Dominicans celebrate independence and their vibrant culture in Connecticu

[NALs]

The article is from this past February, but was never mentioned here. Better late than never.

The Dominican community is marking 180 years of independence, and celebrations have been going on all week across Connecticut – from raising the Dominican flag at the Capitol to a cultural display on Park Street in Hartford.

Dominicans in Connecticut say they are proud to share their cultural richness.

The Dominican community is one of the largest Latino groups in Connecticut. There are about 60,000 Dominicans in the state – only the Puerto Rican and Mexican populations are larger locally, according to Census data.

Bonilla says the Dominican community has stepped up to become entrepreneurs, with many businesses throughout the state, such as grocery stores, barbershops, and beauty salons.

"Our purpose is to unite Connecticut's Dominican community and promote our shared history and cultural values,” Bonilla said. “We invite everybody to join us always in this celebration."

Dominicans celebrate independence and their vibrant culture in Connecticut

Dominicans in Connecticut say they are proud to share their cultural richness.

www.ctpublic.org

——

I think it was this year or last year that I read an article about the Dominican flag raise at the New London City Hall in celebration of Dominican independence. Well, I was in New London this weekend (really all over that area, Norwich has the most beautiful and unique city hall I have ever seen) and there were 3 things that came to my mind while there:

1. This city is beautiful in the downtown and outside of it. Really liked it there. Everywhere I went I liked.

2. The city is named New London and the river that passes by the city is named Thames River. Where have I seen that before? Oh yes, in London, England! That’s “Old” London.

3. When I saw the city hall, the first thing I thought “that’s where the ceremony took place to celebrate Dominican independence a d there is the pole where they raised the Dominican flag” and only afterwards noticed the building itself looks nice (nothing beats Norwich’s though.) lol

 

[windeguy]

Yep, why do you think they call the area New England. I personally don't get the attraction to that area after spending 39 years in the region.

I was offered a job to run a company in Waterbury, CT while I was living in New York.
Now that city is a craphole of epic proportions.
I went to California instead and then came here.

 

[NALs]

Waterbury is a dump. Webster Bank had their headquarters there for a few years, then moved to another CT city… wonder why… When a “major” city doesn’t have a highrise skyline seen from the highway in a country where most major cities have one, that’s an automatic sign something isn’t right.

Waterbury does has a sizable Dominican community, but the attraction there is that it’s cheap and not for safety or that it’s nice. In fact, in all of CT except along the Gold Coast (it doesn’t takes too much effort to notice why it’s called that, an area where Ferraris and even Aston Martins don’t raise eyebrows is all that needs to be known) most things are on the affordable side, but only a handful are dumps.

CT flourishes in its suburbs which is where most of the population lives. Even the bears are figuring this out as this one recently went to a suburban downtown to have a look. lol

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Don’t have to worry about that in the DR. Lol

 

[bob saunders]

One of my Ancestors Jerusha Smith was born in Huntington NY, others in Oyster Bay (1600-1700) Both of her parents were born in New Haven Connecticut.

 

[NanSanPedro]

One of my Ancestors Jerusha Smith was born in Huntington NY, others in Oyster Bay (1600-1700) Both of her parents were born in New Haven Connecticut.

Amazing that you can go back that far.

 

[JD Jones]

Amazing that you can go back that far.

Family Search has taken me back even further. Somebody in my extended family apparently is a real fanatic on tracking family genealogy.

 

[AlterEgo]

Family Search has taken me back even further. Somebody in my extended family apparently is a real fanatic on tracking family genealogy.

Consider yourself verrryyyy lucky.

 

[bob saunders]

Amazing that you can go back that far.

Thanks to most of my family coming from British and Scottish middle class (merchants, shipbuilders, church ministers) they had good records of marriages, baptisms...etc. One of my English cousins has traced one branch of my mother's family back to the 12th century in Denmark. Another one of my family members can only be traced back to North Dakota in the 1880's. No records of where he came from, family.... etc. Whether he was using his real name ...nada. My cousin even hired professionals to trace but found nothing but dead ends. However, his daughter was my great grandmother, and if his last name was correct, which was Rea, he was Irish.

 

[NALs]

One of my Ancestors Jerusha Smith was born in Huntington NY, others in Oyster Bay (1600-1700) Both of her parents were born in New Haven Connecticut.

First planned city in the US. A lot of people are from New Haven and most people don’t know it. Ex-President George Bush Jr was born in New Haven.* Ex-Mayor of NYC Robert Moses (that built many of the highways that still criss cross the city) was from New Haven. Even Verrill Hyatt in 1919 published “Porto Rico Past and Present, San Domingo of Today” was also from New Haven.

Then there are other stuff like Yale University is the 4th oldest university in the USA. How does that ties to the DR?

Well, Arch. Guillermo González is “the father of modern architecture in the DR” graduated from Yale. Dr Héctor Guerrero Heredía, who is one of the most prominent psichiatrists in the DR, is also a Yale graduate. One of the daughters of the late Dominican politician Hatuey De Camps is also a Yale graduate. The DR has a few more high profile Yale alumnis.

* His father (also father of Jeb, ex-governor of Florida), who was the first president George Bush, grew up in Greenwich and met his wife Barbara , who became First Lady, in a dance in Greenwich too.
Dominican baseball star Pedro Martínez either still has a house or had a house in Greenwich.
Oscar de la Renta spent much of his time in his country estate in Kent.

 

[NALs]

Speaking of Kent & Oscar de la Renta…

Source of Oscar de la Renta image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_...o_di_matti.jpg & https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The other images are my own work.

 

[Meemselle]

Geez, I lived in Fairfield County for over 20 years, and now I learn that I was missing something in Connecticu(t)

 

[NALs]

Geez, I lived in Fairfield County for over 20 years, and now I learn that I was missing something in Connecticu(t)

It would be easy to miss because even today Dominicans hardly make up more than 1% of the state’s population. There aren’t enough Dominicans for not even 10% of the state’s population to even know one Dominican in person. That’s assuming the population is evenly distributed which it isn’t. Higher income Dominicans are scattered very thinly while lower income Dominicans tend to concentrate in a handful urban areas, but even there it’s a small minority compared to other minoritied.

 

[NALs]

Another interesting connection between Connecticut and the DR is that during the first half of the 20th Century during the American Invasion 1916 - 1924 the Collins Company had a virtual monopoly with selling machetes in the DR. It got to the point that even my grandfather referred to machetes as “colín” for Collins. It wasn’t just him, that’s how everybody called a machete similar to Dominicans today would say gillette for razor or clíne (for Kleenex) for tissue. Guess what? The Collins Company was a Connecticut company and not only is the building where they made the machetes that for a time dominated the DR as far as machetes go still exist by the Farmington River, but the entire village around it was built by the Collins Company: Collinsville, CT.

There is a black-and-white photo of some parade that took place somewhere in the DR during the Era of Trujillo. That photo is of a group of men each on a different horse marching while with one arm raise up with the hand holding machetes. The image don’t show this, but the machetes used to be moved so the sun rays would shine on them. That was actually common in Dominican parades in the DR. Take a wild guess what machetes they were.