Dominicans in New York: Getting a Slice of the Apple
Jordan, Howard
After years of struggle, the Dominican community is becoming a pivotal player in New York City politics. I'd like to help, but we already have too many immigrants," a liberal Queens...
...In any case, he was lambasted by VOL XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 Dominicans and Puerto Ricans alike for harming the economic interests of the Dominican community and for derailing an incipient Dominican-Puerto Rican alliance...
...But Rafael Sencion, an activist with the Congress for Dominican Rights, expressed his anger and frustration when the assemblye their dho focus d politics, singer :ans want cipate in ork City itics...
...Since he has never held a clearly identifiable ideological position, he will be closely watched as he defines his political persuasion in his first term...
...Both Dominican elected officials won elections against socalled machine politicians, but some are uncomfortable with Linares because of his recent "accomodationist" postures...
...If one counts the large number of undocumented Dominicans, the population is well above a half million...
...Others argue that the councilman had a genuine change of heart, but are at a loss to explain the last-minute character of his vote...
...See Eugenia Georges, New Immigrants and the Political Process: Dominicans in New York (New York: Research Program in InterAmerican Affairs, 1984...
...It is through the remesadoras that New York Dominicans wire Guillermo Linares, New York City C millions of dollars in the Dominican community in Wash remittances to relatives in the Republic every year...
...The Linares-Espaillat conflict reflects broader political tendencies in the Dominican community...
...In 1985, the parade moved downtown and was officially recognized by Mayor Ed Koch and Governor Mario Cuomo, who, in separate press conferences, took the opportunity to declare August 9 Dominican Day in New York...
...The specter of mounting disunity hangs heavily on the Dominican political movement...
...The 1980s also witnessed a significant themselv increase in Dominican participation in poli local school board politics...
...The income of the Dominican population is one of the lowest in New York City, and about 47% of Dominican children live in poverty...
...As the 1980s came to a close, Dominicans had come to play an important role in the politics of upper Manhattan...
...Dominican population now lives in New York State, followed by 10% in New VOL XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 37 VOL XXX, NO 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 37REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Jersey and 7% in Florida...
...After a whirlwind of political activity, voter turnout doubled compared with the previous election, and six of the ten Front candidates were elected to the local board...
...Democratic Party "district leaders," who are elected--one male and one female-in every stateassembly district of New York City, have become important fixtures in city politics...
...Until his election last November, Espaillat enjoyed little support from the Manhattan political establishment, though he had been well-received by the Bronx Puerto Rican establishment, including Borough President Fernando Ferrer and Democratic County chair Roberto Ramirez...
...The boards, a legacy of the decentralization reforms of establ is the late 1960s, are democratically elected and also allow for the voting of noncitizens...
...Many Puerto Rican elected and appointed officials participated in these Dominican electoral movements, lending expertise and using their political power to work for the inclusion of Dominicans in the political process...
...Many believe that Linares changed his vote in order to court the black political establishment...
...pol The Puerto Rican leadership in East Harlem-once the Puerto Rican mecca of New York City-felt the Abyssinian Development Corporation, as well as local African-American leaders, had ignored the concerns of the Latino community in pushing through this project...
...His Manhattan base, however, may now be expanding...
...The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) reports that 226,853 Dominicans arrived in the United States as permanent residents from 1982 through 1989, and in New York City, Dominicans outnumbered all other immigrants who pursued citizenship during that same period...
...The stage is set for the 1997 mayoral and city council primary elections...
...Add to this the individual fortunes of clothing designer Oscar de la Renta and the growing number of millionaire baseball stars, and U.S...
...This often creates tensions between those older generation organizers who focus their organizing efforts around island politics and those who advocate active involvement in local metropolitan affairs...
...military presence in 1965, and their opposition forced the Mayor and Commissioner to backpedal...
...In this sense, Dominican elected officials may be going the way of their Puerto Rican and African-American counterparts...
...Dominican participation in the U.S...
...Political doors were slammed-or closed ever so gently--on our lobbying efforts on behalf of a community without clout...
...to pa rti In a last minute change of position, however, Councilman Linares cast the decid- New Y ing vote in the city council, resulting in a 6-5 vote in favor of the proposed project...
...Dominicans become a community of considerable economic power...
...e ask ther nican ans are empower munity, erely )dating es to the tical ;hment...
...We won, and Domi for the first time fear set in as the local politicians heard the coming political politiCi footsteps...
...7. See Angelo Falcon and Christopher Hanson-Sanchez, Latino Immigrants and Electoral Participation (New York: Institute for Puerto Rican Policy, 1996...
...W hile New York Dominicans make their mark at every level of the political process, several obstacles are still in the way of full political empowerment...
...lishment...
...6. '5afir Plan Irks Dominicans," New York Daily News, December 15, 1996, p. 13...
...4.Apolinar Trinidad, "Area Policy Boards and Dominican Politics," Latinos United for Political Action, August, 1983...
...Paradoxically, after the 1965 U.S...
...In 1985, a grassroots movement backed by the Dominican Electoral Front supported the candidacy of Julio Hernandez to become male party leader for that district...
...The "plan amounts to two cops in the [U.S.] Embassy exchanging information with the Dominican police," Safir told the New York at Dominican pitcher Daily News after the controversy action...
...You've got to be real naive to believe that...
...3 The New York-Dominican political leadership in this period fell into two categories: a small group linked through personal ties to Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, and a larger group militantly opposed to his regime...
...I'm not about to support legislation against rent stabilization...
...7 Dominicans made up only 11% of Latino registered voters in New York City in 1993, though they accounted for over 20% of the city's Latino population...
...According to a recent study, Dominicans have low levels of voter eligibility, even though they have high voter turnout rates...
...For one, many Dominicans continue to view themselves as transient-living and working in the United States only until they can gather sufficient resources to return to the homeland...
...Each APB had 21 members...
...Four Dominican organizations, the Community Association of Progressive Dominicans (CAPD), the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights (NMCIR), Alianza Dominicana and Latinos United for Political Action (LUPA), identified control of education as a key component of empowerment and linked themselves to the struggle of Latino VOL XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 parents to address school overcrowding and substandard education...
...And why are you dealing with these Dominicans anyway...
...Representation, the critics remind us, is not power...
...This was but one of the negative responses I received in meetings with over 30 members of the state assembly urging them to endorse a bill which sought to address the needs of New York's Dominicans, the largest immigrant group in the state and its fastest-growing ethnic minority...
...But ten years after our unsuccessful lobbying efforts, Dominican politicians in New York are winning positions from which they can effectively make themselves heard...
...This limits the creation of the necessary political infrastructure within New York that could impel Dominicans to the next step in their political ascendancy...
...Dominican aspirations are also limited by high levels of noncitizenship...
...3. Prof...
...The Northern Manhattan Committee for Fair Representation (NMCFR), a Dominican-led coalition, exerted enormous political pressure on the New York City Redistricting Commission to create a district that could be won by a Dominican...
...As the Dominican community grows in the coming years, it will help reshape the political establishment of New York...
...Younger New York-born Dominicans see the older generation's ties to homeland politics as nostalgic, and they view the future of the Dominican community as intimately linked to the empowering of Dominicans in the United States...
...The first parade, on August 9, 1982, attracted 40,000 people, and the second drew nearly 100,000 to parade routes near Dominican neighborhoods in upper Manhattan...
...As a result, the ethnic associations began to take on a new character, as the political exiles played an important role in organizing the community at the grassroots...
...You're Puerto Rican, and Dominicans don't vote...
...While these ethnic associations did not run candidates, they frequently helped local Democratic candidates through leafletting and voter mobilization...
...man cancelled an October meeting he had scheduled with community groups to explain his position on rent regulations...
...While the bank went under in 1990, the very idea that New York Dominicans could launch such an enterprise is testimony to the increasing economic significance of the community...
...The momentum from the APB and school board victories provided the impetus for Dominican activists to launch a campaign for a Democratic district leader position in 1985...
...The only thing I told RSA was that I would listen to their point of view...
...5 Throughout this period, the links and cross-fertilization with Puerto Rican leadership were crucial...
...Some voices in the community ask whether the movement is pushing an empowerment process forward or is merely accomodating itself to the political establishment...
...Four Dominicans ran for the office in 1991: Guillermo Linares, Maria Luna, Adriano Espaillat and Apolinar Trinidad...
