The documentary My American Girls: A Dominican Story centers on an immigrant Dominican family struggling to make a living in Brooklyn, New York. The parents, Sandra and Bautista Ortiz, are compelled to work long hours at low paying jobs in order to provide their daughters the opportunity to obtain an education and lead a comfortable lifestyle. Both Sandra and Bautista, dream of retiring and returning to their native country of the Dominican Republic. However, because their daughters desire to make the most of the opportunities available to them in New York, the Ortiz’s dream of returning with their entire family becomes unlikely. The documentary provides the audience with an insight into the life of this Dominican family and into the daily issues they face. The documentary demonstrates how both the community and neighborhood of this family plays an integral part in the development of each of their identities and aspirations.

A) The Ortiz daughters live in a five-story crowded apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn along with their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Despite the different kinds of immigrants that reside in the surrounding area, the Dominican community of the Ortiz family manages to remain a presence in the streets of Sunset Park. Even though each of the three daughters have different mindsets and ambitions, they still retain a strong tie to their Dominican culture and community. The strong ties that the daughters have to the neighborhood can especially be seen in the way the youngest daughter, 13 year old Mayra interacts with the other kids living in the community. Because the parents are always busy working, they are unable to provide Mayra with the proper attention to make sure that she is on the right track with her school work. While her parents are out working, Mayra is out on the streets meeting up with her friends and upholding her “ghetto” reputation. In the scene where she is playing in the park with her friends, Mayra claims that she does not understand why her sisters do not spend as much time as she does having fun and fooling around with the Hispanics kids in the community. To Mayra, the Hispanic community is an fundamental part of identity. 16-year old Aida is the more mature middle child who desires to become an independent woman who does not have to rely on her family for money or protection from the violence that goes on in the community. This can be seen in the scene where her parents refuse to give her money and she decides to start working in McDonalds and in the scene where she stands up to the neighborhood kids threatening to throw eggs at her. Furthermore, 21-year old Monica is the oldest daughter. She is the example of the family, proof that being part of the lower class of Brooklyn did not impede her from graduating from Columbia University. She breaks away from the community in the sense that she moves out with her American boyfriend and focuses on finding an appropriate job to kick off her career. However, Monica keeps in mind her roots and where she came from, attending her graduation party and thanking her family and friends that supported and contributed to her college success. All through out the movie, the Ortiz’s organize community events to relieve some of the stresses the come with working and providing for their family. This can be seen in the cookout scene, where many of the Dominicans in the community gather to dance and eat Dominican food, almost as if they were still in their own country.

D)  One of the scenes that resonated with me was the scene where the daughter claimed that Mrs. Ortiz did not know sufficient English to help her with her homework. She stated that, “My mom does not know anything about Charles Dickins so how could she help me?”. In another scene, Mrs. Ortiz stated that she barely read through her daughter’s homework because she could not understand the language. In my opinion, both of them are just giving excuses to Mayra ‘s poor grades. Sure Mrs. Ortiz has a point when she says that she cannot read through the homework, but if she was a strong enough disciplinarian, setting stricter consequences for her daughter, perhaps Mayra’s performance at school would improve. Even though she cannot read through the material, can’t she at least make sure that her daughter completed an appropriate amount of work? I say this because growing up my mom did not understand much English either, however she was always there asking me how I was doing at school, and asking me to explain some of the material so she can help me with it. She enabled my brother, who is now studying at Harvard, and I to rise above the Hispanic stereotype and obtain a college education. It just pains me when I see other Hispanics being stereotyped by other people who think that Hispanics cannot progress in their careers. It pains me even more when I see Hispanics contributing to these stereotypes with excuses such as “well I cannot understand the language so how can I help my daughter with her school work?” I just think that anything is possible with the proper amount of effort, and it made me happy to see 21-year old Monica being proof that the stereotypes associated with Hispanics are not for all true for all Hispanics individuals.