I had an interesting conversation with a Dominican woman recently who was explaining to me why some things in the Dominican Republic, like education, don?t receive the attention they do in other places in the world. ?Unfortunately, we don?t give some things the respect they deserve. We think differently, we act different, we are Dominican.?
It wasn?t a putdown. This woman, an educator herself, has traveled the world and has choices, and chooses to be in the Dominican Republic, to work to improve the status of and commitment to education, and says proudly, ?I will be a Dominican until the day I die.? She wears her national pride on her chest, as do all Dominicans I meet.
Reflecting on what the woman said has helped me to try to put some things into clearer perspective. While I love living here, I find myself frustrated at times by the differences between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic, frustrated in part because I naturally filter much of what I see through the gauze of the Stars and Stripes and my American perspective is often a contradiction to the realities of the Dominican Republic.
Please understand that I made it a point when I decided to live here to observe and not criticize; I am first and foremost a guest in this country, a foreign country. I remember that my ex-girlfriend, a Dominican who lives in New York City, and I used to fight all the time about her perpetual tardiness. She would always try to tell me, ?Well, in my country, people are not as concerned about time.? And I would always tell her, ?Well, we are not in your country.?
Well, now I am in her country, and you know what? People are not as concerned about time. The pace is slower, people don?t rush to get places and therefore often don?t get to their appointed rounds at the appointed time. You adjust by making only one appointment in an afternoon instead of two or three, and taking a book to read while you wait. You can?t let lateness stress you or you will always be stressed, I can assure you.
Yet my American penchant for punctuality tugs at me innards. I hate being late; it was something that was drilled into me growing up and I also have always resisted falling into the stereotype of CPT ? colored people time. So I often operate in a contradiction here in the Dominican Republic; I am on time though I know I will have to wait.
In an effort to better understand all of this, I have been reading a lot about ethnocentrism, including how it relates to baseball in the Dominican Republic. As defined by Alan Klein, a professor at Northeastern University, in his study Progressive Ethnocentrism: Ideology and Understanding in Dominican Baseball, ethnocentrism is ?The effort to examine the problems associated with interpreting events and practices emanating in one cultural context [the Dominican Republic] by those of another [the United States].? He adds, ? Ethnocentrism has been considered to be a problem linked to close-minded individuals and agencies, but this study attempts to show that progressive thinkers can also fall prey to it.?
I consider myself a progressive thinker and truly work on not being closed minded, but I have seen it up close and personal. A guy I know, who is back in the U.S. now, spent several months here, complaining daily about Dominicans being late, about the electricity going off, about the lack of hot water, that he thought Dominicans should speak English, even in a Spanish-speaking country. How close minded is that? Or maybe a better question is: How American is that?
Americans tend to embrace the belief that all things American are better and indeed, we have been spoiled into accepting that belief. Most of us take electricity for granted, can turn on a faucet and get hot water, and converse in English, but the truth is that that is not a global reality . The world extends beyond the 50 United States; more people speak Spanish in the world than English.
Baseball is played with the same rules in both the Dominican Republic and the United States. The distance between the pitching rubber and home plate is 60 feet, 6 inches in both countries. Still three strikes and you are out whether you are in New York or Santo Domingo. Nine innings are a game in Chicago and Santiago.
But the passions ignited by baseball are different: Northeastern?s Professor Klein states in his study that in the Dominican Republic the dream of baseball shines radiantly in the individual, but blinds the society around it. And it soaks up the energies and hopes of young boys whose time and dreams might be better invested, he says, suggesting that this actually plays into U.S. interests, allowing baseball teams to develop the best players for their own benefits.
And, just as the perception and/or reality of U.S. dominance generates resentment, real or imagined, Dominican dependence on American baseball creates the same resentment, whether either country admits it or not. In the Dominican case, Klein insinuates that baseball is the main tool to resisting American cultural domination; that Dominican players resent the ethnocentric attitude American baseball brings to their country and to the game of baseball. It is reflected in the Dominican press that treats Dominican players as heroes of the game, saving baseball from American sensibilities that undermine the national identity of Dominican baseball and its contributions.
It is a dichotomy that the two sides are going to have to address, as each has become interdependent. Major League Baseball is in the Dominican Republic to develop players as inexpensively as possible, while Dominicans see Major League Baseball ? and playing in America ? as the path to success. That reality has generated a myriad of problems, but resolving the problems, in part, necessitates resolving the underlying cultural conflicts that exist.