...broke...
...The legislators who showed me the door back in 1987 can no longer reject the elected Dominican officials who will soon knock at their doors, sit at the table, and negotiate their rightful piece of the budgetary and political pie...
...Dominicans came to play a pivotal role in the APBs, which assisted and adNACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS C C C 0 38REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC vised the CDA in the distribution of $32 million a year in anti-poverty funds...
...Linares, a long-time activist in New York progressive politics, would doubtless argue he has simply expanded his base...
...invaio in sion of the island blocked the establishment of a centerleft regime, many Dominican leftists came to New York as political exiles...
...Until 1983, no Dominicans were on an APB, and only one Dominican organization had ever received funds from the CDA...
...Three of the city council candidates of 1991, for example, played major roles in the 1993 mayoral election in which the majority of Dominicans supported Democratic Mayor David Dinkins over his Republican rival, Rudy Giuliani...
...6 Eventually, the plan was simply tabled...
...Dominicans in New York 1. "Dominican Political Empowerment," monograph, (New York: The Dominican Public Policy Project, 1992...
...Supporters say Espaillat is simply taking a political hit from his enemies...
...Already speculation has been fueled that Moises Perez, executive director of Alianza Dominicana, will challenge the re-election efforts of 41REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Councilmember Linares due to the latter's perceived lack of response to Dominican needs...
...This resulted in significant increases in fund- or m ing for Dominican groups in Washington accom( Heights...
...With the help of our allies in the Puerto Rican community, we put the heat on the Redistricting Committee, and our efforts led to the election of the first Dominican councilman...
...There were businessmen who knew how to get funding from city agencies, as well as younger U.S.educated Dominicans who became active in New York City politics...
...Though the APBs were eliminated later in the 1980s, they proved to be a key first step in Dominican electoral empowerment...
...But they know very well that I am not supportive of their agenda...
...At his recent swearing in at a neighborhood public school, a virtual who's who of the Manhattan Democratic establishment was in attendance, including Congressman Charles Rangel and Borough President Ruth Messinger...
...12 were Dominican the corr -six elected and one appointed...
...They run public schools from kindergarten through junior high school for nearly one million school children...
...The Village Voice, in an article entitled "Hangin' With the Landlords," reported that campaign disclosure records show that the newly elected assemblyman received close to $23,750 in contributions from the Rent Stabilization Association (RSA), a group that advocates abolishing rent stabilization and control laws...
...But while leading Dominican political figures like President Leonel Fernindez-along with Joaquin Balaguer, Juan Bosch and Jos6 Francisco Pefia G6mez-all have New York branches to raise money and recruit support for their candidacies, many Dominicans, especially young people, have made the break...
...The Pathmark Unlik plan made no provisions for the survival of local Latino grocery stores or smaller elders v neighborhood supermarkets, mostly on isla n owned by Dominicans...
...Another obstacle to full Dominican participation is the growing rate of poverty in the Dominican community...
...With representation on the City Council, Dominicans were now able to make themselves felt as a force in citywide politics...
...His pursuit of the backing of many moderate, right-wing Balaguerists, however, has raised the eyebrows of many of his supporters...
...Optimists, however, argue that the election of Linares, Espailliat and others to positions of influence in city and state government will present Dominicans with a springboard from which to influence public policy in New York and the United States...
...In Manhattan, home of the largest Dominican enclave, the election of Dominican district leaders would give the community a voice in the selection of the Manhattan Democratic chairman, who, in turn, would play a key role in determining the Party's support for assembly, senatorial and judicial candidates...
...Nothing comes with no strings attached," said Sencion...
...They are charged with overseeing all party financial and political business in a given assembly district, including the selection of poll watchers in local voting sites...
...12, the APB that represented the Dominican neighborhoods of upper Manhattan...
...Another Dominican, Adriano Espaillat, became the first Dominican to serve in the state Assembly after upsetting a 16year incumbent in an upper-Manhattan race last November...
...Though the parade itself had been founded years earlier, the parade committee served to consolidate and provide a base for New York's Dominican ethnic associations...
...Twenty-thousand New York businesses are owned by Dominicans, including 70% of all small Latino grocery stores-New York's bodegas, which generate sales of $1.8 billion per year-and 90% of nonmedallion cabs, another multimillion dollar industry...
