The merengue is blaring, the drinks flow freely, the kids jump on a bed close by, the food is rich and bountiful, and the Dominican Republic is all over the smiling faces of the friends and family present. So rings in the new year in a small first floor apartment on 139th Street and Broadway in New York City.
It's about 11:30pm and everyone waits for midnight and 2006. My little vantage point for the occasion is a chair in a very narrow hallway at the entrance to the very tiny livingroom you see in the above picture. Personally I can't help but think about how different this neighborhood must be now compared to when my grandmother came here in 1949. Despite the amount of acculturation my family has gone through in the subsequent 56 years, I feel quite at home here in this very typical Washington Heights scene.
The assimilation experience is much different today for Dominicans in the U.S. as closer ties to the home culture make it easier to preserve their ethnic identity. There's even a Dominican channel on cable as I write this!!!
I look around and notice something very interesting. Normally one would frame and hang a college diploma. Here there are two diplomas on the wall, but they are from a junior high and high school respectively. Given how poorly this community performs academically, is this a sign of accomplishment or the visual representation of a glass ceiling Dominicans struggle to break through?
Noella's here covering her ears as she walks back to the relative "quiet" of the tiny bedroom. I've said it before and I'll say it again, my family is lucky to be where we are today. I'm proud of my heritage, and I'm glad that my daughter has the opportunities she does thanks to five Dominican sisters who came to the US between the 1930's & 1950's....
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