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Dominicans in the U.S. Can you identify?
I usually get mistaken for American of Italian decent when I meet people. I don't have a Spanish first name or last name and I don't have an accent when I speak English.
I'm usually really good at spotting other Dominicans, but other Dominicans never guess I'm Dominican.
I'm usually really good at spotting other Dominicans, but other Dominicans never guess I'm Dominican.
golo, your rundown of dominican colorism is dead on, sadly. my question to you is: do you agree with said mentality and system? it sounds like you do. and thats disturbing. thats really a terrible way to judge people. you accept people by birthright not by character or merit.
I guess i do not have to say just how damaging it can be to ones self-esteem to know that no matter what you do, you will always be seen as inferior because you were born the wrong color and with the wrong features and/or hair type. because you werent born to european descended money.
That is what I have struggled with the most, now that I understand my own culture is against me in a sense.... and i no longer feel it to be "common sense" to view myself as inferior because i am not a rich, white person.
there are many aspects of our culture i love but that isnt one of them. that i prefer to discard forever.
as a girl, everyone around me always saw the rich gringos with the darker girls and said "why do they always pick the ugliest, blackest ones? we have so many light, pretty ones." as a child i would agree.
now i see that many foreigners are just a little more open-minded about color than we are in a sense (fetishes aside). they are sometimes more likely to look at a beautiful black woman and appreciate her value as much as they would a beautiful white one, than any dominican. that is the paradox to dominicanness: color is nothing and everything at the same time.
Because I refuse to comply with a mindset that crushes me, I had to step away from that. And accept myself....now all's well. I couldn't have ever done that if I hadn't left the DR, though. I would've believed it and accepted it.
I probably shouldnt have fed into golo's race baiting but...thats the truth.
i dont want this to be a "race" thread in that sense, though. i wont discuss that aspect any further than this.
I guess i do not have to say just how damaging it can be to ones self-esteem to know that no matter what you do, you will always be seen as inferior because you were born the wrong color and with the wrong features and/or hair type. because you werent born to european descended money.
That is what I have struggled with the most, now that I understand my own culture is against me in a sense.... and i no longer feel it to be "common sense" to view myself as inferior because i am not a rich, white person.
there are many aspects of our culture i love but that isnt one of them. that i prefer to discard forever.
as a girl, everyone around me always saw the rich gringos with the darker girls and said "why do they always pick the ugliest, blackest ones? we have so many light, pretty ones." as a child i would agree.
now i see that many foreigners are just a little more open-minded about color than we are in a sense (fetishes aside). they are sometimes more likely to look at a beautiful black woman and appreciate her value as much as they would a beautiful white one, than any dominican. that is the paradox to dominicanness: color is nothing and everything at the same time.
Because I refuse to comply with a mindset that crushes me, I had to step away from that. And accept myself....now all's well. I couldn't have ever done that if I hadn't left the DR, though. I would've believed it and accepted it.
I probably shouldnt have fed into golo's race baiting but...thats the truth.
i dont want this to be a "race" thread in that sense, though. i wont discuss that aspect any further than this.
Ay Golo diste en el clavo.
on another note....i was thinking about a game that maybe can be one on Don Francisco show just about that...distinguishing Dominicans......we come in so many different colors.....that there would be a panel of Dominicans and the audience would vote for the real Dominican............etc. .but...at the end the whole group is actually Dominican.
............There is no such thing as an American accent..everyone else has an accent except Americans.
I had a huge crush on Diahann Carroll when I was a kid. In that white nurse's uniform on the TV show Julia she was so hot, and I've love brown skinned women since. Many Dominican women have simular facial features. I can't speak for other men but straight hair over brillo pad hair makes no difference to me, a woman is far more than her hair.
I would say this has been occurring since the Trujillo dictatorship. Trujillo softened the extremely rigid caste that existed before he rose to power, in part because he was Mulatto himself. In recent years it has been accelerating, but this process started a long time ago.Golo100 said:
Its called culture and its simply more of what I said before.Golo100 said:
This is true.Golo100 said:
There is a particular someone I know that fits this bill to the nth degree. Of course, despite being Dominican, he practically grew up in various boarding schools up and down the U.S. east coast. He recently moved to the DC area from Monaco, but travels there quite frequently. In fact, he's sort of a jet setter. He even befriended Warren Buffet's son recently.
If you would see him in public, you will never guess he's Dominican.
However, you might know who I'm talking about. All the right people know him and his family which includes quite illustrious people known worldwide.
It's his brace baiting I saw
did you seeWhere did that one come from?