...In 1995, for example, a proposal to build a $12 million Pathmark megastore on East Harlem's 125th Street by the Abyssinian Development Corporation, an African-American development group, led to charges of "betrayal" against Dominican Councilman Linares...
...He has been criticized as enjoying broader suport in sectors outside the Dominican community than from within...
...6, in the Washington Heights area...
...Many activists feel the councilmember has distanced himself from his Dominican base, and many argue that his real support base is the white liberal establishment of Manhattan...
...In the Dominican elec4 0ALA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 40REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC tion districts in 1993, only 31% of residents actually registered to vote...
...1983 marked a watershed for New York Dominican political participation, as the ethnic associations organized to gain representation in the city's anti-poverty bureaucracy, including the Community Development Agency (CDA) and its locally elected advisory groups, called Area Policy Boards (APBs...
...Espaillat acknowledges the contribution but vehemently denies cutting any deal with the pro-landlord lobby...
...Dominicans in New York: Getting a Slice of the Apple A Dominican girl dances at the Dominican Day Parade in New York City Dominican to be elected to the New York City Council...
...For more than a decade, the female district leadership of upper Manhattan's 71st Assembly District was held by a Dominican woman, Maria Luna, who, while a committed community advocate, was continually re-elected due to the support of the local political machine...
...Among the many small businesses of Washington Heights-the upper Manhattan neighborhood that has become New York's principal Dominican enclave-are the many remesadoras (moneytransfer offices) that have helped transform New York into a financial center for Dominicans...
...I'd like to help, but we already have too many immigrants," a liberal Queens Assemblyman told me back in 1987 when, as director of the New York State Assembly Task Force on Immigration, I was lobbying for legislation that would ease the plight of noncitizen New Yorkers...
...5. Fernando Lescaille, Dominican Political Empowerment (Santo Domingo: Dominican Public Policy Project, 1992...
...Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat is also reportedly considering endorsing a candidate against Linares, his political nemesis...
...Two Democratic district leaders of Dominican descent had been elected...
...The prior struggles of Puerto Rican activists in the areas of bilingual education, decentralization and anti-poverty programs created the infrastructure and political space that would enable Dominican empowerment efforts to succeed...
...To the extent that very low levels of income inhibit political participation, such extensive poverty results in the alienation of Dominicans from the political process...
...8.Ramona Hernandez, Francisco Rivera-Batiz, & Roberto Agodini, Dominican New Yorkers: A Socio Economic Profile (New York: City University of New York, 1990...
...During the 1980s a group of U.S.-educated Dominicans organized the Dominican Day Parade Committee following the model of the Puerto Rican Day Parade...
...Perhaps the greatest obstacle to Dominican empowerment is a growing disunity among Dominican political elites, and their separation from the day-to-day concerns of the Dominican community...
...Linares garnered 30% of the vote, squeaking past the Democratic party regular, Maria Luna...
...As the 1990s approached, optimism ran high in what came to be known as "Quisqueya Heights...
...8 The portrait of Dominicans as upwardly mobile, urban workers is highly deceptive...
...re n A more recent expression of Dominican involvement in mayoral politics was the brouhaha over the plan of Mayor Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir to send New York City police to the Dominican Republic to interdict the Santo Domingo-New York drug traffic...
...According to the 1990 census, the city's Dominican population numbered 332,713, having grown 165% between 1980 and 1990...
...The key moment of recognition for New York's Dominican community came in 1991 with the implementation of a new City Charter, the redrawing of New 39REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC York City's electoral maps and the creation of a Dominican-majority City Council district...
...Their most important function is to vote for the Democratic county chairman of each of the city's five boroughs...
...Councilmember Linares and Adriano Espaillat were key members of Dominicans for Dinkins, while Apolinar Trinidad, who ran on the Conservative line in 1991, canvassed Dominican neighborhoods for the eventual winner, Giuliani...
...2. Unpublished study by the Tri-State Latino Commission, New York, 1988...
...Conflicts have also arisen around the recent election of Adriano Espaillat as the first Dominican to the state Assembly...
...1 Studies project that Dominicans will be the largest Latino group in the Northeast by the year 2010.2 Economic clout does not lag far behind...
