Introduction

Since the fall of the Dominican Republic’s malicious dictator Rafael Trujillo, also known as “El Jefe”  (The Chief), and the reform in U.S. immigration laws in 1965, Dominicans have represented a large portion of the new immigrants in the New York.  Initially Dominican migration steadily increased to the United States, more specifically New York, however, in the past three decades there has been a surge in Dominican migration due to deteriorating economy in the Dominican Republic during the 1980s and the early 1990s.  According to Garrison and Weiss, the majority of Dominican migration was of the urban working class that had some skills and resources.  While the most qualified and least qualified workers stayed behind.  Indeed, many of the Dominican first generation immigrants were considered at one point an uneducated people that would integrate with the native underclass and there are still some opinions that hold this to be true.  However, it must be noted that a trip to the Unites States is not in any way cheap.  On the contrary it is quite an expensive move and the Dominicans who choose to migrate, were able to because they had the finances to do so. 

There has been an abundant amount of data, census, survey and ethnographic information that show the Dominican Migrants are either at the very bottom or close to the bottom in annual income, educational attainment, and other socio-economic measurements.  However, recently there have been a progressively increasing number of educated Dominican migrants.  According to Guarnizo, between 1986 and 1991 there had been some 15,000 Dominican professionals who entered the United States, albeit 10,000 were undocumented. 

This influx of professional migrants can help support evidence of the concept that affluent ‘migrants’ that have come into the community help shift the median income for the Dominicans. If you look at the graph A, you can see that, percentage wise, Hispanics making over 50,000 in Washington Heights area have been steadily increasing.  Simultaneously, those making under $20,000 have decreased since 1990.

          While there is evidence that more affluent Dominicans are moving into the neighborhood and getting better jobs, getting into more ‘elite’ professional organizations, and raising the median income for Dominicans, poorer Dominican families are not being forced out by the economic and social transformations that are happening.

Instead, more are getting jobs through the more affluent workers, either through the development of small businesses or bigger networks.  The employment levels have been getting higher, although the poverty rate among Dominicans is one of the lowest in all of New York.  If we look at the employment data available for Dominicans living in New York City we can see that much of this data suggest that there has been an extensive shift in the work force since 1990.  If we take a look at graph B, we see that employment among Dominicans has increased over the past two decades.  However, there is no specific data available on whether these jobs were low paying or high paying.  The higher rates of employment can be due both to higher rates of educational attainment and more migrants coming with professional skills.   Moreover, according to Hernandez, the Dominican labor force is very young and many are unskilled. 

                         Employment  Among Dominican Population of Washington Heights/Inwood.                                                                                 Population Ages 16 - 60, 1990 - 2005

 “Only 17.3 percent of Dominicans in the United States have managerial, professional and technical occupations, about half the proportion for the overall United States. As a result, the average earnings of Dominican men and women are substantially lower than those of other workers in the nation.”

          Despite their hardships in the last twenty years and low levels in almost all socio-economic levels, Dominicans are making significant changes in their educational attainment levels and they are amassing immense amount of human capital.  They do this through organizations, their involvement in politics and in everyday city life. 

Furthermore, as more and more Dominicans are slower getting better jobs and making higher salaries, (although they are still making below the median of most households) the Dominican people are creating professional organizations to help each other climb up the echelons of the socio-economic mobility ladder.  Organizations such as the Dominican Bar Association and Dominican Medical Association try to help the Dominican community in any possible.  For instance on May 21, 2009 the Dominican Bar Association is hosting “New Era For Immigrant Dream 2009 Scholarship Dinner Dance.” Events like these help spread recognition and awareness that such organizations exist.  But this doesn’t only hold true to the two associations that we have discussed, there are many different organization across the city in many different areas of employment that try to help other Dominicans in the same way. 

Work cited

Garrison, Vivian and Carol I. Weiss. 1987. Dominican family networks and United States immigration policy: A case study. In Caribbean life in New York City: Sociocultural dimensions. First published in International Migration Review 12, no. 2 (1979): 264-83.

Guarnizo, Luis E. 1992. One Country in Two: Dominican-Owned Firms in New York and the Dominican Republic. Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University.

Hernandez, Ramona. Rivera-Batiz, Francisco L. Dominicans In The United States: A Socioeconomic Profile. 2000. The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute.

Center for Latin American , Caribbean, and Latino Studies. http://web.gc.cuny.edu/lastudies/pages/latinodataprojectreports.html. Accessed May 2, 2009

Dominican Bar Association. http://www.dominicanbarassociation.org/httpd/htdocs/announcements/announcements.htm Accessed April 30,2009

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