This is definitely a marabou, yumnuk can you email me the numbers ? you have good taste man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marabou_(ethnicity)

Zoe. Dios Mio!!! My first little girlfriend in Haiti was a Zoe-type. A beauty at 8.

DO all dominicans have mixed taino ancestry?

My own experience is that African Americans in general, and Afrocentric intellectuals in particular, are militant defenders of hypodescent.

Based on that experience, I predict they will treat any Dominican attempt to forge a Taino influenced, mixed racial identity, with hostility and contempt.

My tendency is to acknowledge their perspective, understand it, state my disagreement, and move on.

They can be annoying and offensive, but, as with all Western Hemisphere advocates of Black and White racial nationalism, I believe they are fighting a losing battle.

As for the Tainos--fascinating stuff. Keep it coming.

Because few women came to the original Spanish colony during the first twelve years of it existence . . . we may reasonably assume that the custom of intermarriage between Spaniard and Tainos began at the time. Intermarriage continued through the terms of Ovando and Diego Columbus; as we have seen, the census of 1514 found that 40 percent of the officially recognized wives of Spanish men were Indian. Consequently, a large proportion of the modern population of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba is able to claim partial descent from the Tainos.

Irving Rouse, The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus.

I'm an African American and I have to say that it is true that many AAs tend to call anybody of partial african heritage "black". Of course that's not to say that people with lighter skin aren't sometimes treated differently (better, worse, whatever). But they still tend to call them all "black" in many cases.

Personally I don't agree with the "one drop" idea, but it does seem like some Dominicans try to apply the one drop rule to their own Taino heritage. I'm not saying the Taino heritage doesn't exist among Dominicans or that it shouldn't be cherished. But in the end it seems like such a small part of the overall heritage to receive so much attention. My maternal great grandmother was native american but I don't focus on that relatively small part of my ancestry. Maybe I would feel different if I knew more about that part of my heritage, but I don't think anyone would consider me a Native American anyway! It seems impossible to connect to something that is so distant.

I appreciate the fact that some people don't want the generic label of "black" but I think the significance of the whole Taino thing can be a bit exaggerated. I'll admit that may just be my perception coming from a different environment, but there it is. It really seems like the Taino are prettymuch extinct and there's nothing anyone can do about it but cling to a faint idea of them. "One drop" of Amerindian blood doesn't make someone Amerindian anymore than one drop of african blood makes someone African.

Androclone,
In your case that might be different because maybe your parents and grandparents married African American. In a Dominican case, is completely different, where for the last 500 years many Dominicans stayed married to non blacks, so generation of the off springs from Spanish and Indians had been marrying within themselves.

Well I probably won't change my view completely, but I think I see your point. If everyone in my family line was equally mixed with Native American blood as say, my grandmother for example (who was half) then I would be in a different position. But isn't it true that many Dominicans (maybe most Dominicans) are of primarily African heritage anyway? I'm not saying the average Dominican would be 99% African descent, but at least 51% perhaps? Possibly higher. I know it varies from each individual obviously, but I'm just talking about averages among those whom Americans would label as black. They're probably way more than half African descent. Certainly more African than Taino I would think.

I remain a skeptic in the matter of this whole Taino heritage thing, simply because I've heard conflicting reports and I really don't trust any one "expert" opinion. On the one hand, it seems unlikely that all Tainos would have been totally wiped-out without ever mixing with other inhabitants as some people say. But I don't think a huge ammount of their blood would have been passed down either. I'm far from being an expert on the situation myself, so I'm not about to make a judgement on it. I just thought it's kind of an interesting subject. It really doesn't matter to me if folks identify with being "black" or African. But I have often wondered if Dominicans tend to dislike African Americans from the U.S.? Do they embrace the African portion of their heritage at all?

Androcle,
I think there may be sometype of misunderstanding here. The focus of the thread is to highlight the Taino ancestry in DR, no one is even implying anytype of One Drop Rule so that Dominicans can claim being Taino. The Euro/Afro. ancestry is quite obvsious and are dominiant.
Dominicans are a tri-racial people, both ethnohistory and genetics support this. Contrary to popular believe they're not exactly a 'mulatto' nation. Taino ancestry is a fact, I don't really feel like posting links, but if you're really interested you can do some independent research. Note that alot of the research comes from an American anthropologist Lynne Guitar so there is no 'bias' in it.

Now as far as African Americans, the first thing you must understand is that tension/rivalry between different minorities has always occured. And be careful with applying whatever you think is disliked to African Americans to a countries African heritage, 2 very different things.

To give you a very easy example, when Africans & Caribbean black have tension with African Americans, do you think it's based on color/race? The answer is no, it is a culture clash.
African Americans look down upon Haitians and there has been very a very real clash between the two in various US cities. I bet if it was a different group African Americans would think of it as purely a race thing.