Dominican American Politics

“A much-needed scholarly contribution to understanding how Dominican American communities, defying exclusion, and daringly engaging local, state, and federal structures of civic participation, have developed a collective political muscle in the Northeastern United States during the last half-century, changing the ethnic political landscape of a megacity like New York. Blending institutional analysis and ethnography, Jiménez Polanco’s work sets a path for future studies that should further deepen her findings. A very welcome tool for those trying to teach Dominican Studies in U.S. higher education today.” Anthony Stevens-Acevedo, Historian, former Assistant Director of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute In Dominican American Politics: Immigrants, Activists, and Politicians Jacqueline Jiménez Polanco presents the most complete narrative to date about Dominicans’ involvement in U.S. politics. This is a mature writing by an author who has experienced, observed, and patiently studied the process of politization undertaken by the Dominican people in the United States. Jiménez Polanco’s discussion brings attention to the relationship between the development of leadership and rooted, established communities on U.S. soil and how both became stakeholders with whom the other ethnic and interest groups need to negotiate and reckon with. Taking into account Juan Rodríguez, Jiménez Polanco portrays the Dominican political leadership in the U.S. as decisive and assertive, conscientious and meticulous in demarcating and marking the spaces where it gravitates. This book goes through the politization of Dominicans with ease, from spontaneous community activism to formal organizing and recording, and the rise of electoral politics in Dominican-dominated spaces and beyond. In a challenging conclusion that seeks to materialize a tacit assumption, Jiménez Polanco argues convincingly that the ancestral land’s steady and strong tradition of political involvement influenced the birth of Dominican political participation in the U.S. Ramona Hernández, Professor of Sociology and Director of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute