Centro Journal

City University of New York. Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueos

centro-journal@hunter.cuny.edu

ISSN (Versin impresa): 1538-6279

LATINOAMERICANISTAS

2005
Jos Itzigsohn
THE DOMINICAN IMMIGRATION EXPERIENCE
Centro Journal, spring, ao/vol. XVII, nmero 001
City University of New York. Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueos
New York, Latinoamericanistas
pp. 270-281

Red de Revistas Cientficas de Amrica Latina y el Caribe, Espaa y Portugal

Universidad Autnoma del Estado de Mxico

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CENTRO Journal

Volume xv1i Number 1

spring 2005

The Dominican
immigration experience
Jos Itzigsohn

The Mobility of Workers under Advanced Capitalism:

Dominican Migration to the United States.
By Ramona Hernndez.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
200 pages; $20.50 [paper]

The Transnational Villagers.

By Peggy Levitt.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
294 pages; $12.50 [paper]

Dominicans in New York City:

Power from the Margins.
By Milagros Ricourt.
New York: Routledge, 2002.
148 pages; $70.95 [cloth]

[ 270 ]

The global and the local in international migration

Hernndez book frames the analysis of the Dominican migration experience within
the context of the political economy of the Caribbean region. The first part of the book
shows how the rise and consolidation of the Balaguer government in the second half of
the 1960sa fact that put an end to the political crisis opened by the end of the Trujillo
regimeled to a tacit agreement with the United States that involved the export of
the Dominican political opposition. The United States were heavily involved in
Dominican politics, an involvement that included the invasion of the country in 1965,
and had a stake in the strengthening of the Balaguer regime. As a result they accepted a
flow of migration of people who could oppose the regime. The beginning of Dominican
migration to the United States had more to do with the geopolitics of the region than
with labor flows or the search for an economic future. This is a well-known story; still,
Hernndez narrative is clear and compelling. Somebody who is not acquainted with
the history of Dominican migration will learn from the first part of the book.
Hernndez points to the parallel with the case of Puerto Rico, where migration to the
United States was also related to the implementation of a geopolitical project.
The main novelty of Hernndez argument is in the second part of the book.
Hernndez shows how the solution to the problem of achieving political stability had
unintended consequences later, through the creation of the necessary infrastructure
for large-scale Dominican migration. Dominican migration increased exponentially in the
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R E V I E W E S S AY

REVIEW ESSAY

he United States is living through a period of large-scale migration

whose effects poses important questions for scholars of immigration.
Dominicans are one of the largest immigrant groups in the last four
decades. Dominican migration is also one of the largest in relation
to the population of the country of origin. While there are no precise
figures, it is estimated that between ten and fifteen percent of the
Dominican population live in the United States. Most of it is concentrated in
New York City, although there is a trend toward the dispersion of the immigrant
population. There are established Dominican communities all along the East Coast
of the United States. The three books reviewed in this essay point to the importance
that the Dominican immigrant community has acquired in the United States as well
as in the country of origin. The three provide us with a window into the process of
migration and the organization of immigrants lives in this community. They also help us
understand the larger contemporary process of migration and immigrant incorporation.
The three books are complementary to each other. Each addresses a different
aspect of the Dominican immigrant experience. Hernndez book analyzes the
relationship between migration and global economic and political structures.
She shows how the geopolitical interests of the United States, coupled with flawed
Dominican economic development policies, generated a flow of migration from the
Dominican Republic. This flow, however, does not encounter a labor demand in the
country of reception. In arguing this Hernndez challenges conventional
understandings of migration and poses poignant questions concerning the future
of immigrant communities. Ricourts book takes over where Hernndez ends.
She traces the process of incorporation of Dominicans into American society and
portrays the complex ways in which immigrants enter the receiving society. Finally,
Levitt addresses the connections between the immigrant communities and their
countries of originall that goes under the rubric of transnational migration.

