In America today, there is a large and diverse African-American population. Within this population, there are several ethnic groups. The other ethnic group similar to Afro-Americans is Dominicans. Not only are they both minorities, but they also look similar as well. Both Dominicans and Afro-Americans are originally from Africa, but their slave masters separated them into two different cultures. African-Americans was African slaves of Americans, and Dominicans were African slaves of the Spanish. Hevesi of the New York Times says, "Dominican and Afro-Americans culture was formed from one ethnicity, Africans" (Hevesi 86). As a person of these two ethnic groups, I have two perceptions of my dual ethnicity. Among Afro-Americans’ and Dominicans’ culture, language, history and values, there are large differences, but there are also several similarities. I will compare and contrast these two ethnic groups which are within me.
Dominicans and African-Americans are similar in their African origin, but they are different “in their newfound slavery-induced cultures.” Dominicans were Africans mixed with Spanish culture. Through slave settlements, Dominicans were settled in Hispanola. In Hispanola, Dominicans were influenced between two ethnic groups. As a new ethnic group formed, their African traits were mixed with Spanish traits (Saillant-Torres 131).
African America history was African culture mixed with American culture. As a group, slave masters made their voyage to Africa, took slaves, and formed a group called Afro-Americans. African culture was integrated into Western civilization. Most Africans were slaves in the Southern part of North America. Arnold Rose points out; "Negro’s are not accepted in America" (94). Some Dominicans were settled in America. Many live in New York in a city called Spanish Harlem. Today, over 100 million Dominicans live there. The histories of these two ethnic groups have very little similarity, but the African influence is one unifying force.
The languages of these two ethnic groups are completely different. Dominicans speak Spanish and Afro-Americans speak English. Dominicans don't speak casual Castillan Spanish. They speak Spanish with a twist of African influences. Gleijeses says, "Dominicans don't speak true Spanish, so they are not treated as Spanish” (7). African-Americans speak English with a diffe...
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...ning their ethnic identity and becoming part of American culture.
I view Dominicans and Afro-Americans similarly because I am a person of these two ethnic groups. Most of the time people perceive me as Black and other time’s people call me Puerto Rican. I know I shouldn’t get angry, but I feel like others don’t respect me and are trying to label me. My mother is Black and my father is Dominican. Most Dominicans think that it is an odd mixture, but they don’t realize that they have the same origins from Africa. In a way it is hard to be a part of two ethnic groups, but it is very interesting. In my life, I had a lot of criticism from both sides of my family. My mother doesn’t like my father’s family and the feeling is mutual. So, I have many problems with my race, but I am still very proud. I always try to unite my family to become equal.
In America today, I feel every ethnic group should see themselves as equal. Regardless of their heritage, they are still Americans. So, I feel any racism between Americans is very ignorant. In conclusion, I think difference is good, but similarities are better, because you find out the things that you share and how you can relate to one another.
Omi & Winant, Bonilla-Silva, and Loveman all have different approach in understanding the distinction between ethnicity and race. Omi & Winant and Bonilla-silva all made a distinction between ethnicity and race, and study race through the lens of power relation, while Loveman argued that it is important to study these two side by side. DuBois articulate blackness as both race and ethnicity with the approach of “Double-Consciousness”.
The history of Africans in Mexico is an oft-neglected facet of the cultural complexities of that country. In 1519, Hernando Cortes brought 6 African slaves with him to Mexico; these individuals served the conquest as personal servants, carriers, and laborers.[1] In the years to come, slavery would become a critical component of the colonial economy with approximately 2,000 slaves arriving each year 1580-1650; it is estimated that a total of 200,000 Africans were brought to Mexico during the colonial period.[2] Given this large number of slaves, the lengthy period of their importation, and the inevitable mixing of races, which took place throughout the colony, the historical and cultural significance of bozales, criollos, mulattoes, and zambos is far-reaching. The colonial period provides an excellent starting place for an examination of the significance of these groups not only because the institution of African slavery was introduced to New Spain at that time, but also because the regular influx of native Africans combined with the close attention paid to color-based castas in official records allows historians to trace the influence of African culture more readily during that period.
This week’s articles carry a couple related, if not common, themes of imagined, if not artificial, constructs of race and identity. Martha Hodes’ article, “The mercurial Nature and Abiding Power of Race: A Transnational Family Story,” offers a narrative based examination of the malleable terms on which race was defined. To accomplish this she examines the story of Eunice Connolly and her family and social life as a window into understanding the changing dimensions of race in nineteenth-century America and the Caribbean, specifically New England and Grand Cayman. While Hodes’ article examines the construction of race in the Americas, Ali A. Mazrui’s piece, “The Re-Invention of Africa: Edward Sai, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Beyond,” looks at the construction of African identity. Although different in geographic loci, the two articles similarly examine the shaping influences of race and identity and the power held in ‘the Other’ to those ends.
Although the natives of Borikén were Taino, it is argued that the first Puerto Ricans were black Puerto Ricans. Spanish occupation virtually eliminated Native influences by the way of the decimation of the people as a result of disease brought across the atlantic by the Spanish settlers. In this way the Taino were minimally influential in forming a new cultural identity. “The descendants of the first African slaves had already become black Puerto Ricans”(González 10) when Spaniards from the canary islands arrived to replace those who had left in search of riches in Peru and Mexico. For this reason it is feasible to accept the notion “that the Puerto Ricans were in fact black Puerto Ricans.” (González 10) The African presence was more of a factor in the formation process of the Puerto Rican identity. Of the massive numbers of slaves who survived the voyage there were those who were fortunate enough to escape into the hinterland. Here they found refuge from the hardship of plantation labor along with the opportunity to join the peasantry that also searched for refuge. The jíbaros “used the broken topography of the interior as an ally in its struggle with the expanding sugar plantations” (Scarano 6) This intermixing of the two cultures forged several similarities.
It was quite fitting that the main base for the location setting of this story was in New Jersey, which is a quintessential destination for Dominican immigration. Many of the topics of Dominican society that were discussed in this
There are currently 150 million Afro-descendants in Latin America who make up nearly 30 percent of the region’s population (Congressional Research Service, 2005). Out of the fifteen Latin American nations that have recently adapted some sort of multicultural reform, only three give recognize Afro-Latino communities and give them the same rights as indigenous groups (Hooker, 2005). Indigenous groups are more successful than afro-descendent groups in gaining collective rights and development aid from international NGO’s. Collective rights important because are closely related to land rights and can become a tool to fight descrimination .I will attempt to uncover the causes for the discrepancy. This study relies heavily on ethnographic research on post-colonial ideas of race in Latin America and I will attempt to connect race and power structures in environmental decision-making by interviews with national decision-makers, NGO representatives and both black and indigenous communities .
When it was my time to go to the U.S., I was eight years old, fluently only in Spanish with a Dominican accent. You see there is Spanish but then there's Dominican Spanish, and from there
Neither white nor black people want to be poor, hungry, or have unfair judgment put on them. However, being born with the blood of their parents, they have to live under different circumstances. Their lives are comfortable or struggled, depending on the kind of blood their parents give them. In particular, the mulattos who have mixed blood of white and black have more difficulties in life because of having multiple cultures. Indeed, the novel “the House Behind the Cedars” by Charles W. Chesnutt demonstrates that mulattos struggle dramatically in a racial society of white, black, and mulatto people.
The African American identity derived its source, after slaves were “lumped together as “Africans” against the backdrop of multivalent Western oppression.” African slaves endured poverty and brutal labor in the New World. By the end of the seventeenth century, colonies established racial slavery laws, identifying subjugation on Africans and its descendants by race. Despite the effort of owners trying to purchase slaves from various destinations to avoid insurrection, people from diverse cultures bonded and created lifelong lasting friendships and families, which formed a psychological stronghold against segregation, discrimination, and dehumanization. However, the slaves lost touch with their African kin, “a distance made wider by the passage of some seven
“Who am I?” (415). This is the question Leona Thomas asks in her essay entitled “Black and White.” Through the use of pathos, logos, and inductive reasoning Thomas is able to come to a consensus that “I am black and white, both races, both cultures, and both heritages” (418). For Thomas, there is some form of closure as to where she belongs racially and culturally, but many others still lie in ambivalence concerning their race and culture.
The culture of Miami has various influences, but for the majority it is Latin. People from Latin America including places like Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico and many others have inhabited Miami for many of years now. While over half of the population were born in a foreign country it is common that people speak English just as much as Spanish. A key part to the Cuban community is called Little Havana, which gets its name from the Cuba’s capital city. This is a place fu...
I wanted to wear brand clothes/shoes they did, I wanted to do my hair like them, and make good grades like them. I wanted to fit in. My cultural identify took a back seat. But it was not long before I felt black and white did not mix. I must have heard too many comments asking to speak Haitian or I do not look Haitian, but more than that, I am black, so I always had to answer question about my hair or why my nose is big, and that I talked white. This feeling carried on to high school because the questions never went away and the distance between me and them grew larger. There was not much action my family could take for those moments in my life, but shared their encounters or conversations to show me I was not alone in dealing with people of other background. I surrounded myself with less white people and more people of color and today, not much has
When examining the concept of race and ethnicity in Latin America, it can be said that it has quite a different meaning. Latin Americans perceive race as being open ended and explicit, yet racism is quite implicit in their society. They also attempt to adhere to the idea that they are living within a “racial democracy”. Racial democracies are a concept created to convince people that racism does not impact the structure of society and the opportunities that are available to people.
people of different ethnicities. Such harm is observed in the history of North America when the Europeans were establishing settlements on the North American continent. Because of European expansion on the North American continent, the first nations already established on the continent were forced to leave their homes by the Europeans, violating the rights and freedoms of the first nations and targeting them with discrimination; furthermore, in the history of the United States of America, dark skinned individuals were used as slaves for manual labour and were stripped of their rights and freedoms by the Americans because of the racist attitudes that were present in America. Although racist and prejudice attitudes have weakened over the decades, they persist in modern societies. To examine a modern perspective of prejudice and racism, Wayson Choy’s “I’m a Banana and Proud of it” and Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Pretty Like a White Boy: The Adventures of a Blue-Eye Ojibway” both address the issues of prejudice and racism; however, the authors extend each others thoughts about the issues because of their different definitions, perspectives, experiences and realities.
How you see race in the United States can depend a lot on your own background.