Reconstructing Racial Identity and the African Past in the Dominican Republic |
Reconstructing Racial Identity and the African Past in the Dominican Republic
University Press of Florida
2009-07-05
176 pages
6 x 9
Cloth: ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-3374-7, ISBN 10: 0-8130-3374-8
Paper: ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-3675-5, ISBN 10: 0-8130-3675-5
Kimberly Eison Simmons, Associate Professor Anthropology & African American Studies
University of South Carolina
In Latin America and the Caribbean, racial issues are extremely complex and fluid, particularly the nature of “blackness.” What it means to be called “black” is still very different for an African American living in the United States than it is for an individual in the Dominican Republic with an African ancestry.
Racial categories were far from concrete as the Dominican populace grew, altered, and solidified around the present notions of identity. Kimberly Simmons explores the fascinating socio-cultural shifts in Dominicans’ racial categories, concluding that Dominicans are slowly embracing blackness and ideas of African ancestry.
Simmons also examines the movement of individuals between the Dominican Republic and the United States, where traditional notions of indio are challenged, debated, and called into question. How and why Dominicans define their racial identities reveal shifting coalitions between Caribbean peoples and African Americans, and proves intrinsic to understanding identities in the African diaspora.
Tags: Dominican Republic, Kimberly E. Simmons, Kimberly Eison Simmons, Kimberly Simmons, University Press of Florida