Question For Nals and Hillbilly...

Snuffy

Bronze
May 3, 2002
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I'm going to try and word this in a way that I don't offend anyone.

Are Dominicans considered in the world to be predominately 'Carribean black'. I know they probably don't want to be considered black but if their obvious predominate bloodline is of African descent then aren't they African more so than Spanish or Indian? So it would be correct to label them black? I know this is a touchy subject and forgive me if I am ignorant on the specifics of this subject.

Someone on another thread was saying that people had mislabeled her Dominican husband as a black man.

Thanks.
 

Dolores1

DR1
May 3, 2000
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www.
You should ask the person who is doing the considering. To the best of my understanding, we Dominicans consider ourselves just Dominicans. Here we do not have the labeling that is so common in the US. Dominican encompasses a wide sprectrum of races and colors, depending on the mix of where the person comes from. Even a person of Chinese looks could be a Dominican. Please note that this mix is constantly happening, especially with all the waves of tourists moving to the DR and with all the Dominicans that have moved abroad and brought back their families. DR is a true melting pot.
 

Hillbilly

Moderator
Jan 1, 2002
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I have to agree with Lady D...

If we internalize ourselves into th Dominican psyche, I do nto think that we will find any conscious thought regarding things African. I have never heard, for instance, and Dominican say that they were African-Dominican. And certainly, as I have mentioned before, I have never heard any Dominican talk about is African ancestors.

The Guyolas of San Pedro de Macor?s and the Congos of Villa Mella trace their roots back to Africa, but, if the truth be told the first wee imported here from the English speaking islands and the latter are a minisucle fragment of the total population.

In the rest of the island, from Montecristi to Higuey, Puerto Plata to Bani and Pedernales, the culture is Hispanic, first and then Dominican..

If you look at the art, there is--to my eyes-- a total lack of anything African, wheras in Haiti, the art is rooted in Africa.

If you look at the language, Spanish, there are, again no references to Africa that I can easily identify. There are plenty of old Spanish and Arabic uses, like saying "?C?mo estamos? " as a greeting" and "Abur" as a farewell..

That's enough for now.

HB :D:D:D
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
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Long post, but if you truly want my opinion, read on!

Snuffy said:
I'm going to try and word this in a way that I don't offend anyone.

Are Dominicans considered in the world to be predominately 'Carribean black'. I know they probably don't want to be considered black but if their obvious predominate bloodline is of African descent then aren't they African more so than Spanish or Indian? So it would be correct to label them black? I know this is a touchy subject and forgive me if I am ignorant on the specifics of this subject.

Someone on another thread was saying that people had mislabeled her Dominican husband as a black man.

Thanks.
Well,

Considering that much of the world have never heard of the DR, much less seen a Dominican of any kind, I doubt the world considers the existence of Dominicans, let alone racial classifications.

However, for those who do know the country's existence, it depends on a few factors:

1. How they know they country

2. Their own personal beliefs imbedded in their upbringing or native land

3. The person's educational level

Usually, a well educated Hispanic person from any country would never generalize in categorizing the people of any Latin country as one thing or another, because there is a very clear consensus among intelligent people that with the exception of Uruguay and Argentina, Latin American countries don't have people that can be easily categorized due to extensive mixing of all sorts.

The most ignorant of people are ignorant on their approach to understanding and/or labeling the DR or any country for that matter, and since they are ignorant what value does their opinion has? Not much in the face of a better educated person, though ignorant do value their own judgments among themselves.

However, much of what I have written here thus far is a technicality that has to be brought to the table in these types of discussions. Since I think I know what you truly are asking I will answer as follows:

Dominicans are considered to racially be mulattos, this is a problem for countries that don't recognize mulattos as a separate race (ie. US primarily), but most countries do accept this categorization. This is not a correct categorization because mixture is very personal, no two people have an exact copy of his/her ethnic mixture, and this is even more so true in this country.

However, the DR is considered to be a mulatto nation by many people, including Dominican officials and that's the answer towards your question.

In terms of culture, the culture is hispanic and this is very evident. Culturally, the DR feels more in tune with other hispanic countries like Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Cuba, even Spain with not much of a stretch. This becomes evident the moment you visit other non-hispanic Caribbean countries like Jamaica, Barbados, Martinique, Aruba among others, then you visit Puerto Rico and Cuba and the DR culturally fits very well into the Spanish Caribbean niche. Heck, you don't even have to leave this island, simply cross the border into Haiti and you will notice a different tempo in the way culture presents itself.

You would be hard pressed to believe that you are anywhere but in a Latin American country as you travel through out the country with the exception of a few pockets from non-hispanic cultural traits have been transplanted by immigrants and descendants of immigrants from non-hispanic nations.

To further expand on this issue, there are people who constantly want to push their ways of thinking on other people, while disrespecting the other peoples ways of thinking in the process.

Dominicans come in every shape and color and combination that humans could possibly be exposed to. If you spend enough time in the DR, you will see Dominicans resembling all types of humans in existence today. For this reason and for the reason that labels of this sort is a result of previous generations based on bigoted and misinterpreted information, its best for people around the world to move away from labeling people and simply accept people for who they are as oppose to the way they look.

Another poster who I will not reveal the screen name without his/her permission PM me about a similar situation dealing with racial classification in US vs. DR
And what my opinions are on this subject, on classifications in particular.

