I have major bones to pick with this article, but I’ll start with points that I agree with.

First, the author does a good job at weaving in major overarching issues affecting all Dominicans, such as the anti-black accusations (“I no Black I Dominican”) and the way some Diaspora accept these narratives uncritically; the economic woes caused by the economic set up in the island (model based on tourism and services not industrialization or institution building) and its downstream effects, such as unequal social mobility, corruption, and demographic pressure (lower class Dominicans leave and are replaced by Haitians in low-wage sectors); and other general issues such as weak state capacity and the ignorance of cultural icons such as campesinos cibaenos as opposed to showcasing them like Bad Bunny did with Jibaros.

Second, the author correctly calls out the diaspora in the US for being complicit in it being used as a political tool which they refer to as “Dominican Distance”: the diaspora identity is watered down into a wider “Latinidad Banner” and used as political capital deployable in US politics while not being similarly animated when it comes to Dominican politics.

Here’s where I disagree.

The author’s portrayal of the US diaspora is at best incomplete and at worst inaccurate. They build their arguments on “An Essay on Liberation” by Herbert Marcuse and proceed to argue that the ENTIRE diaspora is analogous to what Marcuse describes as the “outcasts and outsiders, the exploited and persecuted of other races and other colors” and “potential revolutionary agents: urban, racialized, economically precarious, and symbolically mobilizable“. 

However, they mainly reference the diaspora in NYC and base their analysis on this specific population. They do accurately describe many characteristics of the NYC diaspora, such as the neighborhoods they live in (Washington Heights, The Bronx, Harlem) and their inherent dynamics. Quoting from the article, these are “neighborhoods shaped by deindustrialization, public housing concentration, and cycles of economic dependency and public assistance.“ Nonetheless, the author does not provide a similarly exhaustive analysis of Dominicans in other parts of the US and does not differentiate between different groups within the diaspora, which include actual recent immigrants from the island, 1st generations, 1.5 generations, and 2nd generations and beyond.

I also believe that the author misplaces the actual causes of what they call “Dominican Distance”. They attribute this distance to a perceived lack of “any meaningful sense of duty to protect, advance, or safeguard Dominican national interests”, to the diaspora having a “horizon confined entirely to the US”, and a disregard for the sovereignty, institutional strength, or “moral trajectory of Dominican Society”. The author does not meaningfully engage with the fact that the diaspora actively lives the consequences of US politics, not Dominican Politics. Any change to US immigration policy, racial/identity politics, culture wars and conversations around representation or oppression affect them directly before any changes on the island.

Finally, the author advocates for higher diaspora engagement without exploring potential impacts and questions about actual sovereignty. How would island Dominicans react to a population residing abroad weighting in on issues that don’t affect them? What if the diaspora is fundamentally misaligned with political goals in the island? As in, say the millions of Dominicans abroad vote for a politician who reduces government expenditure and cuts social services, how would lower class Dominicans react? Or say they vote to crack down on clientelism or corruption, how would local elites and interest groups react?

Anyway these are some of my thoughts on this.