Although discussion of "racial" classifications among Latinos in the U.S. would seem to be out of the realm of the overall theme of whiteness, the concepts found in the sociology of social change provide another vantage point. Social change sociologists often point to conflict between two rival parties and show how that conflict can affect a third, seemingly unrelated one. Thus, the conflict between the United States and Mexico over territory in the Southwest resulted in large scale European settlement in that region -- with significant consequences for the Native Americans already there.
The conflict between persons in the U.S. labeled as "black" and "white" has been well documented. It is my contention that the conflict between these two groups also affects a third group (Latinos) in the United States.
Whites have attempted to maintain an acceptable physical type by controlling the entry into their ranks of various people of color, such as Asians, but their overriding desire for exclusion has focused on the avoidance of sub-Saharan African ("black") ancestry. Marvin Harris and Conrad Kottak have described the "hypodescent" rule, which has historically been applied to the offspring of Europeans and Africans in this country.(1) Under the hypodescent rule, any offspring between a parent of a higher caste ("white") and a parent of a lower caste ("black") is relegated to the social status of the lower caste parent. Thus an "interracial" marriage of a black and a white automatically produces a black.(2) Moreover, in most of the U.S., anyone suspected of having any African ancestry is liable to be labeled as black. Among other things, this practice has had the purpose of eliminating African ancestry from the white population.(3)
One rarely hears North American whites claiming African ancestry. However, many of them have admitted having American Indian ancestry without jeopardizing their membership in the "white race." North Americans of note claiming Indian ancestry while self-identifying (and being classified by U.S. society) as white include Will Rogers, Cher, Dan Rather and James Garner. This reticence on the part of whites (who control most cultural, economic and political resources in this country) to embrace African ancestry is not lost on Latinos. The dynamics of discord and rejection which have been on-going between U.S. whites and blacks have put Latinos in a position where their African ancestry must be dealt with -- and African ancestry has always been a part of the fabric of Latin American life.
Esteva-Fabregat's excellent book on the race-mixing process, which began in Ibero-America over five hundred years ago, was careful to include Africans, as well as Indians and Spaniards.(4) Nor are Esteva-Fabregat's impressions in any way novel. A variety of historians, sociologists and anthropologists, ranging from Pierre van den Berghe to Magnus Morner to Carl Degler to Charles Wagley have in the past chronicled the process of Latin American race mixing and the African contribution to it.(5) The heaviest concentration of African ancestry in Latin America has historically been in the coastal areas of South American and the Caribbean. Countries like Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, as well as the territory of Puerto Rico, have not only histories of African presence but visible vestiges of African presence in the physical appearance of many of the people.(6) Moreover, African presence was not limited to the aforementioned areas. Mexico also had a sizable African input. According to Aguirre Beltran, in 1810 there were almost as many Afro-mestizos as Indo-mestizos.(7) In "white" Argentina, Leslie Rout has detailed the large percentages of persons of African origin (who were later absorbed into the population of Indians, creoles and later European immigrants).( Clearly then, African ancestry exists among Latinos. It has, however, been minimized in mass U.S. culture. When one moves away from specialists like Aguirre Beltran and Esteva-Fabregat and into the realm of "popular scholarship" geared for mass consumption by a U.S. audience, African ancestry seems to fade from importance and the Indian genetic contribution (which is more acceptable to North Americans) is emphasized. According to Richard Schaefer, writing in a college survey text on race relations, "The Chicano people trace their ancestry back to the merging of Spanish settlers with the Native Americans of Central America."(9)
The popular mass-oriented magazine Hispanic is careful to emphasize the Indian and Spanish antecedents of Latinos. When an occasional person appears who deviates from this ideal, the editors of Hispanic are quick to disclaim that the person is a "black Hispanic" (implying that other Hispanics have few, if any, African origins).
Ironically, Latinos provide one example in which the hypodescent rule does not operate in the U.S. Many Latinos, particularly from localities like the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela have African ancestry but (because of the overall brown-skinned nature of the population of Latinos in general) this African ancestry does not necessarily make someone significantly deviate physically from another person who may be a brown-skinned descendant of Indians and Spaniards. Moreover, since the holders of this African ancestry are not appreciably cordoned off into a separate world, as are North American blacks, they are liable to act and feel like other Latinos.(10)
Esteva-Fabregat's description of race-mixing in Latin America chronicled a process whereby African ancestry became interwoven in a complex matrix.(11) Aguirre Beltran's analysis of African ancestry in Mexico is noteworthy not so much because of the extent of African ancestry depicted but the way in which that ancestry became woven (along with the Indian and the Spanish) into the fabric of the Mexican population.(12) An anonymous painting of colonial Mexico gives 16 different racial possibilities resulting from Indian, African and Spanish mixture. The majority of the 16 cells contained persons with African ancestry.(13) It is important to note at this point that the hair texture of a person with 33% African ancestry may be the same as a person with no African ancestry at all. One of my English-as-a-Second-Language students once told me that his grandmother was very dark with kinky hair --the student himself, a man with heavy, wavy hair, was indistinguishable from his fellow Mexican classmates (and, significantly, he was not rejected outright because of that ancestry).
