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Dominican Republic is a majority mixed race nation, not a majority black nation as you are trying to paint it as. Yes the average Dominican has more African blood than the average Puerto Rican or Cuban ( who are both also majority mixed race Tri-racial, just more Euro dominant), the average Dominican also has more European blood than the average person from Haiti, Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas, St Kitts, Antigua, St Vincent, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and even Panama, Belize, Trinidad, Guyana, but you won't mention that part because it doesn't fit the image you are trying to portrait. Despite having more African blood than other mixed (Mulatto/Tri-racial) Hispanic countries, like PR and Cuba, it's still a majority mixed race country, just like the other 2 are not majority white but mixed race. And btw that Trini woman you posted is not black, she is a darker mixed person, only a person who subconsciously practices the one drop rule (popular in the US) would see her as "black".
I deliberately used the term "Afro descendant". How one defines "black" depends on ones perspective.
The reality is that relative to the rest of Latin America, even when compared to nearby Cuba and Puerto Rico, DR has a large Afro descendant population. Now you can call them "mixed" or "black" but that doesnt change these facts.
And the fact that you do not see the Trini woman as "black" makes my point. What is clear is if she was put her in a room with black and with white people most people in that room will claim that she has closer links to the blacks than the whites. She can be accepted as "black" if she so choses, but never as "white". It will be easier for her to accepted by blacks as being "black" than by whites as being "white", so if she runs arounding counting up her Euro ancestry, and trivializing her Afro what point is she trying to make? She has an appearance that many will link to Trinidad, so it makes my point that the DR falls well within a Caribbean norm.
And here is another fact. You can chat all you want about who is more Euro than whom but to most Europeans that is quite silly given that when they look at that woman, who fits a profile quite common in the DR, what they see is her African characteristics, and not her European.
Here is another fact. DR is more "African" than is Trinidad or Guyana, given the substantial Indian populations that live in both. So this means that the max in those two Caribbean countries that would have African ancestry will be 50-55%. If we add up the last available census data for the DR that outlined race the black and mixed population it comes to more than 65%. So we can say that DR lies as an intermediate point in the Caribbean between the most "purely" African populations as in most of the English Caribbean, except Trinidad and Guyana, and those where the Afro descendant populations are more minimal, as in PR and Aruba, and to an extent Cuba.
Why do Dominicans invest so much time trying to prove to yourselves that you arent a country where most people have at least some VISIBLE African ancestry? Nothing wrong to be Afro descendant.
And here is another point. Latin Americans will invest a lot of time ranting that the Trini woman isnt black. But what they will not admit is that this woman will have no more chance than one considered "black" in moving into a top management position in Latin America. DR of course being the exception given that its majority Afro descendant. Even in the DR I wonder if 36 years ago would a woman like her have had a senior management slot in a large Dominican corporation? Would she have been in charge of marketing in a company with over 2,000 employees?
The point is that Latin Americans use skin color games to divide Afro descendants, so those with a little less melanin feel superior to those with more. But as a Brazilian black empowerment activist said, and this woman was LIGHTER than the Trini, "Brazilians claim that they do not know who is black, but the Brazilian cops know when it comes to shooting people". In Brazil both those who are so African looking that they cannot escape "blackness", and Brazilians like her feel the wrath of the system when it seeks to exclude.
It is to be noted that a large % of the black empowerment activists in Brazil are actually mid toned, and no doubt this is because as they climbed the social ladder they discovered that they were treated as if they were black, even if they werent not called black. The beauty about US style racism is that everyone knows exactly what they are, so less time is wasting in playing useless skin color games. Lighter black Americans mobilized with the darker ones for black empowerment so even though a small minority a black middle class has emerged and a black elite is increasingly visible.
Race questions haven’t been asked in any census since the 1970’s.
The latest census is from 2010, but this year the president has given a green light for the new census to tame place. Regarding race/color not taken into account either.
How come you are not aware of any of this since you say you live in the DR?
