Fellow DR1ers, Tomorrow I will have been married to Marisol from Jaya, San Francisco de Macoris for 24 years. We have 2 boys, 23 and 9. No, the 23 year old was born 11 months after we got married. I really got lucky when I saw this pretty, cinnamon colored young women on Caribe Tours eating sunflower seeds while I was in the Peace Corps. She was a Dominican York and the courting began. This was the summer of 1988. I was very familiar with her campo since a fellow PC volunteer lived further up the mountain and I was constantly visiting and working with him. I had a Honda 125 enduro, or "prolink". That Christmas I visited NYC for the first time and stayed in the Heights. Living in the DR for a year or so prepared me for NYC better than my Central Illinois upbringing. After many letters and phone calls, the next summer I commissioned a serinata on her birthday and proposed to her in front of the about 30 people who accompanied me at the midnight songs and subsequent firing of a pistol, in the air of course. Soup and scotch were waiting and partied until 4am. Finished Peace Corps and came straight to 190th and Broadway and married at St. Elizabeth's on 187th and Wadsworth. About 110 people came to the wedding and reception and it was all done in both languages, English and Cibaeno. Maybe about 15 gringos came, Mom, Dad, brothers and sisters, a few Peace Corps friends and a high school buddy. It was a great time, good food and drink and lot's of merengue. Ricardo Mantener, Encima del Celo was our first song we danced. After two years living with the mother-in-law, lived in Ridgewood, Queens to be close to the school I worked in Bushwick. Later to Palisades Park and now Ridgefield, NJ. Lots of Dominicans here in NJ also and we are still close to the Heights.
She is the youngest girl of 13 children. My mother-in-law now has 31 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren and many more of them coming. It is relatively easy to have 50 or so people over on a Sunday barbecue. She came from a rural, land owning family who ran rural based businesses. Very solid upbringing and to be honest, I really married up from a socioeconomic perspective. I sort of stayed within the parameters of Hillbilly's rules. She has been a fantastic wife and mother and has done very well in her job which she has had for as long as we have been married. She has been fully supportive of me recently resigning my teaching position and starting a small chocolate making business so I can follow a dream. I love her very much and owe a great deal of gratitude as she has given our family the needed foundation and stability.
I wanted to share a different example of a US-Dominican marriage and how a few of us end up being almost just as Dominican living here as there.
She is the youngest girl of 13 children. My mother-in-law now has 31 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren and many more of them coming. It is relatively easy to have 50 or so people over on a Sunday barbecue. She came from a rural, land owning family who ran rural based businesses. Very solid upbringing and to be honest, I really married up from a socioeconomic perspective. I sort of stayed within the parameters of Hillbilly's rules. She has been a fantastic wife and mother and has done very well in her job which she has had for as long as we have been married. She has been fully supportive of me recently resigning my teaching position and starting a small chocolate making business so I can follow a dream. I love her very much and owe a great deal of gratitude as she has given our family the needed foundation and stability.
I wanted to share a different example of a US-Dominican marriage and how a few of us end up being almost just as Dominican living here as there.