At the dawn of the 1990s, Dominicans are one of the fastest-growing and most conspicuous immigrant groups in the United States. In contrast to the prevailing conception of migrants as forming a stream of people, this article explores the U.S.-linked Dominican migration as a distinct social group, clearly distinguishable from its nonmigrant conationals and functioning in a transnational milieu. The article examines the group's own socioeconomic, cultural, and political characteristics and its relationships with the two national states. Because of the migrants' binational character, instead of espousing policies aimed solely at affecting their mobility, the U.S. and the Dominican governments would be better advised to foster connections between the resources and demands generated by these binationals and the development efforts in the Dominican Republic and in Dominican settlements overseas.
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References
1.
1. During the same period, tens of thousands of Dominicans have also been emigrating to some European and Latin American countries, such as Spain, Holland, Switzerland, and Venezuela.
2.
Sherri Grasmuck and Patricia Pessar, Between Two Islands: Dominican International Migration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
3.
3. The 1990 U.S. census reports 520,151 people of Dominican origin, a figure vehemently disputed by Dominican leaders as a gross undercount. The northeastern New Jersey, Miami, and Boston metropolitan areas, respectively, follow New York as the largest concentrations of Dominicans. U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Persons of Hispanic Origin in the United States: 1990 (Washington, DC: Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Population Division, 1991).
4.
4. The selection bias of previous studies—which concentrate exclusively on waged and salaried workers—significantly accounts for the persistence of prevailing misconceptions of Dominican migrants.
5.
idem , “Going Home: Class, Gender, and Household Transformation among Dominican Return Migrants” (Research report, Commission for Hemispheric Migration and Refugee Policy, Georgetown University, 1993).
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6. In addition to metropolitan New York, Dominican-owned businesses also flourish in northeastern New Jersey, and in the Boston and Miami metropolitan areas. See Guarnizo, “One Country in Two”; Portes and Guarnizo, “Tropical Capitalists”; Peggy Levitt, “A Todos les Llamo Primo (I Call Everyone Cousin): The Social Basis for Latino Small Business” (Paper, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991).
7.
7. Of 92 Dominican-owned firms surveyed in New York, 28.0 percent reported a net worth of under $30,000, 16.2 percent reported up to $10,000, and 35.9 percent reported a net worth of over $100,000. Nine of the sampled firms were worth $1 million or more. Guarnizo, “One Country in Two,” p. 219.
8.
Alejandro Portes and Julia Sensenbrenner, “Embeddedness and Immigration: Notes on the Social Determinants of Economic Action,”American Journal of Sociology, 98(6):1320-1350 (1993).
9.
9. Grasmuck and Pessar, Between Two Islands.
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10. The participation of a small proportion of Dominican immigrants in drug-related activities in the United States, with the subsequent capital accumulation by some of them, has sparked the stigmatization of the migrant population. The upper classes' attitude against wealthy migrants is publicly justified by the argument that affluent migrants made their capital in the illicit drug trade. Such justification legitimizes a blatant discrimination against migrants in general, banning them from well-to-do neighborhoods, private schools, social clubs, and even business organizations. See Guarnizo, “Going Home.”
11.
11. For a discussion of negative social capital, see Portes and Sensenbrenner, “Embeddedness and Immigration.”
12.
12. White found a similar pattern of affinity and solidarity among Japanese who returned home after working overseas for the Japanese government and private multinational corporations. Merry White, The Japanese Overseas: Can They Go Home Again? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).
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13. Contrary to popular wisdom, it is not common to find intact migrant families settled for good in either country. Family arrangements in which one or both parents live in the United States with none or some of their children, while their other children live on the island, are frequent. Although having more than one household in two different countries might be a source of emotional stress and economic hardship, it also arms family members with special skills to deal with uncertainty and adversity. They become more sophisticated than nonmigrant people in dealing with a rapidly globalizing world. See Guarnizo, “Going Home.”
14.
14. Dominican Republic, Secretaría de Estado de Turismo, Turismo en Cifras-1985 (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Secretaria de Estado de Turismo, 1986).
15.
Alejandro Portes and Luis E. Guarnizo, Capitalistas del trópico: La inmigración en los Estados Unidos y el desarrollo de la pequeña empresa en la República Dominicana (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: FLASCO Dominicana, 1991).
16.
16. In addition, since the second half of the 1970s, a Dominican migration literature has emerged in New York City. Immigrant writers, especially poets, are struggling to create a literary movement that is becoming “the voice of the community.”Silvio Torres-Saillant, “La literatura dominicana en los Estados Unidos y la periferia del margen,”Brujula/Compass, no. 9, pp. 16-19 (1991).
17.
quoted in Jack Miles, “The Struggle for the Bottom Rung: Blacks vs. Browns,”Atlantic Monthly (Oct. 1992).
18.
18. Guarnizo, “One Country in Two,” p. 67.
19.
19. Boletín CADOCON (Cámara Dominicana de la Construcción) (Sept. 1986).
20.
20. Paralleling the ethnic economy in New York, the migration-linked economy in the Dominican Republic is also made up of a mix of firms located along a continuum running from subsistence to large capitalist ventures. It is worth noting that the presence of migrants is significant in Dominican EPZs, particularly in the garment and leather industries, which, incidentally, are among the most common outlets owned or staffed by Dominicans in New York.
21.
21. See Guarnizo, “Going Home.”
22.
22. Of course, as with other migrant groups, there is a residual process through which some migrants settle definitively on either side, cutting any connection with the other side. But these, it seems to me, are still a minority.
23.
John B. Martin , Overtaken by Events: The Dominican Crisis—From the Fall of Trujillo to the Civil War (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).
24.
24. The U.S. government did not confine its role only to granting visas for political opponents of the regime. The U.S. government also “cooperated, at the [provisional government's] request, by refusing to permit the deportees to leave the United States.”Martin, Overtaken by Events, p. 347.
25.
25. For the purposes of my analysis, I consider national allegiance to be the individual's compliance—whether willingly or otherwise—with the laws and norms decreed and enforced by the national state apparatus within its territorial jurisdiction.
26.
26. Limitations of space prevent a detailed illustration of the workings of this de facto double citizenship status. An example, however, is provided by Dominicans who, on the island, employ their American status or their Dominican status intermittently, depending on the circumstances, such as participating in politics, dealing with official authorities, or benefiting from rights reserved to Dominican citizens while dodging duties by posing as foreigners.
27.
27. Contrary to popular belief, most migrants possess a rather broad knowledge of the laws that might affect them. Almost every migrant I interviewed knew basic Dominican and North American commercial regulations controlling binational trade and transactions and other regulations, such as those concerning migration, fiscal matters, civil rights, and common police ordinances. Thus one might expect that people with this type of information are in a position to abide by as well as avoid complying with state regulations.
28.
28. Guarnizo, “One Country in Two,” pp. 104-105.
29.
29. In November 1991, a former head of the school board, Guillermo Linares, became the first Dominican-born person elected to the New York City Council. Dominicans now have several representatives in visible positions in the city government, as well as in various other agencies controlling local community development.
30.
30. The unilateral acceptance of dual citizenship implies that it would be undertaken only by the Dominican state, with no need for a bilateral agreement with the United States.
31.
31. The crossing of the Mona Passage, separating the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico, by undocumented Dominicans in small, rickety boats (yolas) has grown to such levels that some U.S. authorities in San Juan have proposed imposing a $1000 fine on the Dominican government for the handling of each undocumented person captured. Because of the high volume of illegal crossing since 1987, Aguadilla, P.R., hosts the only border patrol post outside the continental United States.