EXACTLY
Quote:
Originally Posted by HISPANIOLAN
panama? hahahahahahaha
good one bro
not to mention, theres actually more blacks in DR than trinidad, and i been there as well (cannot say about guyana)
and trinidad not to mentioned and its acessive amounts of immigrants froim the lesser antilles, not to mention over half of their black population isnt even colonial but infact from the lesser antilles
belize is dfefinitely not blacker than DR, they got wayyyy too many mestizos and true whites
hgave u even been there bro?
jesus crist
besides, everyone knows the DR is mixed race majority but the african is what predominates
i find it funny that the biggest large scale dna study actually has the DR afro leaning mulatto yet these small cherrypicked dna study studies r no more than 20-30 ppl
60% mulatto - (again just shows that we are a majority mixed and no one is denying that)
35% black - (just shows you that we indeed have a large black minority and theres no denying that, due to the fact that DR lacked the white flight that PR and cuba had during the 1800s, which DR for a long time was an abandoned colony once the spanish went for gold in mexico and peru or more thriving colonies like cuba and PR, as well as them getting killed or kicked out but the african slave revolution everyone knows as haitian revolution but the fact that over 90% of those rebels were african born who spoke no creole or french i dont consider em haitians even though they were brought over by the french, plus our own black slaves that the spanish brought in earlier, but this is why we have little to no french words or influences in our spanish, BUT we do have african influence in our spanish and words, cause those rebels had to learn spanish the ones that stayed on our side and french/creole in the haitian side, john lipski very well documents this, since he cannot reallt find much creole influence in our spanish but infact african influence via the haitian side and our side, since haitian creole wasnt spoken by most of its population until the 1800s which is recent, haitian creole is old but not everyone spoke it untill like 4-6 generations ago)
5% white - (as said before, the white population of DR was never big, maybe 25-30% at one poiint during the 1700s when canarians came, but many mixed out and or left for said colonies for said reasons)
DR hasn't had a census since atleast the 60s/70s. Many times in a census or other demographic surveys, many people put what they self identify as, a person can be black or white and identify as "mixed", or a person can be "mixed" and identify as white or black, or any other thing, this is how it is in many parts of the world. In DR, the word "Indio" is sometimes used to identify Mulattos, nothing to do with the natives.
Furthermore, just by observations from traveling throughout DR countless times for my whole life (I'm Dominican and have family in many parts), and also seeing Dominicans in other parts of the world particularly USA, as well as traveling to other countries especially in the Latin America/Caribbean region. I'd say the statistics based on phenotype go like this:
Dominican Republic 75% mixed race Mulatto/Tri-racial ("lightskin" or ambiguous with mixed facial features, think Al B Sure or for Dominican comparison Romeo Santos) - or even brownskin with heavy European features or dark white with heavy African feautures
20% black (brownskin or darkskin- Will Smith color or darker, David Ortiz for Dominican comparison) - sometimes lightskin with heavy African feautures think Craig Mack nose lips hair etc)- a large portion are Haitian immigrants or descendants of them, San Pedro Cocolos from other islands, and a much smaller number of American descendants in Samana.
5% white (like Juan Luis Guerra)
Compared to other countries
Panama
40% Mestizo mix (white/native)
20% black
15% white
15% Mulatto/Tri-racial mix (white/black, probably some native too)
10% native
Belize
50% Mestizo mix
25% black
10% Mulatto/Tri-racial mix
10% native
5% other (South Asians and whites)
Trinidad/Tobago
35% mix between South Asian and black
30% black
30% South Asian
5% other ( Mestizo from Venezuela and whites)
Guyana
35% black
30% mix South Asian/black
30% South Asian
5% other (natives and mestizos)
Jamaica
Close to 90% black
10% Mulatto mix
2% other (whites and Asians)
Haiti
95% black
5% Mulatto mix
Less than 1% other mainly whites
Barbados (most of the other small Eastern Caribbean islands are similar btw, St Kitts, Antigua, Guadalupe, St Vincent etc)
85% black
10% Mulatto mix
Less than 5% other (whites, Asians)
All these countries have on par or higher black percentages than DR, and I'm not following the One drop and including the mixed with the black, that's highly inaccurate.