I'm white and I think braces look appalling particularly when worn as a status symbol (a medical necessity is different). Could this be something to do with the fact that they gained popularity in certain countries in the 1960's by which time I had well passed out of childhood. So maybe age is a factor? But race?????????????
Braces are not big in Finland btw & that is pretty much 'white'. Maybe because they have free dental care for under 18 years olds? So maybe service provision is a factor. But race???????
The points made in this article are in reference to Brazil, but they can easily be applied to the Dominican Republic.
To all those with a one dimensional racecentric colorstruck approach, read carefully:
Brazil - Brasil - BRAZZIL - News from Brazil - Race and Racism in Brazil - Brazilian Racism - July 2003
Francis Wardle, Ph.D. is executive director of the Center for the Study of Biracial Children in Denver,
One of the most fascinating aspects of the study of race and racism in other countries by US scholars is their dogmatic insistence on viewing this issue from the US perspective. This is particularly fascinating because these scholars are post-modernists?academics who view important human phenomena from positions other than US and European viewpoints?historical, theoretical and political perspectives. These people are supposed to reject this First World way of thinking, yet they insist on a view of race and racism in Brazil from a narrow US/British point of view (Cristaldo, 2003).
One of my most interesting observations is that in Brazil almost every group I observed?early childhood programs, school groups, choirs and instrumental groups, Lions Clubs, kids sitting in shopping centers and eating or just socializing, and dance groups, were all made up of people who ranges in color from what the Brazilians consider black to what they consider white, with every color of brown in between.
While racial divisions in Brazil are not clearly defined, class lines are. There are the very wealthy, the middle class, and the very poor. And in Brazil the very poor make up a large percentage of the population
Clearly this class structure overlaps into race; but it is categorically untrue to say all the wealthy are white, and all the poor, nonwhite. It is also inaccurate to look at Brazilian society as if it were a society with the same potential for upward mobility as exists in our society, and then to blame poverty of people of color on racism. In Brazil it is extremely difficult for anyone to advance social levels, regardless of race.
In Brazil, race and class interact to create a highly stratified society where most people of color are poor, and most middle class and wealthy are "white" according to Brazilian standards (which are much different from ours). However, to view this situation through the US lens of racial categories and racial purity is not only intellectual dishonesty, but smacks of US and British colonialism?imposing our view of the world onto others.
Further, to argue that Brazil's historical acceptance?and even encouragement?of people of mixed-race heritage has prevented blacks in that country from achieving equality?and thus providing a warning against the support of multiracial identity in the US and Britain?is simply political rhetoric and dishonesty. Brazil has many problems; the main one being poverty and the violence that poverty produces.
It is one thing to argue that blacks in the US have not achieved the American dream; it is quite another to argue that blacks in Brazil are poor because of deep-seated racism, when most people, of every race, in Brazil are poor.
^
One can easily substitute DR instead of Brazil with a similar situation. The posters here making assumptions that there is some hidden 'racism' in DR are really reaching. Money, class, connections rule. After classism the biggest 'ism' is uglysim, not racism.
To all those with a one dimensional racecentric colorstruck approach, read carefully:
Brazil - Brasil - BRAZZIL - News from Brazil - Race and Racism in Brazil - Brazilian Racism - July 2003
Francis Wardle, Ph.D. is executive director of the Center for the Study of Biracial Children in Denver,
One of the most fascinating aspects of the study of race and racism in other countries by US scholars is their dogmatic insistence on viewing this issue from the US perspective. This is particularly fascinating because these scholars are post-modernists?academics who view important human phenomena from positions other than US and European viewpoints?historical, theoretical and political perspectives. These people are supposed to reject this First World way of thinking, yet they insist on a view of race and racism in Brazil from a narrow US/British point of view (Cristaldo, 2003).
One of my most interesting observations is that in Brazil almost every group I observed?early childhood programs, school groups, choirs and instrumental groups, Lions Clubs, kids sitting in shopping centers and eating or just socializing, and dance groups, were all made up of people who ranges in color from what the Brazilians consider black to what they consider white, with every color of brown in between.
While racial divisions in Brazil are not clearly defined, class lines are. There are the very wealthy, the middle class, and the very poor. And in Brazil the very poor make up a large percentage of the population
Clearly this class structure overlaps into race; but it is categorically untrue to say all the wealthy are white, and all the poor, nonwhite. It is also inaccurate to look at Brazilian society as if it were a society with the same potential for upward mobility as exists in our society, and then to blame poverty of people of color on racism. In Brazil it is extremely difficult for anyone to advance social levels, regardless of race.
