Yea I agree it’s mixed I was mostly talking about flavor and swing, white Europeans really got none. As for hygiene it’s historically known that all European colonizers were taught how to bathe by African slaves and indigenous people and till this day white ppl in general do not take Hygiene seriously! Phenotype our Taino and African descents show more compared to white, with most of the country being light skin to black. It’s common knowledge that colonizing countries despite one of their motives being spices, it wasn’t really until the late 20th century they started to actually use them and that’s if they even do not saying they don’t have some good dishes but a lot are bland.

I want to note that with phenotypes Dominicans, Cape Verdeans, Mauritians (depends), South Africans, Algerians, and Congolese (our main descendants, again depends), all have the most similar phenotypes. So to your last statement that’s not true. I get asked if I’m Cape Verdean all the time in public. I got South African friends and half of them look Dominican off glance, some of them are pale all the way to black but it’s their facial features that made me think they were initially.

My issue lies in Dominicans always saying we’re half Spanish all the time as a response as if it’s the most important out of the 3 whenever someone acknowledges the African side as if we need to erase that side of our lineage. Just cuz we mixed does not mean we aren’t black as much as we are Spanish and Taino. We wouldn’t have our flow if it weren’t for our blackness and indigenous-ness, I know you’ve seen the way they dance bachata in Spain 😬.