Dominican identity reconsidered : ethnicity and belonging in an inner-city high school, New York

Abstract

This thesis analyzes material from an inner-city high school (ICHS) which is situated in a so-called Dominican community in New York. The students’ parents were born in the Dominican Republic, but not all students would self-ascribe as Dominicans. By using the notions of identity by Holland et al (1998), I argue that identities can not be seen as completely durable, and one can distinguish between self-ascribed and imposed identities. I view ethnicity in Barth’s (1998) terms; as unfixed boundaries that are upheld by the actors themselves that may be affected by how the larger society’s views. I regard ICHS as a site that may affect identity formation, but where students are not passive recipients (Levinson et al. 1996). One of my main findings is that students had a great freedom in choosing between different identities. This flexibility could be constrained by the fact that the students were somewhat stigmatized. This choice of identities may be contrasted to former research on Dominicans were they were regarded more as an isolated group with a common transnational identity. In ICHS Dominican students were in majority, but they did not constitute a homogenous group. Still many students reified Dominican identity to markers like music, flag, festivals, baseball and food. An explanation for this can be that they wanted to show ethnic pride. These markers could also be said to be American creations because by going to e.g. a Dominican parade one could be a part of a community (Waters 1990). Another interpretation is that the markers expressed transnational ties. The students could also choose to withdraw from Dominican ethnicity. How ICHS was organized influenced interrelations between students (Lamphere 1992). I employ Foucault (1995) to describe ICHS as a prison-school. Students were scanned every morning, and were under surveillance. In a class, a teacher tried to impose a Dominican identity by introducing a novel by a Dominican author. Furthermore, the students were organized in different language programs: Bilingual, English as a Second Language (ESL) and English mainstream. These programs could reflect individual strategies. Here I regard Spanish as a marker for Latino ethnicity. Those who spoke Spanish could under-communicate the language in school and outside (Eidheim 1994).