In Brazil, race and class interact to create a highly stratified society where most people of color are poor, and most middle class and wealthy are "white" according to Brazilian standards (which are much different from ours). However, to view this situation through the US lens of racial categories and racial purity is not only intellectual dishonesty, but smacks of US and British colonialism?imposing our view of the world onto others.
Further, to argue that Brazil's historical acceptance?and even encouragement?of people of mixed-race heritage has prevented blacks in that country from achieving equality?and thus providing a warning against the support of multiracial identity in the US and Britain?is simply political rhetoric and dishonesty. Brazil has many problems; the main one being poverty and the violence that poverty produces.
It is one thing to argue that blacks in the US have not achieved the American dream; it is quite another to argue that blacks in Brazil are poor because of deep-seated racism, when most people, of every race, in Brazil are poor.
^
One can easily substitute DR instead of Brazil with a similar situation. The posters here making assumptions that there is some hidden 'racism' in DR are really reaching. Money, class, connections rule. After classism the biggest 'ism' is uglysim, not racism.
while i openly reject the assertations that theres racism in the DR, there is colorism and thats undeniable. theres a preference for all things european much like in any country previously colonized by europe.
class rules all, however. the truth is basically somewhere in the middle: while there is a general preference for "whiteness", class still trumps all. if you have the money, power, connections...you are king, regardless of color.
and unlike in the u.s. there arent certain denigrating character traits assigned to people according to their skintone. we all consider ourselves the same people.
basically both sides have some merit, imo.
class rules all, however. the truth is basically somewhere in the middle: while there is a general preference for "whiteness", class still trumps all. if you have the money, power, connections...you are king, regardless of color.
and unlike in the u.s. there arent certain denigrating character traits assigned to people according to their skintone. we all consider ourselves the same people.
basically both sides have some merit, imo.
Lambada, braces are seen in the DR as something only those with sufficient money can afford. They are a status symbol amongst the middle class.
All the college-going "jevitos" with their tight little polo shirts, abercrombie&fitch, braces and boat shoes are trying to emulate "richness" ( i always laugh because in the u.s. that kind of dress style is so middle-class/suburban and NOT in any way rich lol). trying to pass for a higher class than what you are is a national pasttime in the DR, again, because class rules all.
All the college-going "jevitos" with their tight little polo shirts, abercrombie&fitch, braces and boat shoes are trying to emulate "richness" ( i always laugh because in the u.s. that kind of dress style is so middle-class/suburban and NOT in any way rich lol). trying to pass for a higher class than what you are is a national pasttime in the DR, again, because class rules all.
I find it amusing also. There are so many in the DR that think they are rich or upper middleclass, but really they are not. I know a few of people like this and I just laugh at the way they behave. They think they are so superior b/c they drive an expensive car and live in a nice neighborhood and wear clothes that can found in any suburban mall. They are so generic, yet they don't realize it.
Last time I was in the DR, I went to dinner with a friend and he brought a couple of other people with him and they were super pretentous. They kept talking about this family and that family like I care who any of these people are. They kept giving me looks all night like I was so beneath them yet I live a more comfortable life than they do.
i feel you
Im in the same vote. I was born in the u.s but i lived in the dominican republic until i was about 4 and then moved back to the u.s. I come from a really light skinned family and if you stood me next to someone white you probably would have a hard time telling me apart. When i reached highschool i noticed alot of different races but the majority of my friends were white, not because i had a problem associating with anyone else but because it naturally happened. Whenever i spoke spanish or was able to help them with their spanish homework they would ask me how i knew spanish and i would say i was dominican. They acted like they were shocked and said ''You dont look dominican'' or ''Your joking right?''. Whenever i meet new people alot of them ask me how i received the name Javier but i tell them its typical for a hispanic person to have that name. They have a stereotype in their head that all dominicans are dark skinned or have ''nappy'' hair from seeing all the other dominicans at my school. Im proud as hell to be dominican and i have no problem telling people what i am because hopefully it will nulify the typical stereotype and teach them that dominicans come in all shades and characteristics.
Im in the same vote. I was born in the u.s but i lived in the dominican republic until i was about 4 and then moved back to the u.s. I come from a really light skinned family and if you stood me next to someone white you probably would have a hard time telling me apart. When i reached highschool i noticed alot of different races but the majority of my friends were white, not because i had a problem associating with anyone else but because it naturally happened. Whenever i spoke spanish or was able to help them with their spanish homework they would ask me how i knew spanish and i would say i was dominican. They acted like they were shocked and said ''You dont look dominican'' or ''Your joking right?''. Whenever i meet new people alot of them ask me how i received the name Javier but i tell them its typical for a hispanic person to have that name. They have a stereotype in their head that all dominicans are dark skinned or have ''nappy'' hair from seeing all the other dominicans at my school. Im proud as hell to be dominican and i have no problem telling people what i am because hopefully it will nulify the typical stereotype and teach them that dominicans come in all shades and characteristics.