...The idea was to back a candidate who would be accountable to the community itself, and not to the Democratic political machine...
...political process is a product of the historical experience of Dominicans both in the United States and the Dominican Republic...
...When I got the support from RSA," says Espaillat, "I made sure to tell them what my positions were...
...For example, Alfredo White founded El Centro Educacional del Caribe (CEDUCA), one of the first educational centers in Washington Heights...
...Linares, together with nearly all Puerto Rican elected officials, had signed a letter asking Mayor Rudy Giuliani to halt the preferential economic treatment the city had given to the proposed Pathmark project through $7 million in tax abatements...
...The plan touched a raw nerve among Dominican elected officials, evoking memories of the U.S...
...Six Dominicans had been elected to the Area Policy Board, two to the Community School Board, and four Dominicans had been appointed to the Community Planning Board...
...Some community activists argue that the appearance of Dominican faces in high places has done little to brake the declining quality of life for the vast majority of New York's Dominicans...
...Hernandez won, and became the first non-machine Dominican district leader in New York...
...In the 1992 presidential elections, however, Dominicans had a relatively high turnout rate of 56% of registered voters...
...Espaillat has a firmer, more current rooting in the Dominican community...
...While his election was hailed by many Latinos as a "people's victory," the new assembly member now has some of his constituents worried...
...In 1991, Guillermo Linares became the first Howard Jordan is an attorney and a Charles Revson Fellow at Columbia University He also teaches public administration at Hostos Community College...
...The Policy Boards, which were established in those districts with a certain proportion of poor neighborhoods, received and evaluated proposals from local non-profit organizations and made recommendations for funding to the CDA...
...Twelve were chosen by elections which allowed for noncitizen voting, seven were appointed by elected officials, and two were private-sector representatives...
...In this instance, the Puerto Rican political establishment you was marching hand in hand with local Dominican merchants to combat the dis- Dominic location of East Harlem Latino merchants...
...Creating a Dominican district was the only way we could secure a Dominican presence on the city council," says Fernando Lescaille, a for the San Franciscc founder of NMCFR and President of painting of himself i the Dominican Public Policy Project...
...Sixtynine percent of the U.S...
...Building on the community's sizable remittance flows, Dominicans Alejandro Grull6n and Geovanny Septilveda brought together a group of Dominican millionaires in 1985 to form a commercial bank called the Dominican Bank...
...Twenty Puerto Rican elected officials who were looking to increase the number of Latino districts in the city added their considerable political muscle to these efforts...
...In the 1960s, a number of autonomous, voluntary ethnic associations were established in the Dominican neighborhoods of New York City...
...4 As a result of the Front's helping mobilization, seven of the 21 representatives on Board No...
...By any yardstick, the Dominican community now has the numbers that can make it a pivotal player in New York City politics...
...This movement led to the election of several Dominican activists like Guillermo Linares (now city councilman) and Apolinar Trinidad to School Board No...
...Under the Area Policy Board, you didn't have to be a citizen, and the structure controlled [the flow of] economic resources to our community," said Apolinar Trinidad, a for- Som mer CDA official who was later whe appointed as APB representative by a Puerto Rican state senator...
...Many ethnic associations continued to focus on Dominican issues, particularly the repression of political dissent in the Republic, but many entertained an amicable relationship with the local Demo- uncil member greets members of cratic political estab- gton Heights...
...These efforts led to the creation of a Washington Heights district, and that set the backdrop for the election of the first Dominican to the New York City Council...
...In 1996, the RSA lavished $700,000 on candidates statewide...
...By the early 1970s, the associations had a more varied membership than those created by old elites...
...In September, 1983, ten Dominican ethnic-association leaders formed a Dominican Electoral Front and officially announced their participation in the elections for representation on Board No...
...White pursued close connections with Democratic elected officials, invited them to join his board, and created organizations to rally the Dominican community to vote for Democratic candidates...
...Eugenia Georges has characterized four types of political participation among Dominican associations during this period: 1) activist associations which attempted to deal with specific social and economic issues confronting New York's Dominican population, including selfhelp groups, political parties and student associations, 2) recreational clubs, 3) occupational associations and 4) performing cultural groups...
Vol. 30 • March 1997 • No. 5