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the reality is that U.S. representatives gave visas to Dominican

troublemakers who could contest the presence of U.S. interests
in the Dominican Republic. But the granting of visas would give
way to the establishment of an appropriate infrastructure and
logistic that would later facilitate the massive mobility of people
from one society to another (2002: 49).

attacks against immigrants emanating from various quarters of

governments and sectors of civil society clearly indicate that new
foreign hands, particularly poor and unskilled, are no longer
needed nor wanted here. In this sense, the continued influx of
immigrants to the United States does not necessarily respond to
a need of the receiving society (2002: 148).

It is well accepted in migration studies that social networks in the country of reception
reduce the economic, social, and emotional costs of moving to an unknown country and
facilitate the migration of people who otherwise will not be able to migrate. When, at
the beginning of the 1980s, the Dominican economy suffered a crisis of unprecedented
proportions, the Dominican community in New York City provided the social
networks necessary for the large-scale migration of the following two decades.
It is at this point that we encounter the most innovative and controversial of
Hernndez arguments. Contrary to standard economic understandings of migration
based on push-pull models, and to historical-structural approaches that look at
migration as a result of the global needs of capital and the ensuing labor demand in
core countries, Hernndez argues that immigrants do not necessarily encounter a
ready labor demand, not even in hard exploitative works. She argues that Dominican
immigrants arrived in New Yorkand in the United States in generalas a result of
global political economy processes, but that the economies of particular localities of
the global economy are not necessarily synchronized in terms of the supply and
demand of labor. Dominican immigrants encountered in the United States a labor
market in the process of restructuring. Not only did they enter occupations at the
bottom of the labor marketa fairly standard fact in migration historybut those
niches where Dominican immigrants could find jobs were also the declining sectors
of a formerly strong manufacturing economy. As a result, Dominican immigrants
encountered not only exploitation but also unemployment and marginalization.
Hernndez bases her argument on a careful and detailed analysis of census data
and other sources of statistical information, showing how the economic sectors
where Dominicans enter reduced their labor force and how poverty, low incomes,
and unemployment are pervasive among the Dominican population in New York.
She argues, furthermore, that new immigrants compete and undermine the
bargaining position of older immigrants, rendering the possibility of upward
mobility even more distant. Dominicans are in a particularly vulnerable position
because they face not only a shrinking labor demand for low-skilled immigrants
but also racial discrimination. Hernndez affirms that among Latino/a immigrants,
the darker the skin color the lower the chance of meaningful work.
In the meantime, the U.S. government, which during the 1970s and 1980s
held a benign neglect position vis--vis Dominican immigrants, during the 1990s
progressively turned against them. Hernndez argues that new low-skilled
immigrants are neither wanted nor needed in the United States:

In spite of the lack of demand for low wage labor and the negative response of
government and society, Dominicans continue to migrate and Hernndez predicts
that they will continue to do so. The reason for the ongoing migration flow is the
lack of opportunities in the Dominican Republic, the pervasiveness of
marginalization and exclusion in that country. Hernndez affirms that for
Dominicans migration represents hope and the possibility of improving their
material life.
This assertion, however, poses an unanswered question: If in the United States
Dominicans encounter mainly exclusion and marginality, how and why is that better
than exclusion and marginality in the Dominican Republic? This is the weak point
of Hernndez argument. Hernndez makes use of the 1980 and 1990 census data,
which allows her to look at the Dominican population in a short period of time, but
not at longer trends. The 1980s were years of mass migration, so we are talking about
a rapidly changing and growing community, not one that has had time to settle and
organize to fight for a place in this society. For a large group of immigrants, who
arrive at a continuous pace, one would need to wait some time to see the overall
trends in terms of incorporation.
Furthermore, census data do not capture informal economy strategies followed by
immigrantsstrategies that Hernndez discountsand can be biased in terms of the
validity of the income and employment reports. Hernndez is also quick to discount
the importance of the rise of an entrepreneurial segment among Dominicans. This is
not to say that Hernndez picture is inaccurate. Dominicans suffer indeed poverty,
unemployment, and marginalization. This comment aims to point out to some
nuances in the rather homogeneous picture of the Dominican community in New
York painted by Hernndez. These nuances can help explain why Dominicans
continue coming to the United States. They also can have an effect on the future
trajectories of Dominicans in this country.
Still, this is a very important work for the study of Dominican migration and
migration in general. The strength of Hernndez book lies in her showing, on the
one hand, the structural character of migration and, on the other, the fact that
migration is not necessarily functional to the needs of the global economy or the
capitalist system. It continues often in spite of what economic or structural theories
would predict. Hernndez nicely weaves together the development history of the
Dominican Republic and the changes in the New York economy and bases her
arguments in careful empirical analysis. Her argument in certain ways parallels the
claims of the segmented assimilation thesis. Although she does not address the fate
of the second generation, one can predict that a younger generation growing under
poverty and discrimination does not face the best of opportunities. Yet she differs
from the proponents of segmented assimilation in that she remains squarely within a
structural explanatory framework. For her, poverty and marginality are the result of
the work of the economy and not the work of certain outlooks or values.

[ 272 ]

[ 273 ]

R E V I E W E S S AY

1980s and 1990s, as a result of the breakdown of the import substitution industrialization
model that came with the debt crisis of the early 1980s. This crisis affected the entire
Latin American region and the Caribbean; however, not all the region shows a similar rise
in migration. What allows for mass migration in this case is the presence of a Dominican
community in the United States, particularly in New York. Hernndez asserts that

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Identity and community formation

[ 274 ]

[ 275 ]

What makes them American? Most answered it was the language,

the music, food, and clothing. Girls added to this list the way of
American thinking, more freedom, and opportunities for women.
What makes them Dominican? Most answered that it was the
culture, such as the language, the food, the music, the history, and
skin color. Another woman told me that what makes her American
are the rights of an American citizen, and what makes her
Dominican is the food at her mothers house, and the Dominican
accent, the way we speak Spanish (2002: 26).

R E V I E W E S S AY

It is very interesting to point out how cultural practices and skin color come together
as defining elements of Dominicanidad. At the same time, notions of opportunities
and rights are what define Americanness for these youngsters. Ricourt argues that
Dominican American youngsters think and act very differently from their age peers
in the Dominican Republic. Yet they are not melted into an undistinguishable
American identity, which for all practical purposes does not exist. The youngsters she
met are a new kind of Dominicans, young Americans who retain cultural, ethnic, and
linguistic differences, struggling to avoid becoming second-class citizens (2002: 26).