Now, countries with lower black percentages would be
Cuba
50% Mulatto
35% white
15% black
Puerto Rico
70% Mulatto/Tri-racial
25% white
5% black
Brazil
45% Mulatto/Tri-racial
40% white
10% black
5% other (native, Mestizo, Asian)
Colombia
40% Mestizo
30% white
15% Mulatto/Tri-racial
10% black *due to isolation some of them are some of the most genetically African in the Americas, second to Haitians)
5% other (native, Asian)
Venezuela
40% Mestizo
35% white
20% Mulatto/Tri-racial
5% other (black, native)
Cape Verde is racially the most similar to DR
Nearly 70% Mulatto
30% black
2% white
As far as DNA goes, the average Dominican is about 50% European, 42% African, 8% Taino native. The European and Taino components are highest in the Cibao region and the African component is highest in southeast plain. Comparitively, the average Puerto Rican is about 58% European, 27% African and 15% Taino, and the average Cuban has slightly less African and Taino than that. While the average person from Jamaica, the Bahamas and those smaller islands in the Eastern Caribbean, is probably about 85% African, 13 European and 2% Native, resembling more African Americans. The average Haitian being nearly 100% African.
Quote:
Originally Posted by caribny
I deliberately used the term "Afro descendant". How one defines "black" depends on ones perspective.
The reality is that relative to the rest of Latin America, even when compared to nearby Cuba and Puerto Rico, DR has a large Afro descendant population. Now you can call them "mixed" or "black" but that doesnt change these facts.
And the fact that you do not see the Trini woman as "black" makes my point. What is clear is if she was put her in a room with black and with white people most people in that room will claim that she has closer links to the blacks than the whites. She can be accepted as "black" if she so choses, but never as "white". It will be easier for her to accepted by blacks as being "black" than by whites as being "white", so if she runs arounding counting up her Euro ancestry, and trivializing her Afro what point is she trying to make? She has an appearance that many will link to Trinidad, so it makes my point that the DR falls well within a Caribbean norm.
And here is another fact. You can chat all you want about who is more Euro than whom but to most Europeans that is quite silly given that when they look at that woman, who fits a profile quite common in the DR, what they see is her African characteristics, and not her European.
Here is another fact. DR is more "African" than is Trinidad or Guyana, given the substantial Indian populations that live in both. So this means that the max in those two Caribbean countries that would have African ancestry will be 50-55%. If we add up the last available census data for the DR that outlined race the black and mixed population it comes to more than 65%. So we can say that DR lies as an intermediate point in the Caribbean between the most "purely" African populations as in most of the English Caribbean, except Trinidad and Guyana, and those where the Afro descendant populations are more minimal, as in PR and Aruba, and to an extent Cuba.
Why do Dominicans invest so much time trying to prove to yourselves that you arent a country where most people have at least some VISIBLE African ancestry? Nothing wrong to be Afro descendant.
How do you know how white people would see that Trini woman? Did you ask them?
DR is not more African than Trinidad or Guyana, see above.
Also why do you call Mulattos- Afrodescendient if they are mixed with both black and white. Why don't you call them Eurodescendient as well. I don't know about Mulattos in other countries, but Dominican mulattos we recognize and claim ALL sides of our heritage, European African Taino, most of us. Many of us have people in our family who are very dark and very light, some white some black some beige some brown all in the same family. In DR and some other spanish countries, "race" is Not as clear cut as the US and many other countries, it's a blurry spectrum due to heavy mixing for centuries and generations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by caribny
And here is another point. Latin Americans will invest a lot of time ranting that the Trini woman isnt black. But what they will not admit is that this woman will have no more chance than one considered "black" in moving into a top management position in Latin America. DR of course being the exception given that its majority Afro descendant. Even in the DR I wonder if 36 years ago would a woman like her have had a senior management slot in a large Dominican corporation? Would she have been in charge of marketing in a company with over 2,000 employees?
