Grecia Fermin, a charismatic, Dominican, 50 year resident of Washington Heights, described her neighborhood as quiet. When was the last time you heard someone from NYC describe their neighborhood as quiet? When I asked her to elaborate, she explained that there are many cultures — Dominicans, Muslims, Jews, Mexicans — but everybody gets along. She also felt the need to highlight that the police and community get along well. But when it came to which culture is the most prevalent, the Dominicans won, hands down. In her own words: “The Dominicans dominate this neighborhood.”
Grecia moved to America after finishing high school in Santiago. She eventually finished her college degree at Baricua College. Her siblings also saw educational success, with one of her sisters being a lawyer, a brother as an engineer, and another brother who is a columnist. The success that Grecia and her family has enjoyed has made her a proud American. When I asked her if she ever visited the Dominican Republic, she mentioned that she had a house in Santiago that her mother left her, but mainly she prefers to stay in America. “I’m American. I love it here,” she described.
This sense of having an American identity but still identifying strongly with Dominican culture could be felt through her entire personality. She loves baseball, and is a proud Yankee fan (the Dominican Republic is known for its baseball players — Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz — to name a few). She even had a brother who played for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1980’s. This duel identity can also be seen in her accent, which is very thick for having stayed in America for so long. This indicates that she has remained within her own Dominican community for a majority of the time she has been here. Despite this fact, she still affirms her American identity through and through.
Grecia grew up under the dictator Rafael Trujillo. She recounted how when she was in grammar school, she witnessed an execution of 13 bank robbers at the hands of Trujillo’s government. The head of these robbers, Grecia leaned in and told me as if Trujillo was still listening, was the brother of famous dancer, and NYC community activist for Dominicans, Normandia Maldonado.
Although she was no fan of Trujillo, she recognized that his tactics for lessening the extent of crime in the Dominican Republic. So when she was living in Washington Heights in the 70’s and 80’s she did not approve of the Dominicans selling drugs on 163rd and Broadway. (She claims that it was the Dominicans who sold them, but the Puerto Ricans who did them and caused most of the trouble). To this she added how much she approved of Mayor Giuliani’s efforts in the 90’s to clean up the neighborhood of crime. “I’m a democrat, and I didn’t vote for him,” she explained, also adding, “but I respected him!” When Giuliani visited the Dominican Republic in 2012, Grecia says she posted on Facebook a photo of a welcome sign for the former mayor.
Overall, Grecia felt that the neighborhood has changed for the better ever since she has arrived. She commented that although there were a lot of people who took fast track to success through crime, and there are still teenagers involved in gangs or dropping out of school, the Dominicans have always been a hard working people. She mentioned how there are many families that she knows that are not too dissimilar from hers — kids that went to college, have well-paying jobs, and stayed out of trouble.
The values of hard work and self-betterment have always been lauded as American ideals. Now it seems that the Dominicans of Washington Heights have no problem working to make those ideals reality. So that means Grecia and her friends are some of the most American people you could meet, and English isn’t even their first language.