An important part of the identity discussion addresses the identity formation in many
New York multiethnic neighborhoods, where Dominicans live side by side with other
Latino/a groups. Everyday life in these neighborhoods is different from places like
Washington Heights, where Dominicans have built a cultural and economic enclave.
Multiethnic neighborhoods are the site for the development of Latino/a identities
these are not the only sites, as the label Latino/a is part of everyday discourses of racialized
ethnicity in the United States in general, but multiethnic neighborhoods are places
where those discourses coincide with much of the daily encounters of people. In these
neighborhoods panethnic interaction and cooperation are elements of everyday life.
Ricourt makes an important distinction between four levels of panethnic
identities. The first refers to basic forms of everyday cooperation of solidarity that
do not translate into articulated discourses of identity. The second, which she labels
categorical panethnicity, emerges when people begin to address and recognize each
other using panethnic denominators. The third, institutional panethnicity, emerges
with the construction of organizations and forms of collective action that bring
together people from different Latino/a ethnic groups. The fourth, ideological
panethicity, points to the adoption by some members of the groupcommunity
leaders in particularof political, social, and cultural discourses and projects that
aim to mobilize the Latino/a identity. This is a very interesting typology that allows
us to move beyond the question of unity or diversity within Latinos/as in the United
States. Furthermore, Ricourt emphasizes that the emergence of all these forms of
Latino identities does not supersede or eliminate Dominican ethnic identities.
In terms of community development, Ricourt makes two important points.
The first is the importance of informal economic activities in the subsistence and
mobility strategies of immigrants. Hernndez, who emphasizes the marginalization
of Dominicans shown in the census data does not address the issue. One could then
ask, Why do Dominicans keep coming and how do they survive and sometimes make
it in the United States? Hernndez answers that they keep coming because of the
exclusionary economic and social policies of the Dominican Republic, but this
answeras I argued earlieris only a partial one because it does not address the
ways in which Dominicans make a living in the United States. Ricourt does not
contest the portrayal of exclusion presented by Hernndez but goes on to describe
the numerous ways in which Dominicans strive to make it in a labor market that is
stacked against them. They do so with an array of informal activities that sometimes
allow for a measure of mobility into more stable entrepreneurship.
Dominicans also achieve a measure of mobility through education. In this sense,
it is an important fact that two of the books reviewed here are written by Dominican
authors. This points to the rise of a growing number of scholars and professionals
within the Dominican-American community. To the picture of exclusion and
marginality presented by Hernndez, Ricourt adds a portrayal of a process of internal
stratification. There is an important segment of the community that experiences
upward mobility through education or entrepreneurship.
Dominican Americans also search for empowerment through participation in the
American political system. Ricourt tells the story of Dominican ethnic organization
and ethnic politics in New York. Particularly interesting is her description of the
role of ethnic associations in organizing the community and developing an ethnic
consciousness. Ricourt proposes a typology of three types of ethnic organizations
that coincide with her typology of identities. She identifies transnational
organizations that correspond to the new immigrants identity and are based on

Milagros Ricourts book starts where Hernndez finishes. Dominicans in New York City is a
detailed description of Dominican life in that city, the fruit of several years of ethnographic
work. The book documents the process of community formation from four interrelated
perspectives: ethnic identity formation, community development, the politics of
incorporation, and gender relations (2002: 10). The different chapters of the book address
the four central topics, giving the reader a close sense of the lives and challenges that
Dominican Americans confront. An important element of this book is that it addresses
the presence of the secondand even a thirdgeneration of Dominican Americans.
The book makes several important claims. One of them concerns the multiple forms
of ethnic identities found in this community. The author proposes a typology of three
forms of ethnic identity that she refers to as new immigrants identity, established
immigrants identity, and Dominican Americans. The first form corresponds to people
who have not been long in the United States and develop identities that emphasize the
cultural elements of the country of origin in what Ricourt calls, somehow awkwardly, a
form of primordial identity. On the other hand, Dominican Americanswho can be
first or second generationidentify with the country of reception and focus their social
relations and institutional affiliations in New York City. Similar to other researchers the
author finds that women are faster in developing an identification with the host society,
while men are more likely to want to return to the country of origin. In the middle of the
two polesnew immigrants and Dominican Americansare established immigrants,
who build their identities by combining elements from both the country of origin and
the country of reception, and live lives in between New York City and the Dominican
Republic, participating in politics and social institutions in both places. These three
groups intermingle in the daily lives of Dominicans in New York City.
Ricourt analyzes the construction of a new form of Dominicanidad among the
generation of young Dominican Americans. She portrays how the two countries
mix in their symbolic constructions:

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help newer immigrants become familiar with the new system

