On Being Dominican Essay, Research Paper
There is something about Times Square at 7:30 AM. You notice a lot: The desolateness, the workers in their blue jumpsuits, loading and unloading, as well as the calm in a place not usually known for calm. This is where I wake myself up most mornings with a walk from 42nd to 56th St. when I opt to get off the train a little early. The few I run into with some regularity smile at me with an unspoken friendship.
I find pleasure in the view of skyscrapers reaching up to blurry skies; so different from the reality that is the near-ghetto landscape of Bushwick, the place where I had been only an hour before. The place where I live. I can almost feel everyday on the L, The second I leave Bushwick; like I?m leaving to another world. That brings back the memory of another world I left. The small island where I was born, the place I can barely remember.
I was born in the Dominican Republic, a tiny island that is so different from this tiny island. I do not have may memories of those first six years of my life but I know that I had a different destiny in store. Except those for the rich, schools in the Dominican Republic were small buildings with limited books, teachers and opportunities. I would never have attended a school as amazing as the High School for Environmental Studies, where I have grown far beyond the scope of Bushwick.
I was awakened by my mother very early one morning and we left my small town just as the sun began to warm the air. I wish I had paid more attention to the arms that clutched me and cried as they said goodbye; but I was too sleepy. I would not see them again and not return for five years but I when I did, I was a tourist and they were strangers. Returning had the effect on me that I always questioned how Dominican I am and how Dominican I should be. I saw in my mother?s eyes that she too wondered and it saddened her to lose a daughter to the Gringos. It saddened me to be lost to her.
It is so strange to me that I live in two different worlds between the L, my lifeline to both. There is the world to which I ride sleepily every morning. The world I study for, the world that drains me of all energy, the world in which my triumphs are characterized by tired smiles. There is also the world I ride tiredly every afternoon. This is where my little sister makes up knock-knock jokes that make sense only to her uncluttered mind; where my mother is more than content to do exactly as my father tells her to, oblivious to my disgust for that willingness and all my arguments for women?s empowerment. I don?t believe anyone who knows me in either world can understand how the frantic days of High School contrasts with the self-contained, closed circle that is my family. I often struggled to keep both worlds apart.
My parents decided long ago?or perhaps my mother decided and my father merely agreed?that the Almontes would never become American. We would come into the gringos? land but never absorb their culture and never live their lives. We celebrate Mother?s Day and Father?s day on the day it is celebrated in the Dominican Republic. We eat the same foods we would have eaten, we exist exactly as we would have existed if we lived in the tiny town of Bejucal. Except that we don?t, despite how hard my mother tries. She hangs up portraits of old friends and places them on the walls and tries to keep them all alive with her stories, tries to keep us all together, tries to keep us all Dominican.
I have very few Hispanic friends and speak Spanish only when I speak to my parents. They do not speak English; or rather speak very little. My mother?s timid English peeks out gently on the phone when she repeats her memorized phrase: ?He is not home.? My father?s struggling English stalks out when he is angry and must argue with a gringo. A friend?s first phone call to my home is when they realize by the garbling Spanish in the background, by placing my name and face in the category with other Hispanic people they know, and by remembering vaguely that I had told them, that I am Dominican. Always they say, ?I just realized you?re Hispanic.? It feels a little bit like they rob me by saying that. They confirm all my fears.
I don?t have an accent, or rather I have a well-hidden one that stumbles out only when I?m extremely nervous. I don?t fit stereotypes. I don?t listen to merengue or bachata and certainly don?t dance to them except at a rare party at my house. It has been difficult for me to come to terms with how little I act or am like other Dominicans my age; like my brother and sister even. But I have found the solution simply in allowing the two worlds to mix, and trying not to be defensive when asked about who I am. It?s easier now that I have an idea of how to answer. I know now that I shouldn?t struggle too hard simply to be who I am. I worry about how my relationship with my parents is made more complicated by their accusations that I don?t want to be Dominican. But I have realized that my relationship with my parents need only be and is simply that I love them and they love me. I am a soon-to-be first generation college student and when I leave my house, no longer surrounded by my mother?s pictures and stories I know that I will remain who I am, a silent member of my culture and race.
Through the years I have developed, being the exception to so many rules, an immunity to stereotypes as well as an acute interest in all things different. Living in this diverse city, I come into contact with so many different cultures and races that I have an absolutely open mind. I am sad to say most, including my parents, do not. I have friends, born in other countries, who also travel through different realities and who don?t fit the stereotypes. That is one of the great things about New York and one of the best things about our school.
To me, going to the Native American reservation would be a trip to yet another world, one as different as the United States was to me nine years ago. It really excites me that I might be allowed to see an entirely different culture. I have a real fascination with cultures of every kind and a curiosity and respect for all ways different than mine. It would be amazing to visit a place so unlike the rest of the country; a cocoon in which the Native Americans struggle to maintain their way of life just like I struggle to stay Dominican. Visiting the Native American reservation would be an incredible trip and one which I could learn so much from. I would truly love to go and the prospect of going to New Mexico or Arizona excites me more than anything ever has before. I can see myself there having an experience that most High School students wouldn?t have and one which I never thought I would have either: seeing a glimpse of yet another different reality.