Ethnic and Postethnic Politics in New York City: The Dominican Second Generation

Summary

Drawing on participant-observation in two New York City neighborhoods with large Dominican populations—Bushwick-Williamsburg and Washington Heights-Inwood—this chapter examines how the Dominican second generation achieves political incorporation. It argues that neighborhood context decisively shapes whether ethnic or post-ethnic political strategies prevail: where Dominicans compete within a broader, ethnically diverse Latino coalition, shared group identity remains the primary resource for organizing and accessing political power. Where Dominicans have achieved sufficient electoral entrenchment through first-generation pioneers, an emergent second-generation organization (Young Dominicans) experiments with a post-ethnic model that deploys Dominican identity as one resource among many in broader, class-based coalition building.

Cite

@incollection{marwell2004ethnic,
  author = {Marwell, Nicole P.},
  title = {Ethnic and Postethnic Politics in New York City: The Dominican Second Generation},
  booktitle = {Becoming New Yorkers: Ethnographies of the New Second Generation},
  editor = {Kasinitz, Philip and Mollenkopf, John H. and Waters, Mary C.},
  pages = {257--284},
  publisher = {Russell Sage Foundation},
  year = {2004}
}