encountered in the United States and active participants in the
creation of a strong community able to vote, to work, and at
some point to define its own political future as an ethnic
community in New York City (2002: 71).
An important element of Ricourts book is that she puts gender at the center
of her analysis. She analyzes the intersection between gender and ethnic politics.
She also describes the evolution of Dominican womens community and political
organization and mobilization. On the first issue she shows that women have a
central role in the organization of community politics, yet they are displaced from
leadership roles, and the mostly male community leadership does not accept their
specific issues as legitimate community demands. In response to this situation,
Dominican American women organized their own organizations.
Yet Ricourt shows that gender-based politics is also a contested field. She identifies
three different approaches in the politics of Dominican American women.
Some organizations focus on solving concrete everyday problems in the community,
particularly issues of safety that are threatened by both street crime and police brutality.
Other organizations focus on womens empowerment. The main strategies to achieve this
goal are promoting access to education and demanding the provision of social services.
A third type of organization seeks to create spaces for the discussion of womens position
in society and the search for solutions to address gender inequalities. Ricourt narrates
the history of the creation, dissolution, and recreation of a number of organizations during
the 1980s and 1990s. She shows how the relationship between these three different
approaches and organizations is not easy and can be sometimes very contentious.
The book provides a broadview of the lives of Dominican Americans in New York
City and their struggles to empower themselves as a community. However, it has two
weaknesses. First, there is not much theoretical elaboration. Ricourt tells us that she
works within the conceptual framework of transnational studies. She indeed addresses in
her description of the community many transnational aspects of Dominican life in New
York, but she does not make connections between the ethnographic description and the
transnational theoretical framework. Her concluding chapter is very slim, and there is no
elaboration regarding what her rich ethnography tells us about Dominican or immigrant
incorporation into contemporary American society. Her main conclusion is that
[ 276 ]

nonwhite immigrants may not have the opportunity to gain

access to the advantages of whites, no matter how acculturated
they become. Preserving their ethnicity and taking advantages of
the political vindications of the civil rights movement may be the
best chance to achieve power and capitalize on otherwise
unavailable opportunities (2002: 119).
While this statement is supported by her ethnographic work, there is no linkage to
other works on contemporary or past immigration, or to any theoretical framework
that can help us contextualize the argument.
The other weakness of the book is that while the ethnographic data are rich,
the descriptions are in some cases thin. The book covers a large number of issues,
and a reader familiar with this community will immediately recognize familiar situations.
But a reader who approaches the book without previous knowledge may find the presentation of the ethnographic material a bit short and the arguments not as thoroughly
rooted in ethnographic description as they could be. It seems that either the author,
the press, or both decided to publish a short book. While this is welcome in terms of
making its reading accessible, it appears that in this case the book is a bit too short and
that there is a missed opportunity to present the lives of Dominican Americans in a
more detailed way and to develop the theoretical implications of the findings.
Ricourts book, nonetheless, is necessary reading for anyone approaching the
study of Dominican incorporation into American multiethnic citiesor the study
of urban immigrant communities in general. She gives the reader a sense of how
immigrants live and organize, what kind of constraints they face in their everyday
life, and what choices they make. The reader of this book gets a clear sense of the
difficulties the community encounters and the strategies it follows to address them.
Very importantly, the reader gets a view of the faultlines that criss-cross the
immigrant community, both in terms of its internal stratification and the different
approaches that exist in community politics. I particularly liked the book because
what Ricourt describes strongly resonates with the findings of my own research
on Dominican immigration and incorporation in Providence, Rhode Island.
A transnational community

Whereas Ricourt describes many of the transnational aspects of the lives of Dominican
Americans, Levitts book focus fully on the transnational links and networks that connect
immigrants in the United States and the communities they left behind. The identities and
social practices of migrants transcend national boundaries. When immigrants think about
strategies of survival and mobility, their horizons go beyond the confines of the place
where they have settled. Peggy Levitts Transnational Villagers provides a very important
contribution to our understanding of how people live across borders.
The book explores the lives of people from Miraflores, a small Dominican village
near the town of Ban. The particularity of this community is that its people are
spread between the Dominican village and the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica
Plains. They create a transnational community, a community without propinquity,
but with a sense of belonging and membership that encompasses both Miraflores
and Jamaica Plains. Levitt makes it clear that by using the term community she
does not mean to imply a mechanical affinity and solidarity between its members.
Rather, she argues that communities are built on hierarchical social relations.
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R E V I E W E S S AY

the identification with the sending country and at the same time reinforce that
identification. She labels the second type of organization transitional. These
correspond to the identities of established immigrants and focus their activities
both on the country of origin and the country of reception. The third type is
Dominican-American organizations that work toward local community empowerment.
The three types of organizations have an input in constructing the community
politics of Dominicans in New York. Ricourt, however, emphasizes the importance
of the third type in promoting a politics of incorporation into the receiving country.
Particularly important is her analysis of the role of social service agencies in
promoting community identity and ethnic organization and mobilization. These
organizations have roles beyond the provision of services and bringing resources to
the community. They also raise awareness of community issues and help to organize
people to address them. These organizations