The point is that Latin Americans use skin color games to divide Afro descendants, so those with a little less melanin feel superior to those with more. But as a Brazilian black empowerment activist said, and this woman was LIGHTER than the Trini, "Brazilians claim that they do not know who is black, but the Brazilian cops know when it comes to shooting people". In Brazil both those who are so African looking that they cannot escape "blackness", and Brazilians like her feel the wrath of the system when it seeks to exclude.
It is to be noted that a large % of the black empowerment activists in Brazil are actually mid toned, and no doubt this is because as they climbed the social ladder they discovered that they were treated as if they were black, even if they werent not called black. The beauty about US style racism is that everyone knows exactly what they are, so less time is wasting in playing useless skin color games. Lighter black Americans mobilized with the darker ones for black empowerment so even though a small minority a black middle class has emerged and a black elite is increasingly visible.
There are many black and darker mixed people in DR who are middle class or even rich, likewise there are many white or lighter mixed people who are poor in DR. Eventhough, this is not the norm and there is more of the opposite just like in most of the rest of the world, it isn't rare either. Same can be said of some other countries. It's like the US in that sense.
Last edited by DRPRCubaSpain; 09-16-2022 at 08:37 AM..
In DR, the word "Indio" is sometimes used to identify Mulattos, nothing to do with the natives.
There is no point in trying to explain to others what this is truly about. I've done it many times and they still either don't get it or don't want to get (I think is the second part). It can be confusing since the DR is the only place in the world that uses that word to refer to a color and not an ethnicity or race or any of the sort or eventhat the person descends from them in part or in whole. But I digress, let others think what they want since that is what they regardless.
There are many other examples (none applied to human colors and probably this is why there is no "controversy" and refusing to accept what it actually means in the Dominican context). For example, Dominicans used two eords interchangeably to refer to anything orange when they are focusing on its color. One is the Spanish word understood by Spanish speakers everywhere which is "anarajado" and the other is actually an Arawak (Taino) word not understood by most non-Dominicans including most other Latin Americans and that is "mamey." There are many other examples that have nothing to do with color that Dominicans used Spanish words and Taino words interchangeably and everybody knows what they mean (example frog=sapo/maco, tree=árbol/mata, sea turtle=tortuga/hicotea, eagle=águila/guaraguao). Some have names that are not of Taino origin, such as orange (the fruit) is called "naranja" everywhere in the DR, but in certain parts along the Caribbean coast (including Santo Domingo) they call it "naranja" and "china" like in Puerto Rico, except on that island is widespread.
But as previously said, I give up trying to explain these things because often times you are better off talking to the wall.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DRPRCubaSpain
Many of us have people in our family who are very dark and very light, some white some black some beige some brown all in the same family.
This is so common it doesn't raises an eyebrow and Dominicans simply accepted as something natural. It's once the Dominican travels abroad (usually to the USA or Europe) that they notice this isn't common in other places. In the USA, despite the increase of mixture, the most common is to see someone and then see their family (including cousins, etc) and they are all of the same color. Basically the opposite of what is commonly seen in the DR. This isn't the case of most people being of the same color and similar features and a few of different shades and features, but rather so extensive within one family that often you can't say most look like this or like that.
Sometimes I get the impression that some foreigners think that if DR becomes majority black and very dark like Jamaica, that somehow this will lead to some sort of unification with neighboring Haiti. This is actually a very American way of thinking because of the tradition there of associating color with politics. However, look at the Lesser Antilles, plenty of black and very dark majority places and yet, plenty of countries too.
Look at Sub-Saharan Africa. Last I checked, all those countries are modtly black and not only do they remain a bunch of countries rather than one giant country encompassing all of Sub-Saharan Africa, but there is no belief of unification of any country based on color and, if anything there is a push to create many more countries given the separatists in many areas.