When a man from the Dominican Republic (for whom African ancestry has possible cultural significance but little political significance) enters the U.S., a decision must be made concerning his African ancestry. If his hair is straight, he has an excellent chance at passing off his dark complexion as that of "Indian" (even though the Spaniards destroyed most of the Indian population seventy-five years after the Discovery). If his hair is kinky, his African ancestry, more apparent, will become a significant part of his life in this country. In both cases, the Latino is forced to "pick a side." Not surprisingly, given the white track record on African ancestry, many Latinos ignobly negate a significant portion of their heritage.(14) At present (possibly because I am Latino), I tend to place the blame for this not on the Latino who is trying to cope with life in a new culture but on the white-dominated U.S. society which is bent on cordoning off blacks into their own, private world.
In many Latin American countries, African ancestry is far more interwoven (both culturally and genetically) in the fabric of everyday life. In the U.S., on the other hand, "black" and "white" terms are meant (as the names suggest) to be absolute, connoting total placement in one (but never both at the same time) of two conflict groups. I have not run across many mulatto North Americans confiding in me, "I'm really half white." Nor have I encountered many North Americans labeled as white who have confessed to having African ancestry, although R.P. Stuckert has estimated that a sizable percentage of them do have it.(15) In the U.S., African ancestry is not treated simply as an indication of a point of origin -- rather, it is something that converts the holder (of whatever percentage of African ancestry) into a person who is 100% black, and therefore 100% in a "genetically-defined" out-group. Latinos with African ancestry, highly cognizant of this dictum, will be so treated -- unless they can use the Indian escape hatch.
Much of what he writes is right, but he is wrong on his Dominican claims.
From Jorge Estevez, another Dominican
Quote:
There have been two, although very limited, DNA studies done in the Dominican Republic.
The first were conducted by an Italian company along with the Late Dr. Luna Calderon. These studies were focused in the Barahona region. Of the 29 samples taken (all from people displaying mostly African heritage) 10 had Native American Mitochondrial DNA.
In the second, Professor Juan Martinez Cruzado of Puerto Rico took 196 samples and of these 33 percent had Native American MTDNA. What should be noted is that in previous studies in Puerto Rico where the population is 4 million people, 800 samples were taken and 61 percent of these were Indian. The DR has over 9 million people so a much higher representative number of samples must be obtained before any conclusion can be made.
That said there are a few things that are clear though:
(1) the question as to whether or not there is Native descent in the DR has been answered and the answer is yes.
(2) The samples in the DR are Haplo groups A and C. The C haplo groups and types match the Puerto Rican C group. But the Haplo group A does not match the Puerto Rican A. This implies that the Haplo group A in the DR is from an older population that mixed with the arawakan speaking peoples that entered the region some 3 thousand years ago.
I took a Bio-geographical DNA test, one that gives percentages of mixture. I tested positive for all three, except that my Native American Markers were so high that it implied that my ancestors were "pure" up to 5 generations ago. Not bad for a supposedly extinct people!
I actually took the test three times because at first I was not at all convinced that such a thing was possible.
On my first test which was called the 2.0 DNA print test My percentages were 29% Native American, 39% African and 32% Caucasian. It was this first test that confirmed for me what my grandmother always said about our families’ descent. She claimed that her grandmother and all the people of the place I come from in the DR were pure Indians. So since I had 29% Indian that means my mother would have perhaps twice as much and so on.
Then I took an updated version of the test, 2.5 , which goes deeper into the genome and this one revealed that I was 42 percent Indian.
One thing though. I think that as important as the tests are, they are also a bit misleading. I think that Identity is more about culture than genes. The reason why I have always identified with Native is because of the campesino culture that is very Native in the DR.
At the end of these test I am still as Indian as I was at birth. The thing is does confirm however is that our history in the Caribbean must be re-written. That the Taino became extinct 30 years after contact with the Spanish is just about the biggest myth ever created and we in the Caribbean bought that side of the story, hook line and sinker!
