on our analysis of Dominican adult citizenship rates and potential voting behaviors, this report offers the following recommendations to maximize Dominican civic participation and leadership:
- Include and streamline a Dominican self-identifying box into the Census and other national/local surveys, and produce mechanisms to perform national/local surveys, by and for the Dominican community
- Request race and ethnicity information at the time of voter registration
- Facilitate voting registration through on-line/same-day sign up efforts76
- Create credible and stable research partnerships with educational institutions
Below supportive arguments are presented as to why each of these recommendations is critical to better understanding the Dominican community and empowering Latinos and ethnic communities, in general.
Streamline a Dominican self-identification box into national and local surveys
The goal of many Latino-focused national surveys is to assess political activity of Latinos in the
United States. Many surveys such as the National Latino Political Survey (NLPS) were developed
to meet this purpose. The ethnicity question in the NPLS survey asks
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whether the respondent is either of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban descent, and/or Other Hispanic.
While this might have been appropriate when Dominicans represented a smaller Latino ethnic group, the Dominican population has grown significantly over the last 30 years. The marginalization of Dominicans into “Other Hispanic/Latino” is no longer acceptable.
According to a recent report by the CUNY-Dominican Studies Institute, the annual per capita income of the Dominican community is $11,065. This is below the per capita incomes of Latinos in general and all other racial and ethnic categorizations in the US.77 As such, Dominicans need to become aware when and if they are disproportionately marginalized among the Latino ethnic groups. This analysis can be facilitated by the inclusion of a Dominican self-selection ethnic box, in addition to nativity questions. Given the growing Dominican population, this is an opportune time to start assessing if there are any generational differences among first, second and third generations of Dominicans. Not all US Census and Latino-focused surveys ask information on nativity and the parent’s nativity. Nativity is a critical variable that should not be an excluded from important surveys.
Request race and ethnicity information at the time of voter registration
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Race and ethnicity data should be collected at the time of voter registration
to better assess and target voter registration efforts.
In fact, this should be a nationwide effort.
For example, in January 2003 the Committee of Government Administration and
Election in the State of Connecticut submitted and passed such a bill (H.R. 5829)
that became effective January 1, 2004. However, the question remains whether
Dominicans will be relegated, yet again, to "Other Hispanic/Latino."
The gathering of this information can also facilitate in helping electoral districts close the gaps observed in this study between those who are eligible to vote and those who are in fact registered to vote. Moreover, this information can allow community leaders to assess which electoral districts have a high Dominican concentration and can serve as fertile ground for exit poll surveys. This is the only way Dominican-Americans can truly measure whether we are exercising our right to vote.
Facilitate voting registration through on-line/same-day sign up efforts
One of the strongest and most vocal proponents for on-line and same-day voter registration is Dr. Michael Alvarez, a renowned political scientist from Cal Tech. Through his research and literature review he has found the following:
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