Look at North America. The USA and Canada are even more alike between themselves than the DR and Haiti. Yet, there isn't a push to mske Canada join the USA or to mesh them together and become one country. You cross the border and for the most part it looks the same, people speak English (minus in Quebec where French is very obvious even in the traffic signs), the way the cities are built and look is very similar particularly compared to USA cities in the northern part, etc. The USA is the USA and Canada is Canada. You can go from Mexico to Argentina, passing by land through all the Hispanic countries speaking one language (better if with a neutral accent) and you will have no problems in that respect in that huge part of the world. Why no intention for all of them to unite and become one country? Many places are very similar such as Argentina and Uruguay, yet two countries. Right now there is a war in the Ukraine where basically Russia want the Ukraine to be part of them, but the Ukrainians don't want to. Why the conflict if they are all white? Plus, many Ukrainians are of Russian origins and there are many Russians living in Ukraine too. Even the current president of Ukraine had Russian as his first language, learning Ukrainian many years after his birth. By looks alone you can't tell the Ukrainians apart from the Russians. According to the logic of some people, they should be one country based on color alone. Yeah, right.
I have yet to understand thid fixation some have of having the DR and Haiti become one country. There is nothing stopping any foreigner from going to one country and then crossing the border into the other. No need for illegal crossings or anything of the sort, simply pass through the official entry/exit points, you get your passport stamp, pay entry fee and you are on your way. Nothing stopping you.
DR hasn't had a census since atleast the 60s/70s. Many times in a census or other demographic surveys, many people put what they self identify as, a person can be black or white and identify as "mixed", or a person can be "mixed" and identify as white or black, or any other thing, this is how it is in many parts of the world. In DR, the word "Indio" is sometimes used to identify Mulattos, nothing to do with the natives.
Furthermore, just by observations from traveling throughout DR countless times for my whole life (I'm Dominican and have family in many parts), and also seeing Dominicans in other parts of the world particularly USA, as well as traveling to other countries especially in the Latin America/Caribbean region. I'd say the statistics based on phenotype go like this:
Dominican Republic 75% mixed race Mulatto/Tri-racial ("lightskin" or ambiguous with mixed facial features, think Al B Sure or for Dominican comparison Romeo Santos) - or even brownskin with heavy European features or dark white with heavy African feautures
20% black (brownskin or darkskin- Will Smith color or darker, David Ortiz for Dominican comparison) - sometimes lightskin with heavy African feautures think Craig Mack nose lips hair etc)- a large portion are Haitian immigrants or descendants of them, San Pedro Cocolos from other islands, and a much smaller number of American descendants in Samana.
5% white (like Juan Luis Guerra)
Compared to other countries
Panama
40% Mestizo mix (white/native)
20% black
15% white
15% Mulatto/Tri-racial mix (white/black, probably some native too)
10% native
Belize
50% Mestizo mix
25% black
10% Mulatto/Tri-racial mix
10% native
5% other (South Asians and whites)
Trinidad/Tobago
35% mix between South Asian and black
30% black
30% South Asian
5% other ( Mestizo from Venezuela and whites)
Guyana
35% black
30% mix South Asian/black
30% South Asian
5% other (natives and mestizos)
Jamaica
Close to 90% black
10% Mulatto mix
2% other (whites and Asians)
Haiti
95% black
5% Mulatto mix
Less than 1% other mainly whites
Barbados (most of the other small Eastern Caribbean islands are similar btw, St Kitts, Antigua, Guadalupe, St Vincent etc)
85% black
10% Mulatto mix
Less than 5% other (whites, Asians)
All these countries have on par or higher black percentages than DR, and I'm not following the One drop and including the mixed with the black, that's highly inaccurate.