My answer was the following:

I feel that categorization of people is senseless, racist, and has no value. Science has already proven that race in a biological sense simply does not exist; race is nothing more than a senseless creation in social spheres for the sake of power, control, and exploitation. I am for the elimination of the color categories in Dominican identity cards and for dropping the hyphens in American self identification.

There is no such thing as afro-American, Dominican-American, etc, there is only one American! There is only one Dominican! One Peruvian! Etc.

How people act, the content of their character is more important than the color of their skin, the shape of their nose, or any superficial nonsense we use to segregate each other.

If we need to categorize each other, let's categorize each other on the basis of nationality, but not on the basis of skin color or race.

Those racist categorizations were created in previous racist times by racist people who were shallow, bigots, and bent on bad information.

Today we know that we are more alike than different, let's now act as such!

In addition to that, I responded to him or her with this extra information which I think is relevant to this thread:

Having said all of this, it’s important to note that most Dominicans today are not descendants of the colonial peoples. Most modern Dominicans are descendants of either and/or a mixture of Spaniards from Canary Islands who were moved here by force by the Spanish crown in the mid-1700s to populate the island. During those times cities like Samana, Bani, etc were founded. Also, afro-Americans who migrated to Samana and Puerto Plata in the early 1800s, British West Indies blacks who migrated to San Pedro and the southeast in the early 1900s, and whites/Jews who migrated to Sosua and Santo Domingo in the mid 1900s. The most recent wave of numerous migrants hail from Haiti since the 1980s to today. From all these peoples is where the vast majority of modern Dominicans come from with Dominico-Haitianos increasing rather fast from the 1980s onward.

There were smaller groups of people who moved here during those times as well, including Japanese, Chinese, Syrians, Lebanese, and other Latin-Americans. For this reason, categorizing a Dominican as this or that is useless, because there is so much mixture not just within the Dominican population but also in any given Dominican individual.

In conclusion, Latin Americans are more steeped in Latin American culture. Latin American culture is simply a mixture of Native American, European, and African influences that are practiced, adored, and is taken pride by all the citizens of each society, with no distinction along racial lines towards who accepts what, but rather everyone accepts everything. Most differences in culture exists between the classes more so than between the races.

With the US, most people still have a hard time identifying what American culture is. I blame this on the constant segregation taking place in one shape or another in that country. The day that an Afro-American and a white American can look at each other as fellow countrymen and not two different people of two different worlds in the same country, will be the day when American culture will be a definite thing. What is even sadder is the much greater rejection of the Native American culture from the mainstream American culture. Native Americans are often not in the picture of what America identifies itself today.

The best advice I can give people is to forget what happened in the past. Always teach what occurred, but always remember that those issues of the past belong to the people of the past. Modern people have absolutely nothing to do with what occurred in past times. There is not a single white person in this hemisphere that can honestly say he/she knows what it feels to be a master and there is not a single black person in this hemisphere who can say that he/she knows what it feels to be a slave. We can only imagine what if would be like to be such, but we don't really know. Why?

Because those are problems that our ancestors created among themselves, not problems of our own. A parent is responsible for what his child does under his custody, but the child is not responsible for what the parent does. If a child breaks something in a store, the parent pays the clerk. If the parent breaks something in the store, the child has no blame in this.

Why can't we apply the same principles to what occurred in the past vs. what we can create for our future as human beings in this earth?

-NAL

Edited to add: Due to the sensitivity of this issue and my plenty of postings regarding this and related issues, I will NOT further elaborate on this issue and/or my post on this thread.

If more elaboration is needed, simply PM me.
 
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Snuffy

Bronze
May 3, 2002
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Okay...thank you Nals, Hillbilly and others. I know it is a sensitive subject. I still think it can be discussed. Nals...I don't consider myself consciously prejudice...but perhaps I am. I hope for a better future as you do. I simply found it somewhat interesting that Dominicans try so hard to deny any connect to Africa. Are they so ashamed to be dark ER? Where in history did they decide to deny this obvous heritage? And African means what? You are less intelligent, less attractive, closer to an animal?

Of course there are many different combinations. There are those where it is obvious their blood is for the most part Spaniard. There are those who are obviously much closer to African. In some people here I see a dominate Indian. But if you venture into the Barrios what you see most is a mix that appears to have a dominate African appearance.

You talk about Latin America. In my travels through Latin America it is obvious that in countries like Mexico and Costa Rica...I see much more Spanish blood than here in the DR.

I'm not trying to say that these people are black and thus less of a person. Quiet the contrary. I am curious as to why there is such a denial of heritage.

No offense intended to anyone!!!
 
Jan 5, 2006
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As a Dominican who has experienced life there, in the US, and a bit in Europe, I can tell you that the issue of race is just not as important to the people in DR, as it is to those in the US and Europe.

However, your observation of the Dominican denial of our African heritage is somewhat off base. If you look at the everyday life in DR, you will notice that African traits are prevalent in things as common as our music, foods, and even religion for the many that believe in "brujeria". Surely, the average Dominican does not classify him/herself as Spanish, Caribe Indian, African, or any mixture thereof, and it is not until we leave the confines of our island nation, that we are confronted with having to classify ourselves as Hispanic or Latino. IMO, the average Dominican, especially those of us who are better educated, whether it be in DR or abroad, are well aware and very proud of our African ancestry, but quite frankly, it is just not a big deal.

BTW, no offense taken with anyone's post or point of view.