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A third paradox has emerged in the relationship between Mirafloreos and the state.
The resources sent by migrants and the skills they learn in the United States increase the
power of migrants to negotiate with the clientel orientation of the Dominican state.
This, however, has not led to a more transparent relationship between citizens and
authorities, a relationship based on citizenship rights. Instead, the state has perceived
that Mirafloreos are less dependent on its expenditures, due to the new resources sent
by migrants. Since the state can no longer use its resources to maintain clientel ties, it has
decided to abandon Mirafloreos to their own efforts. This new situation produces, on
the one hand, community empowerment, as community development is now the result
of the communitys own actions. On the other hand, not all community members have
the same access to resources. The end result is that Mirafloreos in Miraflores have
shifted from dependence on a clientel state to dependence on their relatives in Boston.
A key element in Levitts account is her description of the limits of community
solidarity. The latter is not a generalized trait. Social networks and mutual help are
organized along familyreal and fictivelines. Trust and cooperation between members
of a network coexist with deep mistrust and neglect for other members of

the transnational village located outside the networks to which individuals belong. Levitt
brings class to the center of the analysis of the transnational community. She shows how
those Mirafloreos who migrate with more resources have more success in Boston and
also make it as return migrants. On the other hand, those who begin with fewer
resources have a much harder time in Boston and often return to Miraflores to find
themselves in a position not much different from the one they had when they left.
Levitts account proves that migration is not the great equalizer. It is not an avenue of
social mobility that works the same for everybody regardless of initial class position.
While migration has changed the social hierarchies in the transnational village by
putting migrants on top, pre-migration class positions affect the success of migrants.
This leads Levitt to assert that transnational migration opens up opportunities for some
and constitutes a deal with the devil for others (Levitt 2001).
An important point of the book is Levitts assertion that participation in transnational
linkages and practices has a cost. Migrants devote large amounts of effort, time, and money
to maintaining contact and participating in Miraflores life. They do this out of an
assortment of motivesfrom helping their relatives to reclaiming their own statuses. Yet all
this transnational effort takes a toll on the ability of migrants to stabilize their economic
and social position in the host country. This toll creates tensions within the transnational
community and creates incentives for people to concentrate their efforts on their lives in
the new country. These pressures have not hindered the emergence of a transnational
community, but they need to be taken into account by scholars of transnationalism.
Levitt shows how in the process of finding new ways of surviving and trying to
make it in the global socioeconomic system, new social actors are formed, culture is
transformed, and a new social hierarchy emerges. The new transnational village does
not eliminate social differentiation, though it does alter the positions different
individuals and groups occupy within the social structure. In the new social order,
migrants are often at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder in the host country,
but they are on top of the economic and status hierarchies in the transnational
village. In fact, the non-migrant members of the transnational village develop
dependency relations with the migrant members of the community.
Levitt makes this community come alive. Levitt is a very skilled writer who paints with
elegant lines the details of life and change brought on by migration and the emergence of
a transnational social field. Also important is the fact that she looks at a Dominican
community outside New York City. The overall process of settlement of Dominicans in the
United States has been one of increasing dispersion. New York City is still the place where
the majority of Dominicans reside, but the proportion of people who live in the city is
steadily declining. There is a need to look at the lives of Dominican Americans outside
of New York City, and Boston is one of the main cites of migration outside New York.
This book is also innovative in its methods, as this is truly a transnational ethnography.
Levitt conducted fieldwork in and is well acquainted with communities in both countries.
If the strength of Levitts work is in the superb ethnographic empirical narrative,
one weakness is the absence of a theoretical framework to situate the emergence
and likely trajectories of transnational communities. How can we explain the
contemporary emergence of the immigrant transnational community? What does
the presence of these communities mean in terms in relation to a state-centered system?
These questions find no answer in Levitts book. There are also unanswered questions
pertaining to the analysis of this particular community. Levitt describes in detail
transnational practices and institutions, but she does not tell us who participates in the
transnational community or how sustained over time transnational participation is.

