Black Behind the Ears

Ginetta E. B. Candelario is Associate Professor of Sociology and Latin American and Latina/o Studies at Smith College.

“Black behind the Ears makes important contributions to our understanding of the Dominican experience. In this book, Ginetta E. B. Candelario shows processes of identity formation among Dominicans in different historical and geographical contexts, and she looks at the nuanced relationship between ethnic and racial identities. In my opinion, this is one of the best books written on the subject of racial, ethnic, and national identity formation in general.”-JosÉ Itzigsohn, author of Developing Poverty: The State, Labor Market Regulation, and the Informal Economy in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic “Based on first-rate ethnographic and historical research, Black behind the Ears provides fresh and original insights into the construction and representation of racial identities in the Dominican Republic and the United States. It is the most comprehensive, focused, and balanced treatment to date of Dominican racial and gender ideologies in the United States.”-Jorge Duany, author of The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States “Ginetta E. B. Candelario’s Black behind the Ears argues compellingly that any serious effort to understand Dominican ideas and practices of race in the ancestral homeland as well as in the diaspora requires a large conceptual framework, a triangular geography of knowledge, and a cultural history formed by Dominican nation-building projects, the difficult plight of the Haitian Republic in the midst of a negrophobic world, the impact of U.S. racial thought, and the Latin American glorification of the Hispanic heritage. Candelario’s book remarkably dares to bring apparently disparate discursive sites to interact convincingly and engagingly in her analysis. The author renders facile readings of the Dominican chapter of the black experience in the Americas as exceptional or pathological simply unsustainable. She shows instead that it invites White Americans, African Americans, and other Latinos to revisit long-held assumptions about racial categories, ethnic identity, nationality, and the ideologies behind taking the ‘visible’ for ‘real’ in matters of race.”-Silvio Torres-Saillant, coauthor of The Dominican Americans “Black behind the Ears is a fascinating, richly documented, and innovative exploration of racial, ethnic and national identity formation in the Dominican Republic and among the Dominican diaspora in the United States. . . . In exploring the paradoxes of Dominican ethno-racial identity so creatively, Candelario has produced a fascinating template for scholars and students of race, ethnicity and national identity in general.” - Sherri Grasmuck (Contemporary Sociology) “[A] stimulating book. . . . Candelario breaks new ground with her analysis of racial formation in Dominican communities in the United States . . . . [Black Behind the Ears] should be widely read by historians, anthropologists, and sociologists in the fields of Latin American and Latina/o studies.” - Frank Andre Guridy (Hispanic American Historical Review) “[G]roundbreaking. . . . Black Behind the Ears is a well-researched analysis of the cultural sites through which various actors produce racial understandings in relation to national discourses. It is an important contribution to the study of race, gender and national identity within the Dominican Republic and its US-based migrant communities.” - Takkara Brunson (Bulletin of Latin American Research) “With this book we are taken deeper into the complicated world of Latinidad--both in its abstract cogitations and its grounded, experienced reality. . . . Candelario’s book is an important contribution to the field of Latino studies.” - Anani Dzidzienyo (Latino Studies)

• Figures and Tables ixAcknowledgments xiIntroduction. "We Declare That We Are Indians": Dominican Identity Displays and Discourses in Travel Writing, Museums, Beauty Shops, and Bodies 11. "It Is Said That Haiti Is Getting Blacker and Blacker": Traveling Narratives of Dominican Identity 352. "The Africans have No [Public] History": The Museo del Hombre Dominicano and Indigenous Displays of Dominican Identity 833. "I Could Go the African American Route": Dominicans in the Black Mosaic of Washington, D.C. 1294. "They Are Taken into Account for Their Opinions": Making Community and Displaying Identity at a Dominican Beauty Shop in New York City 1775. "Black Women are Confusing, but the Hair Lets You Know": Perceiving the Boundaries of Dominicanidad 223Conclusion: "Black Behind the Ears, and Up Front, Too": Ideological Code Switching and Ambiguity in Dominican Identities 256Notes 265References 297Index 323