Now, countries with lower black percentages would be
Cuba
50% Mulatto
35% white
15% black
Puerto Rico
70% Mulatto/Tri-racial
25% white
5% black
Brazil
45% Mulatto/Tri-racial
40% white
10% black
5% other (native, Mestizo, Asian)
Colombia
40% Mestizo
30% white
15% Mulatto/Tri-racial
10% black *due to isolation some of them are some of the most genetically African in the Americas, second to Haitians)
5% other (native, Asian)
Venezuela
40% Mestizo
35% white
20% Mulatto/Tri-racial
5% other (black, native)
Cape Verde is racially the most similar to DR
Nearly 70% Mulatto
30% black
2% white
As far as DNA goes, the average Dominican is about 50% European, 42% African, 8% Taino native. The European and Taino components are highest in the Cibao region and the African component is highest in southeast plain. Comparitively, the average Puerto Rican is about 58% European, 27% African and 15% Taino, and the average Cuban has slightly less African and Taino than that. While the average person from Jamaica, the Bahamas and those smaller islands in the Eastern Caribbean, is probably about 85% African, 13 European and 2% Native, resembling more African Americans. The average Haitian being nearly 100% African.
How do you know how white people would see that Trini woman? Did you ask them?
DR is not more African than Trinidad or Guyana, see above.
Also why do you call Mulattos- Afrodescendient if they are mixed with both black and white. Why don't you call them Eurodescendient as well. I don't know about Mulattos in other countries, but Dominican mulattos we recognize and claim ALL sides of our heritage, European African Taino, most of us. Many of us have people in our family who are very dark and very light, some white some black some beige some brown all in the same family. In DR and some other spanish countries, "race" is Not as clear cut as the US and many other countries, it's a blurry spectrum due to heavy mixing for centuries and generations.
There are many black and darker mixed people in DR who are middle class or even rich, likewise there are many white or lighter mixed people who are poor in DR. Eventhough, this is not the norm and there is more of the opposite just like in most of the rest of the world, it isn't rare either. Same can be said of some other countries. It's like the US in that sense.
DUDE, panama as mucjh black as DR, HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH
dude i travel alot, no way is even remotely close to DR's black pop
if u mean 20% of DR is jet blue black then yeah
and sorry pal but it says it right there
60% mulatto
35% black
5% white
panama for sure is 20% black, but def not DR, we have way more than that at least by 20%
in response to u traveling ur whole life in DR, so?
i live here dude, cocolos barely even scratched the suffers of our pop
the only immigrant pop that played a role in our black pop is haitians, forget about the others ones cause tyhey didnt even come in the tens of thousands which at those times is less than 1%, u can look this up man
different sources say different things about cocolos one hting for certain is that there were alkways black dominicans far outnumbers any cocolo that came in that eastern reghion which is why theres barely any left bratha, centrtal america is where cocolos really came at large and still speak english
i lived in the US many years and now i live in DR, im not gonna say my personal **** here online. whether u choose to beleive me or not, makes no difference to me, what i see here on a dailyt is definbitely as the source says without haitians
60% mulatto
35% black
5% white
ur speaking ouit of emotions bro
not to mentoion the vast majority of panama's black population is not even panamanian but froim cocolos who came to build the canal, estas quemao loco
and alot of those figures u put for countries are based on what u find in the cia world factbook, not a good source but is the only one ppl can rely on
all this is based on self identification
did u know that alot of mixed race anglo caribbean ppl identify as black man? exactly they do
also guadeloupe and martinique are a majority mulatto bro and curacao, u failed to even invistigate this ****, u really think the DR is the only caribbean island like that man? get out a here
As far as DNA goes, the average Dominican is about 50% European, 42% African, 8% Taino native. The European and Taino components are highest in the Cibao region and the African component is highest in southeast plain. Comparitively, the average Puerto Rican is about 58% European, 27% African and 15% Taino, and the average Cuban has slightly less African and Taino than that. While the average person from Jamaica, the Bahamas and those smaller islands in the Eastern Caribbean, is probably about 85% African, 13 European and 2% Native, resembling more African Americans. The average Haitian being nearly 100% African.
your gonna keep relying on that terrible small dna sample of cibaenos mainly for the average dominican? come on
I deliberately used the term "Afro descendant". How one defines "black" depends on ones perspective.
The reality is that relative to the rest of Latin America, even when compared to nearby Cuba and Puerto Rico, DR has a large Afro descendant population. Now you can call them "mixed" or "black" but that doesnt change these facts.