Then again, baseball is only a game, right?
Dominican Republic Sports & Education Academy - Dominican Baseball Academy, Student Athletes,
It wasn?t a putdown. This woman, an educator herself, has traveled the world and has choices, and chooses to be in the Dominican Republic, to work to improve the status of and commitment to education, and says proudly, ?I will be a Dominican until the day I die.? She wears her national pride on her chest, as do all Dominicans I meet.
Reflecting on what the woman said has helped me to try to put some things into clearer perspective. While I love living here, I find myself frustrated at times by the differences between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic, frustrated in part because I naturally filter much of what I see through the gauze of the Stars and Stripes and my American perspective is often a contradiction to the realities of the Dominican Republic.
Please understand that I made it a point when I decided to live here to observe and not criticize; I am first and foremost a guest in this country, a foreign country. I remember that my ex-girlfriend, a Dominican who lives in New York City, and I used to fight all the time about her perpetual tardiness. She would always try to tell me, ?Well, in my country, people are not as concerned about time.? And I would always tell her, ?Well, we are not in your country.?
Well, now I am in her country, and you know what? People are not as concerned about time. The pace is slower, people don?t rush to get places and therefore often don?t get to their appointed rounds at the appointed time. You adjust by making only one appointment in an afternoon instead of two or three, and taking a book to read while you wait. You can?t let lateness stress you or you will always be stressed, I can assure you.
Yet my American penchant for punctuality tugs at me innards. I hate being late; it was something that was drilled into me growing up and I also have always resisted falling into the stereotype of CPT ? colored people time. So I often operate in a contradiction here in the Dominican Republic; I am on time though I know I will have to wait.
In an effort to better understand all of this, I have been reading a lot about ethnocentrism, including how it relates to baseball in the Dominican Republic. As defined by Alan Klein, a professor at Northeastern University, in his study Progressive Ethnocentrism: Ideology and Understanding in Dominican Baseball, ethnocentrism is ?The effort to examine the problems associated with interpreting events and practices emanating in one cultural context [the Dominican Republic] by those of another [the United States].? He adds, ? Ethnocentrism has been considered to be a problem linked to close-minded individuals and agencies, but this study attempts to show that progressive thinkers can also fall prey to it.?
I consider myself a progressive thinker and truly work on not being closed minded, but I have seen it up close and personal. A guy I know, who is back in the U.S. now, spent several months here, complaining daily about Dominicans being late, about the electricity going off, about the lack of hot water, that he thought Dominicans should speak English, even in a Spanish-speaking country. How close minded is that? Or maybe a better question is: How American is that?
Americans tend to embrace the belief that all things American are better and indeed, we have been spoiled into accepting that belief. Most of us take electricity for granted, can turn on a faucet and get hot water, and converse in English, but the truth is that that is not a global reality . The world extends beyond the 50 United States; more people speak Spanish in the world than English.
Baseball is played with the same rules in both the Dominican Republic and the United States. The distance between the pitching rubber and home plate is 60 feet, 6 inches in both countries. Still three strikes and you are out whether you are in New York or Santo Domingo. Nine innings are a game in Chicago and Santiago.
But the passions ignited by baseball are different: Northeastern?s Professor Klein states in his study that in the Dominican Republic the dream of baseball shines radiantly in the individual, but blinds the society around it. And it soaks up the energies and hopes of young boys whose time and dreams might be better invested, he says, suggesting that this actually plays into U.S. interests, allowing baseball teams to develop the best players for their own benefits.
And, just as the perception and/or reality of U.S. dominance generates resentment, real or imagined, Dominican dependence on American baseball creates the same resentment, whether either country admits it or not. In the Dominican case, Klein insinuates that baseball is the main tool to resisting American cultural domination; that Dominican players resent the ethnocentric attitude American baseball brings to their country and to the game of baseball. It is reflected in the Dominican press that treats Dominican players as heroes of the game, saving baseball from American sensibilities that undermine the national identity of Dominican baseball and its contributions.
It is a dichotomy that the two sides are going to have to address, as each has become interdependent. Major League Baseball is in the Dominican Republic to develop players as inexpensively as possible, while Dominicans see Major League Baseball ? and playing in America ? as the path to success. That reality has generated a myriad of problems, but resolving the problems, in part, necessitates resolving the underlying cultural conflicts that exist.
Then again, baseball is only a game, right?
Dominican Republic Sports & Education Academy - Dominican Baseball Academy, Student Athletes,