[ 278 ]

[ 279 ]

Migration has a paradoxical effect on the educational system.

Migrants contributions ensure that bathrooms work,
classrooms have doors, and teachers have the supplies they
need. At the same time, migration lends credence to the notion
that a Dominican educationand, in some cases, education in
generalis superfluous. Because young adults reject one of
the few ways to get ahead on the island, they ensure that
migration and transnational practices will continue as integral
part of Mirafloreo life (2001: 85).

R E V I E W E S S AY

Levitt portrays a complex picture of changing cultural orientations and social

relations, one in which new hierarchies that have emerged from the migration process
replace the local hierarchies and authority structures. These changes empower some
of the people within the transnational community, but they also disempower others.
The creation of transnational ties leads to the emergence of unexpected paradoxes.
For example, Levitt describes a complex and nuanced process of change in gender
relations. Many women in Miraflores press to adopt new, more egalitarian patterns of
relations between men and women, a model of gender relations derived from the
migrants experiences. Following the example of women in Boston, women in Miraflores
aim to improve their position vis--vis men in the household and public sphere through
access to gainful employment. The situation is complicated, however, by the lack of
economic opportunities in the village. Women who want to copy the migrant model of
empowerment through work find themselves without employment opportunities.
There is also a paradox concerning the educational opportunities and incentives
confronted by the people who are part of this community. Whereas the flow of resources
from Boston has increased the resources available to the educational system in Miraflores,
transnational migration has created perverse incentives for young people to drop out of the
educational system. Social mobility is no longer linked to education but to the possibility of
moving to Boston and getting a job. Under these conditions, people have less incentive for
making use of the improving educational facilities now available to them. In Levitts words,

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These three books address several important aspects of the study of the Dominican
communityas well as the study of contemporary migration in general. Hernndez
looks at the structural roots of migration and the dynamics of labor market
incorporation. Ricourt tells us about the identities and forms of organization of the
community. Levitt shows how the lives of first generation immigrants occur in
transnational social spaces. The three books leave us with important conclusions for
the further study of migration. First, the structural forces that push people to leave are
not synchronized with the labor demand at the places of migration. Hence migrants
can expect to experience marginalization and make their living in informal ways.
Interestingly, in this account international migration is somehow similar to the ruralurban migration that characterized the industrialization period, from the 1930s through
the 1980s, in Latin America and the Caribbean. During this period millions of rural people
moved to the cities in search of employment, hoping to improve their lives, or those of
their children. In the Dominican Republic this process took place during the twelve years
of the Balaguer regime (19661978). In this period migration led to the very fast growth of
the capital, Santo Domingo, and to the emergence of large-scale urban poverty.
Many rural immigrants in Latin American cities did not find employment in
formal manufacturing or service jobs but have to make a living in informal
employment. Much of urban poverty in Latin American cities was related to the
informal economy, but the latter also provided mobility opportunities for some who
went into entrepreneurial activities. Informal jobs were also the basis for some
intergenerational social mobility because they allowed immigrant parents to provide
for the education of their children. This story is in part repeating itself, but now
migrants are both rural and urban, and the cities they move to are in different
countries. Much like the lives of other internal immigrants in Latin American cities,
among Dominicans in New York we find a complex combination of marginalization,
low wage employment, informal activities, entrepreneurship, and mobility through
access to education. This is a pattern prevalent in all cities affected by global
capitalism, no matter whether they are located in the core or the periphery of the

