Caribbean Matters: Spotlighting The Dominican American Community

Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. Hope you’ll join us here every Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.

National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, and while people of Mexican origin comprise the largest Hispanic group in the U.S., many people are still unaware of the growth of Dominican American communities. 

Though 2025 census data is not currently available thanks to the ongoing government shutdown, date from Pew shows that “In 2022, there were 63.7 million Hispanics living in the United States”:

Eight Hispanic origin groups had at least 1 million people living in the U.S. in 2021. The five largest Hispanic populations in the U.S. by origin group were Mexicans (37.2 million), Puerto Ricans (5.8), Salvadorans (2.5), Dominicans (2.4) and Cubans (2.4). The other three origin groups with populations over 1 million were Guatemalans (1.8 million), Colombians (1.4) and Hondurans (1.1)

When I was growing up in New York City in the 1960s, I spent much of my time with Puerto Ricans and rarely, if ever, encountered folks from the Dominican Republic. That has changed. 

Dominicans first made their presence in the U.S. known via the Great American Pastime: baseball.

Vox produced a video explaining why so many baseball players are Dominican.

Baseball has a long history in the United States, but it also has strong roots in the Caribbean and Latin America, particularly in the Dominican Republic. Cubans were the first to bring the game from the US to their country in the 19th century, and later, wealthy Cubans introduced it to the Dominican Republic. Over the following decades, the sport became deeply ingrained in Dominican culture, while in the United States, baseball evolved into a multi-million dollar industry. Eventually, the United States began to seek out Cuban baseball talent. But when diplomatic relations between the two countries deteriorated, the Dominican Republic emerged as the primary focus of Major League Baseball's talent pipeline.As Dominicans demonstrated their skill and success as baseball players, the MLB started establishing academies in the Dominican Republic, which were affiliated with MLB teams in the United States. This system facilitated the influx of numerous talented Dominican players into MLB teams. Currently, Dominicans dominate Major League Baseball in the United States, making up more than 10 percent of all players in the league. They significantly outnumber players from other foreign-born countries.

This Aljazeera video focuses on a small business impact: the growth of Dominican bodega ownership.

This “World in America” documentary explores a Dominican American family’s transition to New Jersey.

The Gotham Gazette’s Felipe De La Hoz examined “The Growth of Dominican Political Power in New York” in 2021:

New York City, in all likelihood, won’t have a Dominican-American mayor after this year’s election. But that does not mean that the political power representing roughly 700,000 New Yorkers of Dominican heritage — about 30% of the city’s entire Hispanic population and just behind Puerto Ricans, who number around 730,000, according to American Community Survey figures — is not growing, the extension of a civic project that first took hold in the neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx a few decades ago. The Dominican community has already chosen representatives at every level of government, and is itching to expand outside of its traditional geographic strongholds and use the lessons learned in political and civic organizing of every type to become an ever greater force in local politics.

“I think that there is a great crop of young leaders that are emerging now, and I think they want to take it to another level. And I'm really happy to see that,” said United States Representative Adriano Espaillat, a Dominican-born Democratic legislator whose ground-breaking 2016 election for the Upper Manhattan-based 13th New York Congressional District was widely seen as a referendum on the community’s voting power in a longtime African-American stronghold.

Like many immigrant populations across the United States over time, the Dominican community’s presence as a cultural and economic force preceded its rise as an electoral entity of major consequence in New York. The roots can trace back to the early 20th century; the Dominican population expanded significantly starting in the 1960s, as many fled the Trujillo regime, and experienced a political awakening in the ‘90s that has culminated in office-holders at every level of government. The reasons why, and what the future holds for a political engine reaching maturation, will have major implications for the civic life of New York through the 2021 city government elections and beyond.

The process of building out a domestic political identity and a machinery to power it always takes time, but some Dominicans feel that, paradoxically, the community’s culture of robust civic and political engagement actually delayed its integration into New York’s political frameworks. “There was probably a time when Dominicans didn't do much politics here, but were very much tied to whatever was happening home, and the dictatorship,” said Espaillat. “Not just for politics, but even the business community, many people have one foot here, one foot there.”

Espaillat, who sits on the powerful House appropriations committee, holds the distinction of being the most prominent Dominican elected official in New York and perhaps the country, illustrating both how far the community has come and the long process to get there: he started off sitting on a community board. There are now Dominicans at various levels of government. But with the massive overhaul of local representation happening through the 2021 elections, where all of city government is on the ballot from mayor through the borough presidents and City Council, there is both opportunity and risk for Dominicans in local elected office

While this was a New York-centric piece, Dominican Americans are involved in politics across the northeast.

Dominican American political scientist Dr. Yalidiy Matos, author of “Moral and Immoral Whiteness in Immigration Politics” includes a list of notable players in her “Timeline of Dominican American Contributions to American Politics.”

At the federal level is the aforementioned Adriano Espaillat, who became the first Dominican American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing New York's 13th Congressional District since 2017. You can follow him on Bluesky:

Julia Alvarez is probably the most well-known Dominican American writer. She was the subject of a 2024 PBS American Masters special titled “American Masters - Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined.” Here’s the trailer: