Monthly Archives: May 2018

Black behind the ears – Review

Black behind the ears is an advanced historical and ethnographic examination of Dominican identity development in the Dominican Republic and the United States. For what seems like an eternity, the whole nationality of Dominican Republic defined themselves as “not black”. Ginette E. B. Candelario uses variety of historical writings as well as statistical data and ethnographic research to study the construction of Dominican identity. This book displays the ways in which Dominicans have negotiated their identity to break the social and symbolic orders.

Candelario derives wide range of sources, from the historical to the institutional and ethnographic. She concentrates her examination within four specific ranges of what she terms “identity displays”: travel narratives, the museum, the beauty shop, and the female body. Furthermore, she also focuses on the cities in the United States that have a high number of Dominicans. According to Candelario these geographic sites are uniquely related to the larger Dominican population, however also reflecting the boarder issues that are displayed by Dominican identity. The travel narratives from the Dominican Republic and Dominican travelers draw on uncertain displays of relationship to blackness to locate Dominicans in local establishments.

In addition theses travel writings have had ethnographic purposes historically similar to those of metropolitan museums. It was meant to offer a foreign perspective to other audience in cities. Candelario similarly uses hair texture as a way to describe racial perception in everyday life in Dominican Republic and argues that hair is the most important aspect that she focused on this book. Since hair was the emphasis on indigeneity as the basis for Dominican identity.

Black behind the ears relates to our course material because it displays diversity of Dominican ethnic and racial identities, particularly the struggle of their social along with national identification developed in response to pressure from the upper class privileged group. Candelario’s method of developing relationship with Dominican women and Dominican salon demonstrates a sense of community that everyone can count on each other. That there is still is strong dislike for “blackness” and Candelario’s focus on hair which is the most powerful symbol of individual and group identity. I enjoyed the book overall because it provided with excellent examples of people’s account and their stories. Especially the authors experience with assimilation into different part of the communities. The part that I did not enjoy as much would be just how dense the book was. The information could have been more short and concise so the reader would not get bored of reading so much material.

Analysis of 100 Years of Dominican Feminism

Thursday, April 26th author of Black behind the ears, Ginetta Candelario, lectured a presentation titled 100 Years of Dominican Feminism. Candelario’s main point was to elaborate on the specific cases of Dominican feminists. The talk was featured as a part of the University of Scranton’s week-long campaign to confront sexual violence on campus. In the spirit of the campaign designed to empower women, this presentation focused on historical women of the Dominican that were involved in social activism within their country.

Ginetta Candelario’s lecture consisted of an illustrated PowerPoint presentation in which she thoroughly elaborated on specific slides. Following the lecture, Candelario accepted questions from the audience. Beginning with a few positive remarks, I immediately noticed Candelario’s excellent public speaking skills. It was obvious that she knew her presentation well and merely used her PowerPoint to facilitate the lecture and not dominate it. Candelario also consistently made eye contact with the audience which I felt was important throughout her presentation. Finally, I enjoyed Candelario’s personal stories relating to her research into Dominican feminism. The story of thumbing through stacks of articles in the library searching for a specific letter and/or newspaper clipping clearly demonstrated the depth and concentration of her research. Her other story about the town square in the capital where women shaved their head in public as an activist demonstration was empowering.

There were a few things that I did not like about the lecture. I felt that Candelario spent too much time on the finer details. I understand that the who, what, where, and how are important questions to consider whenever addressing historical figures but for a short lecture I felt that Candelario weakened her presentation by including too much context information. For example, I did not think it was worth including extraneous personal information on character’s spouses or significant others just to arrive at the origin of the word feminism in the Dominican Republic. Another critique, as insignificant as it is, was the length of the lecture. As a presenter, you need to be aware of the time remaining and not run late. Although it was mostly due to the audience’s questions, Candelario’s lecture ran over the expected time. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Candelario’s presentation and look forward to finishing reading her book Black behind the ears.

Lastly, our most recent theme in Race in Latin America was race and nation in the Dominican Republic. First, Candelario’s book is an excellent parallel to the course unit because it addresses that race and nationality can be dynamic despite being grouped together. One can be both light and dark skinned and be Dominican but both reject African descent. Her lecture, on the other hand, offers examples of women who find Dominican nationality through feminism giving a different picture to the theme of race and nation.

Ginetta Calendario – Review

Ginetta Candelario is a Dominican-American sociologist who has studied the foundations of feminism in the Dominican Republic for the past seventeen years. The main point that she emphasized was the difference between North American and Dominican feminists. Dominican women were more concerned with autonomy; having rights to divorce, to own property, and to govern their own bodies. Women in the United States were chiefly concerned with suffrage, but this did not matter to the Dominican feministas whose government “elections” consisted of militia-led coup d’états where a vote would not be of much use. North American women would not reach this level of feminism, which is considered Second Wave feminism, until the 1950’s.

After her presentation, we had a question and answer session about both her presentation and her book, Black Behind the Ears (There is more to the name). This book followed transnational Dominican migrants at three key cities and studied their racial self-identification. Those in Washington D.C. more readily identified with their African ancestry, and accepted their blackness. Those in New York held on to anti-black ideologies, in an attempt to separate themselves from African-Americans and how they were treated in America. Those in Santo Domingo also held on to anti-black, but more specifically, anti-Haitian, ideologies due to years of schooling and customs that supported this philosophy. This relates to class in that we studied the roots of anti-blackness/anti-Haitian ideas. We found them to originally be a way to distance the Dominican Republic from the free and black country of Haiti so that international trade would not be deterred.

Concerning the presentation and dinner, Dr. Candelario was eloquent, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic about her work. Her work has already begun to change my perspective and appreciation of my background and identity. However, during the presentation she seemed to be disorganized in how she would flip back-and-forth between slides. Also, she would provide exorbitant amounts of information to answer questions. Besides that, I identify strongly with Dr. Candelario as a Dominican-American woman who is white passing. As a child, I would fill out my race as black and my ethnicity as Hispanic/Latino on standardized tests. As I grew to understand race and ethnicity, I realized I could not identify as black simply because I did not identify as white. Her work has re-opened my own internal conversation of my identity, and I am grateful.

100 Years of Dominican Feminisms

 

100 Years of Dominican Feminisms was a lecture that Ginetta Candelario, a Dominican sociologist, gave that provides insight into the true origins of feminism and its development within the Dominican Republic. Her argument and research has led her to find that feminism in its earliest forms began with Mercedes Mota, She was chosen by her sisters to attend the International Council of Women in Buffalo and represent the Dominican Republic along with a few other women. This began the journey and process of women becoming empowered and defining themselves as women. She inspired other Dominican women to achieve equality in all facets of the word and in the process own the title feminist. This movement is less investigated and known and Candelario seeks to retrace the steps of feminist thought and history.

It was very moving to hear Professor Ginetta Candelario describe her 10 years of arduous and intense research methods to discover and unearth the truth about feminism. As a Dominican woman, her passion and interest was apparent as presented her findings throughout her lecture. I did not once question her knowledge on the subject because she was quite receptive to the audience’s questions and explained the ambiguities of the story of feminism well. Candelario provided a long and detailed account of the many instrumental figures that helped provide the foundation for future feminist. The only critique I had about the lecture was that it was longer than expected and Candelario over explained when giving an answer to a question. I wasn’t able to ask her my questions and it was a bit frustrating. Overall, I would say that this lecture was informative and well executed.

Dr. Candelario clearly relates to our readings and course very poignantly as we read her book Black Behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops. Her work attempts to assess and describe how a Beauty Shop can create community for Dominicans. It is because each member of the community are looking out for one another. In this section we are studying the Dominican Republic and their past and current race relations. We see that there was a dislike for “blackness” in the Dominican Republic and it continues today. The progress of the Dominican Republic are marred by the Rafael Trujillo’s rule in the 20th century and still influence racial relations for Dominicans even outside the country. Racial segregation continues to exist, but in different and obscure ways. Widespread segregation within beauty shops and other races goes unquestioned. Identity remains the main challenge for many Dominicans as it was changed during the Trujillate and now with the migration to the U.S., Dominicans are having to redefine themselves yet again.

It seems that barber shops are providing outlets for these challenges, while at the same time harboring anti-blackness sentiment in subtle and overt ways. In what ways does the evolving Dominican sense of identity bring about unity amongst other Dominicans, and in what ways does it divide and exclude others?