The Dominican Americans

Ramona Hernandez, Silvio Torres-Saillant

Bloomsbury Academic, May 26, 1998 - Social Science - 208 pages

This profile of Dominican Americans closes a critical gap in information about the accomplishments of one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States. Beginning with a look at the historical background and the roots of native Dominicans, this book then carries the reader through the age-old romance of U.S. and Dominican relations. With great detail and clarity, the authors explain why the Dominicans left their land and came to the United States. The book includes discussions of education, health issues, drugs and violence, the visual and performing arts, popular music, faith, food, gender, and race. Most important, this book assesses how Dominicans have adapted to America, and highlights their losses and gains. The work concludes with an evaluation of Dominicans' achievements since their arrival as a group three decades ago and shows how they envision their continued participation in American life. Biographical profiles of many notable Dominican Americans such as artists, sports greats, musicians, lawyers, novelists, actors, and activists, highlight the text.

The authors have created a novel book as they are the first to examine Dominicans as an ethnic minority in the United States and highlight the community's trials and tribulations as it faces the challenge of survival in a economically competitive, politically complex, and culturally diverse society. Students and interested readers will be engaged by the economic and political ties that have attached Americans to Dominicans and Dominicans to Americans for approximately 150 years. While massive immigration of Dominicans to the United States began in the 1960s, a history of previous contact between the two nations has enabled the development of Dominicans as a significant component of the U.S. population. Readers will also understand the political and economic causes of Dominican emigration and the active role the United States government had in stimulating Dominican immigration to the United States. This book traces the advances of Dominicans toward political empowerment and summarizes the cultural expressions, the survival strategies, and the overall adaptation of Dominicans to American life.

Contents

• A Brief Historical Background: 1
• An AgeOld Romance: 9
• Escape from the Native Land: 33

About the author

SILVIO TORRES-SAILLANT is Assistant Professor of English at Hostos Community College, CUNY, and the Director of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at The City College of New York. He is a native of the Dominican Republic and has lived in the United States. since 1973. He is also author of Caribbean Poetics (1997).

RAMONA HERNÁNDEZ is Assistant Professor in the Latino Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and a Research Associate in the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute. She was born in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, and has lived in New York City since 1973. She is a coauthor of Dominican New Yorkers: A Socioeconomic Profile (1995).

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Dominican Americans; The New Americans
• Authors: Ramona Hernandez, Silvio Torres-Saillant
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 1998
• Original from: University of Texas
• Digitized: Aug 7, 2007
• ISBN: 0313298394, 9780313298394
• Length: 208 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General