I am even more intrigued! I have much to catch up on.
Anytime these topics come up I can see where people sometimes come in with either Dominican or American goggles lol It's really hard to step away from your own culture sometimes. I do it in other aspects of my life...no biggie...
that said....i still cannot see it from the north american standpoint which states that we afrolatinos have to see ourselves as "just blacks" in order to blah blah. when the average north american "black" family looks like mine, i will start to care what they think, until then, i dont need someone who knows nothing of my familys history telling me who or what i should be according to their own skewed views.
i have had people say they dont know why afrolatinos count as latinos. that we shouldnt feel so special. everyone is special in their own way when it comes to culture. no one can take that way from me, just because i am dark! how can i be stripped of everything i know, 60% of my ancestors and over 500 years of history, just because you find it confusing?!
thats like saying black americans shouldnt count as americans because theyre black. your culture is your culture. that is separate from race. ugh.
i have had people say they dont know why afrolatinos count as latinos. that we shouldnt feel so special. everyone is special in their own way when it comes to culture. no one can take that way from me, just because i am dark! how can i be stripped of everything i know, 60% of my ancestors and over 500 years of history, just because you find it confusing?!
thats like saying black americans shouldnt count as americans because theyre black. your culture is your culture. that is separate from race. ugh.
time will tell
POP---
I guess i do not have to say just how damaging it can be to ones self-esteem to know that no matter what you do, you will always be seen as inferior because you were born the wrong color and with the wrong features and/or hair type. because you werent born to european descended money.
Quote
Just hang on for a few years. Well, ok perhaps it will not come for your generation but Maybe it will. Things were JUST like this in the States .. you had to be connected to the old boys network, to be in the right clubs, to have the family name --- all that.-- but then bammmm --- suddenly the walls came tumbling down and before you could really bat an eye the NYTimes was printing marriage announcements of black couples and shudder gay couples... and down the drain went "society"--- it will happen here as well eventually because they simply cannot keep the barriers up. You got the job because you could DO the job and that was how you kept it... Ditto the invitations... because of WHO YOU were . NOT your family. It is called a meritocracy and is the great draw of the US.
It would be different of course if there was a true aristocracy here, I mean a class that actually cared for the nation, actually set a good example
but the chauffer driven children going to the high class schools while there is still the pitiful lack of public education?
no.. they will either be overtaken by Merit (one hopes) or by the drug kings.... or swamped by imported goods- and Russian money... lots of other scenerios, i suppose--- but respect is hardly one of them....
of course, i do suspect that there is some real money and real education and real quality here -- hidden deeply within some book lined shelves in Santiago most likely, sending their children to Harvard or Oxford. And NEVER appearing in the social pages.
and I would love to hear you speak a bit on the distinction between racism and colorism...
what is that?
POP---
I guess i do not have to say just how damaging it can be to ones self-esteem to know that no matter what you do, you will always be seen as inferior because you were born the wrong color and with the wrong features and/or hair type. because you werent born to european descended money.
Quote
Just hang on for a few years. Well, ok perhaps it will not come for your generation but Maybe it will. Things were JUST like this in the States .. you had to be connected to the old boys network, to be in the right clubs, to have the family name --- all that.-- but then bammmm --- suddenly the walls came tumbling down and before you could really bat an eye the NYTimes was printing marriage announcements of black couples and shudder gay couples... and down the drain went "society"--- it will happen here as well eventually because they simply cannot keep the barriers up. You got the job because you could DO the job and that was how you kept it... Ditto the invitations... because of WHO YOU were . NOT your family. It is called a meritocracy and is the great draw of the US.
It would be different of course if there was a true aristocracy here, I mean a class that actually cared for the nation, actually set a good example
but the chauffer driven children going to the high class schools while there is still the pitiful lack of public education?
no.. they will either be overtaken by Merit (one hopes) or by the drug kings.... or swamped by imported goods- and Russian money... lots of other scenerios, i suppose--- but respect is hardly one of them....
of course, i do suspect that there is some real money and real education and real quality here -- hidden deeply within some book lined shelves in Santiago most likely, sending their children to Harvard or Oxford. And NEVER appearing in the social pages.
and I would love to hear you speak a bit on the distinction between racism and colorism...
what is that?