Not so fast honcho, I have been listening many years to my Dominican family and relatives etc. and this attitude that foreigners have so much wealth is hardly caused by do-gooders that come or have been to the DR because if it were so they would be discussing the rich Americans and missionaries who come here and give away their money - and they don't.
They do discuss that in the US "todo es possible" and live with the myth that one can go to the US and accumulate tens of thousands of dollars in a short period of time. This myth is further nurtured and kept alive by the countless Dominicans who live abroad that return here and perpetuate this myth as it is to their benefit by spending tons of money on gifts and parties and bling.
Nice try though.
Sorry! But pre 1980's the US was not on our list of countries to visit and permanently stay at as residents.
The middle class back in 'the late 60's, 70's and early 80's, made it a point to evade the US almost to a "T" since racial discrimination was palpable in almost all states of the Union there. Most travel for Dominicans meant today's EU and to some extent LA countries.
It was practically impossible to visit a beauty parlor and not hear the ladies talk about the latest clothier in Paris or Vienna... While having their perms and other usual things applied with German and over all European products in about 99% of the instances.
US goods at the time, were considered just as Chinese goods are today, cheap and of lesser quality. So much is this truth that even today Dominican women prefer Italian shoes over any American top purveyor 10 to 1...
You can still visit plenty beauty parlors today in the DR's interior and find multiple German and Italian devices still in use today...
The stampede to the US, more like to New York in essence, was the direct result of a failed economic policy and the collapse of an export economy based on sugar and bananas... The DR exports at the time where what we could call today "figments" of the present trading complexity.
The first people to come back were those, that fault be at the US consulate at the time, from the lowest economic levels that took the opportunity that we had two US consulates offering Visa like hot dogs on a July 4th picnic...
One in SD and the other in Santiago. They gave Visas to anybody that could present a Dominican Passport and willing to buy a fare on the almost then empty return planes to the US mainland.
Not only a year Visa, but multiple entries with 5 to ten years effective in them...
They did a poor job of screening Visa seekers, instead wanting to create a major flow of passengers/visitors to their country in order to aid their economic interests.
Most of the people that took their Visas were from the campos, poor nabes and a few from the middle class now affected by the downturn in the country developing then.
They lived and tasted the discrimination first hand once they made their way into the well researched "sweat shops" aka Factories there.
The ones that came with their criminal background, found fertile lawns to seed with their weeds. Word has it that a Dominican named Yayo (of the two brothers that built Ambis disco in Santiago) was the father and creator of Crack cocaine in one of his drugs induced light bulb moments. The rest is history today...
The crews made their way there unopposed and unrivaled for a good reason! They were merciless and quite lethal to cross path with...
Colombians provided the infamous "Neck Ties"", the Dominican crews provided the "Riverside Blvd of Horrors"...
Then the crews made their way back home, money and all. Kids immediately noticed the Cadenuses and Crakeros (there's a perfect term they called them but it misses my fingertips by a millimeter) with their late model rides, gold, wads of cash, good looking girls, nice homes popping up like weeds and decided that it was the way they wanted to be like when they grew up.
That's what we sent to the inviting USA and that was also what we got back as kind repayment for our graciousness...
So as you can see, it was all imported by our good friends of the USA!
Heck! A 14yo kid was happy going to see E.T. at the local theatre back then, now they're more into gunplay, a late model car and having the financial backdrop of a retired 45+ hardworking biz man, sans the hard work of course!
Hope this enlightens you a bit!