And the fact that you do not see the Trini woman as "black" makes my point. What is clear is if she was put her in a room with black and with white people most people in that room will claim that she has closer links to the blacks than the whites. She can be accepted as "black" if she so choses, but never as "white". It will be easier for her to accepted by blacks as being "black" than by whites as being "white", so if she runs arounding counting up her Euro ancestry, and trivializing her Afro what point is she trying to make? She has an appearance that many will link to Trinidad, so it makes my point that the DR falls well within a Caribbean norm.
And here is another fact. You can chat all you want about who is more Euro than whom but to most Europeans that is quite silly given that when they look at that woman, who fits a profile quite common in the DR, what they see is her African characteristics, and not her European.
Here is another fact. DR is more "African" than is Trinidad or Guyana, given the substantial Indian populations that live in both. So this means that the max in those two Caribbean countries that would have African ancestry will be 50-55%. If we add up the last available census data for the DR that outlined race the black and mixed population it comes to more than 65%. So we can say that DR lies as an intermediate point in the Caribbean between the most "purely" African populations as in most of the English Caribbean, except Trinidad and Guyana, and those where the Afro descendant populations are more minimal, as in PR and Aruba, and to an extent Cuba.
Why do Dominicans invest so much time trying to prove to yourselves that you arent a country where most people have at least some VISIBLE African ancestry? Nothing wrong to be Afro descendant.
The ethnogenesis of Dominicans has a lot to do with distinguishing itself from Haiti.
The ethnogenesis of Dominicans has a lot to do with distinguishing itself from Haiti.
Dominicans aren’t focused on that, though in certain circles abroad they think they do. Is like asking why in all censuses before the 1970’s the mixed/mulatto category was always shown as the largest segment? Since when seeing themselves as mixed or mulattoes means not having African ancestry? Its like using those terms to imply there is no European ancestry.
Another way would be like trying to explain the Haitian flag which among other things the bands represents the mulattoes and the blacks. This could be the basis of an argument that Haitians are trying to differentiate themselves from France by taking the French flag and doing a few modifications leaving one band to represent mulattoes and another band for blacks.
Furthermore, there is a tendency that has been created by a few Haitian sociologists and some historians to see the DR as a sort of vacuum separate from everywhere else. This is noticeable in various books published by them, mostly in the previous century. Under that assumption, everything Dominicans do, believe in, etc is in relation to Haiti. In essence, everything Dominicans do is an attempt to differentiate themselves from Haiti. This tendency is probably a result of seeing things inwardly which tends to be common in island societies. But in reality, DR is a part of the Hispanic American world and many of the things is explained by that. The origins of what is now known as Haitian society started with the arrival of the French in the 17th century. Not only would Haiti had never been created without that happening first, but the direct descendants of many Dominicans were the people already living on the island and under Spanish influence for over 100 years before Saint-Domingue (today Haiti) was created as a colony of France. There are some material things that still point to that. As an example, the Oldest Cathedral in the New World in Santo Domingo was built around 200 years before Saint-Domingue was created.
The point is that the origins of Dominican culture predates by one or two centuries before the origins of Haiti. With that case, by the time Haitians came to be a force to be reckoned with in the 1700’s which is when the ancestors of most Haitians arrived on the island, Dominicans already had a set of language, belief, culture, etc that already had existed on the island for several centuries before.
This leads to the belief that Dominicans are trying to differentiate from Haiti, assuming that all things Dominicans emerge from Haiti. How can most aspects of culture, identity, language, belief, etc emerge from a society that had its beginning several centuries after the Dominicans? By the time the beginnings of what eventually lead to Haitian society, the Spanish government was already and for quite some time selling in its government offices certificates of whiteness, in which any non-white family that had this certificate could be treated differently from whites in courts, government offices and society at large. These certificates were on sale all over the Spanish Empire (Mexico City, Caracas, Lima, etc). By the time Haitians as a society arose as one, Dominicans already had that option for centuries. From the point of views of some Haitian sociologists and historians, anything related to this among Dominicans is their way of trying to differentiate themselves from Haiti. In reality, this is a legacy of being a part of the Spanish Empire. Plus, this tendency is also evident in other countries that were part of the Spanish Empire such as Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, etc.
