BY STUDENT
I was born in the Dominican
Republic, a small country in the Caribbean that shares the island of Hispaniola
with Haiti. Back in the year 2000, my mom quit her job, packed up our house,
and left to Corona, Queens. I followed a year later. During that year that I
had to wait, it seemed like everyone was obsessed with “Nueva York”. Many of my
friends moved to different parts of “Nueva York” that year, and many of them
moved with their families after, too. It was described as the land of opportunity
where anyone could achieve the American Dream. I thought that as soon as I
stepped off the plane, everyone would speak English and have blonde hair and
blue eyes like most of the Americans in movies. However, I found that my family
could easily get by without a lick of English. Wherever I turned, people were
speaking Spanish! A large portion of Corona was, and still remains, Latin@.
In his book “Magical Urbanism”,
Mike Davis tell us that sometime in 1996, “Latinos surpassed African-Americans
as the second largest ethno-racial group in New York City.” This change was
reflected in the 2000 Census. Davis tells us that, in New York City, there are
as many Puerto Ricans as there are in its capital, San Juan, and that there are
as many Dominicans as there are in its capital, Santo Domingo. Davis mentions
in his book that Latin@s didn’t necessarily recognize this change. They did not
realize the impact that this could have on the community.
New York City had the largest
Latin@ population in the United States in 1990. The 1990 Census shows that
about 1,784,000 people of “Hispanic origin” were living in New York City. By
2000, that number grew to 2,160,554, a growth of about 17 percent. This growth,
although not exponential, brought Latin@s to the forefront as the largest
ethno-racial group in New York City. Unfortunately, the 1990 Census does not
provide information for specific places. However, the 2000 Census shows that 556,605,
or about 26 percent, of New York City Latin@s live in Queens, NY. The growth of
the Latin@ population is significant because the government uses Census data
for the allocation of funds. Census data is also used by businesses to cater to
the larger populations. For example, because the Dominican population has grown
so much, there have been many Dominican restaurants, salons, and barbershops
opened throughout New York City. Supermarkets have started carrying products
that Latin@s use in their food, such as Adobo and plantains. Hopefully, as the
Latin@ population continues to rise throughout the United States, the
appropriate changes will be made to immigration law, especially in those cities
like New York, where the Latin@ population is the majority minority.
Sources:
www.census.gov
www.census.gov
Davis, Mike. Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the Us City. London: Verso,
2000. Print.
if the Latina's realize that they are the majority minority, what are the impacts this could have on the community?
ReplyDeleteI.V:
ReplyDeleteYour completely correct, the Hispanic population and at a pretty rapid pace. According to the census pretty soon 1 in 3 kids will be of Hispanic origin. In regards to the immigration law reforms we can only hope that the right procedures get taken in order to help those undocumented immigrants.
I was glad to be reminded of the fact that NYC is home to the same number of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans as each of the countries respective nation capitals. As a former NYC resident, I can personally speak for the diversity and openness to other cultures in the city, especially in comparison to other areas of the country. I hope the rest of the nation can adopt certain aspects of the "New York State of Mind."
ReplyDeleteNYC is so diverse and I love it. When my parents came to the United States they immediately went to NYC because even in the Dominican Republic they heard about the greatness of NYC. My mom moved to Sunset Park and it was full of many Latinos. their was not one majority of latinos from a certain country,. You had Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Costa Ricans etc. They had an impact on the community because the officials of brooklyn at the time either lived or live in the struggle of the communities of the people that they are representing.
ReplyDeleteI am originally from Brasil but when my family immigrated to this country, we moved to Florida. Florida has a very large Cuban population comparable to that of the Puerto Ricans of NYC. The total number of Puerto Ricans living in NYC being similar to that of the capital of their homeland was really eye opening.
ReplyDeleteI was so intrigued by you're journey, growing up in the Dominican Republic and moving to NYC. That must have been quite the transition. I was studying in Italy last semester and had the opportunity to travel to many different places. The view of the US as "being the the land of opportunity where anyone could achieve the American Dream" is one held by many worldwide. As you have lived here over for a long time, do you believe this statement holds. Is this view influenced by stories told by your parents, friends, social media? Did you learn English in the DR or when you arrived in the US? Thank you for sharing your experiences!
ReplyDeleteI was also born and partially raised in the Dominican Republic, my mom and I moved to NY when I was 13 years old, and I also had completely different expectations than what I encounter. But my experience was a little different than yours, although we had a large population of spanish speaking students, our 9th grade is a separate school, it is not with the other high school grades. The school is called The Freshmen Center, at the freshmen center there was no bilingual classes so the school board wanted to send me to the middle school and repeat 8th grade where there was a bilingual program, I did not agree to this therefore I was just thrown in regular English classes which forced me to learn English quicker for my own survival. At the time I did not realize how large the non-english speaking Latinx population was in my hometown because I was not exposed to it, I didn't make sense to it until the next year. However, since the Latinx population has grown so much now, as you mentioned in your posts, we have Dominican supermarkets, Salvaderian delis, etc.
ReplyDelete