Dominican-Americans and the Politics of Empowerment

Foreword

Foreword Diasporic groups do not simply come into being and reproduce their sense of a unique corporate self through an identification with a real or imagined homeland. Nor are these groups exclusively defined through their varied transnational ties that transgress and redefine nation-state borders. Instead,as Ana Aparicio shows in this book, diasporic identities are concocted and no doubt contested in the rough and tumble of local politics that have to do with inherently local issues. And as she also shows, Dominicans in New York—and even more so second-generation Dominican-Americans as they take over the reins of community organizing—actively cultivate alliances with other groups such as Puerto Ricans and African-Americans, thus rendering Dominicans’ and Dominican-Americans’ diasporic experience multiplex, entailing shifting modes of salience for the construction of multiple identities. In this thoroughly researched book, Aparicio grapples with the received academic wisdom on immigrant groups in the United States and their transnational relationships, while presenting a wealth of ethnographic and qualitative data based on her own activist research.And it is the power of this research that gives credence to Aparicio’s critical interventions. She considers but then seriously questions models of immigrant incorporation, particularly for the second generation, that is, the children of Dominican immigrants to the United States.One such theory which Aparicio critiques is“segmented assimilation .” This theory arose in order to replace simplistic “melting pot” and “assimilation ”theories. Its promoters emphasize the ability of immigrant groups to make strategic choices in terms of their incorporation into U.S. society, and they suggest that the most successful course of action is to maintain a “coethnic ” identity and culture that emphasize the group’s nationality and eth- x Foreword nicity. Yet, as Aparicio argues, this view assumes internally homogeneous and bounded communities and cultures for both the receiving society, including its dominant sectors, and the immigrant groups themselves. Lost here is any sense of multiple identities and symbolic border crossings. At the same time, the theory’s overemphasis on choice and agency, as Aparicio rightly points out, downplays the determinative role of structural forces affecting class and identity position-taking. One reason for Aparicio’s advantage here is that much of the research on immigration and immigrant groups in the United States is not based on ethnographic investigations. For Aparicio, an ethnographic (and historical) approach could best appreciate the fluidity inherent in the situations she encountered . Through these methods she is able to add to but significantly challenge (1) theories of immigrant group transnationalism by showing the local nature of much political organizing even while these groups sustain what Aparicio calls their “multiplicity of involvements” in both the home and host societies; (2) theories of identity by showing how identity shifts with context; and (3) theories of second-generation political organizing methods by showing how Dominican-Americans reach out to other groups in order to empower their communities. It is quite possible that Aparicio has not only charted a new theoretical direction in immigration studies, but that she has described a new model of immigrant group organizing based on the Dominican-American experience in New York. It remains to be seen if other groups employ this model that Aparicio has so skillfully rendered here. Kevin A. Yelvington Series Editor ...