The only time Haiti had the greatest influence and direct control of the Dominicans was during the 22 years domination from 1822 to 1844. That’s basically one generation while Spain had around 300 years or 12 generations. How can anyone think that a society would be much more influenced during 22 years than 300 years is beyond comprehension, more so when those 300 years preceded the 22 years. Most of what Dominicans do, think, etc is overwhelmingly originated during those 300 years and all the influences after that are considerably less to the point that they are the sweet coating on the cake. Most of the cake represents those 300 years.
That is only one example, but there are many.
In countries like the USA there might be a greater tendency to see the Haitian aspects of this than the Dominican mostly because Haiti has been very present from a diplomatic and even academic stance with many books and such published by Haitian intellectuals in the USA. This is the complete opposite of Dominicans who until the late-1990’s was very hermitic of a society worrying more about itself. This also lead to other things such as Haiti was better known worldwide than the DR, which often people didn’t even know it was a country.
Even today, the DR as part of Spain still had more years than the DR has as an independent country and under the invasions of the multiple countries in the 19th and 20th centuries. In fact, that is still more than all the others combined and by a very large margin.
The ethnogenesis of Dominicans has a lot to do with distinguishing itself from Haiti.
a big part of it is yes
but we dominicans normally dont care about race
we just say we are dominican
i think what happens alot too is that in the USA, they are very race focused that they have for example a dominican who is black by race for example, we think it has to do with black americans, and we are not african american so we either put white, mixed, or other
i think what happens alot too is that in the USA, they are very race focused that they have for example a dominican who is black by race for example, we think it has to do with black americans, and we are not african american so we either put white, mixed, or other
It isn’t. Later tonight I will posts two passages from two books from before Haiti was independent where it clearly describes certain aspects today attributed to Dominicans attempting to differentiate themselves from the Haitians when in fact this predates the Haitians by centuries. I leaves the question how can these things be “attempting to differentiate from the Haitians” when it was already the case once the Haitians arrived.
One of the biggest issues is that most things published on Dominicans is in Spanish. People that only know English or know more than one language but not Spanish have a very limited selection of books and papers on Dominicans. There are much more written on Haiti and Haitians in English, and this is due to what I said in the previous post. In fact, the almost complete absence of anything in English about Dominicans and/or the DR is one of the reasons the Dominican Studies Institute was created at NYU (though there is a current of thought there too, but not on all things).
English speakers have a limited selection and most is not even written by Dominicans, but rather by Americans. A much bigger selection on all things Dominican are found at the National Library and in the National Archives both in Santo Domingo. The third largest (perhaps the largest considering it has documents from the entire colonial period) is in the Indias Archive in Seville, Spain and in some libraries in Madrid. Of course, every single one is in Spanish.
Another interesting thing is that there has been more interest on the DR and Dominicans by Haitian sociologists and historians than the same from Dominicans towards Haiti and Haitians. The result is that there are more books on the SR published in French by Haitian intellectuals than Dominican books on Haiti. To make matters even more difficult, works published by Haitian intellectuals are almost always in French and don’t exist in Spanish. The same is true with Dominican books and works, always in Spanish and the vast majority are never translated in French or English. As is normal, anything in French isn’t read by most Dominicans including intellectuals and most things in Spanish aren’t read by Haitian intellectuals.
Lastly, CaribNY (not quoted by you this time) is racist. Look at what she said when it was mentioned that the Cibao has had the most influence in the DR with producing most of the presidents, historians, etc. It’s quite comical what she said, but that’s what racists are constantly thinking about. Imagine saying that Cibaeños like Gregorio Luperón and Ulises Heareaux were light skin, at different times generals and presidents of the country. Those are only a drop of all of them that by no stretch of the imagination could be considered light skin. But I guess for her they aren’t Cibaeños. Leaves me wondering from where then since they weren’t from any of the other regions and they were Dominicans.
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