world system. The future of the community will be one of internal stratification, but
which pattern of stratification prevails is not predetermined. The prevalence of
marginalization or social inclusion depends on the overall evolution of the New York
and the country economies, the political and social struggles of immigrants and their
children, and the future state policies concerning immigration and urban poverty.
Contemporary international migration is qualitatively different from internal ruralurban migration, though, in that immigrants have to incorporate into a different society
that is often hostile to their arrival and presence. Hence Ricourt tells us, the way
Dominicansand we can generalize to immigrants in generalincorporate into an
indifferent society is through the development of strong ethnic identities and
organizations and through community mobilization. This in a way is not different from
the routes taken by many European immigrant groups in the early 20th century. Most
contemporary immigrants, however, cannot cross the color line in the same way European
immigrants did. Hence we see notions of race as central in the construction of ethnic
identities as well as the rise of racialized panethnic identities and politics. The American
racial system is changing with the proliferation of ethnoracial categories, but this fact does
not mean that the color line is disappearing as a principle of stratification and
disempowerment in American society. On the other hand, the color line does not
preclude important segments of the immigrant community moving into the middle class.
Ricourt tells us of the internal stratification in the Dominican community. Yet even
socially mobile immigrants or children of immigrants have to confront processes of
racialization that lead to the reproduction of ethnicity and panethnicity. Strong racialized
ethnic and panethnic identities are a fact of contemporary immigrant incorporation. Their
presence, however, is not an indication of the pervasiveness of cultural differences, but is the
product of a stratification system that keeps assigning opportunities along racialized lines.
Similarly to persons pursuing internal rural-urban migration and to persons from earlier
European migration, Dominicans, as well as other immigrants, do not break ties with
their communities of origin; instead, they construct linkages that connect the place they
left with the place in which they reside. And similarly to the previous flows of internal
migration, international migration changes cultural practices in the communities of origin
and reception, and it also creates new political actors. Differently from internal ruralurban migration, those ties span national borders, imposing more complex constraints
and also opening otherwise unavailable opportunities. Differently from previous
migration, the level and intensity of interaction is much higher in the current period.
Dominican Americans are constantly present in Dominican society and culture.
Whether we speak of access to resources, or about the definition of the imagined
communities, or in terms of the exercise of political rightswhere the extension of
dual citizenship and the right to vote abroad have expanded the limits of the political
communitythe boundaries of Dominican social life do not coincide with the
geographic or political boundaries of the Dominican Republic. Levitt shows us the
threads that weave the transnational space. Yet she also cautions us from celebrating
transnationalism or overgeneralizing the scope of transnational activities. The place
a person occupies within the transnational community matters a lot for her/his place
within the community stratification or for her/his opportunities for social mobility.
The three books portray a complex picture that should allow us to know better the
predicament of migrants. They also give tools to activists and policy reformers interested
in improving the situation of immigrants in urban centers in the United States. The three
books represent a period, a snapshot, and it is up to other scholars to extrapolate the trends
present in the current situation. The books, however, give us tools to attempt this task.

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Concluding thoughts

R E V I E W E S S AY

Levitt aptly shows that incorporation and transnational participation are intertwined
process and that there are costs and tensions in the relationship between the two.
But she does not tell us what the likely relationship is, in the medium term, between
incorporation and transnational participation.
I am posing these questions, however, four years after the publication of the book.
The study of transnational migration is on much firmer ground than when the book
was published. The goal of the book was to describe and establish the presence of a
transnational community. The book achieved this goal superbly, and in doing so it
helped advance the study of transnational migration. It is due to its success that we can
point to certain weaknesses, but these do not detract from the merits of the book.
Levitt presents a skillful description of the opportunities, constraints, and choices of
people who are part of this community that transcends borders. She pays close
attention to processes of micro cultural change and to the ways in which ideas,
practices, and institutions move across transnational networks. She gives the reader a
sense of important processes of change at the grassroots level in the organization of the
lives of immigrants and non-immigrants in this community. This book must be read to
understand the organization of the Dominican transnational community, and it is also
necessary reading for understanding the phenomenon of transnationalism in general.