There's one strange phenomenon that I've encountered time and again among Dominican-Americans. I would ask a Dominican-American female if they were Dominican without identifying myself as such (usually into conversation and it even happened during a job interview) and they would actually get defensive! What's up with that? Has anyone else encountered this?

Unfortunately a lot of haters out there have negative prejudices about Dominican women, so the reason why you're asking needs to be known. As females, we also need to be more careful about information dispersed.

Out of us Dominican-Americans, how often would you say you go back? I get free flight benefits so I go quite often, otherwise I could still afford it but would probably limit myself.

I have mixed feelings about the whole hyphenated American thing. God forbid, we should turn like many Italians today, waving the Italian flag hard yet know nothing about Italy, Italian language, etc. Or just become annoying like some Puerto Ricans, jamming that flag down everyone throat. I'd rather see us become completely assimilated before anything of that sort happens.

As far as DR, they don't even consider us Dominican. Which is hilarious because everyone here wants to be considered Dominican, not American.

The dynamics for our group are different then what they were for the Italians when they were immigrating in large numbers. Most of them never got to go to Italy once they arrived on these shores, we go back often. There was a strong pressure on that group in the time and era they came to assimilate into white American culture, not so among our people. The Puerto Ricans never really bacame a hyphenated group. I mean, you never here anyone say Puerto Rican-American. They're just Puerto Ricans. The dynamics of their migration (and not immigration) is also distinct from ours though there are parallels. Dominicans born stateside are going to prove to be a distant beast all together. Only time will tell, though.

I think my query was self explanatory. I've seen many Dominican women get defensive when I ask them if they're Domincan. I'm not basing it on one instance or even three. I've experienced this several times. Sometimes I think that maybe it's because they initially think I'm a non-Dominican on the verge of passing a critique but honestly I don't know why.

ciby such a lot of baggage to schlepp around

You're not a Dominican. You're not even a real American. This thread doesn't concern you in the slightest bit.

ciby Please stop being so defensive your complexes are showing

No offense socio, but he could say that you're not a real dominican if he decided to use the nativist approach that you're using. He could say that he's entitled to the american nationality by way of his anglo mom, the same way you're entitled to ours by your dominican parents. Surely it's not secret to you that the majority of the anglo presence in Canada are in reality american british empire loyalists from the US war of independence.