Two of the biggest if not the biggest opponents of Taino survival are Anthony Stevens Arroyo who wrote "Cave of the Jaguar" and Lic Carlos Andujar ex president of The Museo del hombre Dominicano have in the last two weeks made very supportive statements (actually changed their tunes) regarding Taino survival.
In most of the chat rooms where there are these "incredulous" as you say people, most of them are either not informed, non-academic. I do think that they have the right to voice out their Afro-centric sentiments after all that is also a reality in the DR and the Caribbean. They only fail when they become ultra afro-centric and then want everyone else to see what they believe. The fact is that there are three heritages in the DR and because of this we will always have four identities:
(1) there will always be people who identify with the Spanish
(2) there will always be people who identify with the African
(3) there will always be people who identify with the Indian
(4) and last but not least, there will always be people that identify with all three.
My point is that they are all equally valid. No one has the right to tell anyone how to identify.
We should instill pride in African Heritage as we do with the Indian. One thing, you would never find an indigenista denying African heritage, It just makes no sense.
This thing with "color indio" was actually enforced during Trujillo's time, but as you mention people identified with this way before. In fact in comes from the colonial era. During Trujillo's time there were independent studies done on the ABO blood groups by Jose de Jesus Alvarez. He demonstrated that there is an abundance of type O positive blood in the DR, something like 70 percent. Why is this number important? Because type O positive is found only at around 35 percent in Caucasian populations and 4 percent in African populations. So if you have an equal mix of African and Caucasian Type O positive can never exceed 40 percent. That said, Native Americans, particularly the ones from South America are universally 100 percent Type O Positive. Demonstrating that in the DR there is a substantial other, which of course is Indian.
Many scholars in the past have pointed out this study as being flawed and accused Mr. Alvarez of hidden agendas (Trujillo's?). In fact just a few years ago I was at a conference where one of the speakers accused him of being a racist (this study was done in 1948)! DNA has proven that Mr. Jesus Alvarez was right all along.
I wonder what people will do with this information. Are we a people unable or unwilling to see the truth? Only time will tell. But for those of us who identify our Taino Indian ancestors, these studies only showed that we were right all along. We were not delusional, racist, etc. We were simply stating obvious facts. Like one woman from Cuba said to me once " Yeah they came to our village in Yateras and did all these tests on us, they measured our heads, looked at our teeth and at the end told us what we already knew, that we are Indian".
The wonderful thing about living in this time is that now we can finally test if indeed Dominicans or other Caribbean people have Taino Indian blood. The DNA tests confirm this as did a A-B-O blood group study conducted by J ALvarez in the 50's.
One thing is certain; Dominicans have a tendency to identify with Indian over anything else. I argue that this is due to us having a very real biological, cultural and linguistic connection to our Indigenous ancestors. The terms African, Spanish, Mulatto disconnect us from our homelands, rendering us almost immigrants in our homelands.
It is the Indian that connects us to our lands and we continue to be Indigenous to Kiskeya.
You have to understand that the African and the Spanish are considered the norm. It is the Indian genetic component that is always in question. If you begin to ask a hypothetical question: Are there substantial Native American genes in the DR? The Answer is Yes. To look for Spanish or African is absurd because we ALL know that its there. Do you realize that up to a short time ago many academics erroneously claimed that the reason why some Dominicans looked Indian was because if you mix black and white in time you get something that looks somewhat Indian! This was an actual train of thought among many academics in the Caribbean.
As for the statistics: In the last 30 years there has been a push to Africanize Dominican Identity. So its not suspiring that many more identify with negritude which of course is contrary to the claims that the government has dark agendas in trying to WHITEN the island by switching one dark people for another. Most of those involved in what I call ultra afro-centric ideals that are adamant in making sure that it was African or nothing at all. The indigenistas in our country have never said there were no Africans or African Influence, only that there is Taino as well. The afro centrics take rather unusual stance and claim that if one says INDIAN he is automatically denying Africans. I can’t see the reasoning in this.
I wish we could meet in person. I can show you pictures of DR's that look like they stepped out of the Amazon!
It’s also about culture. When one studies the Classic Taino Material culture of the islands, everything from Hamacas, to Casabe, weaving baskets to slash and burn farming down to how, when and where Native crops are to be planted, bohios, etc and you compare that with the campesino culture of the ciabo for example, its easy to see why Dominicans have strong connection to an Indian past. My problem lies with certain individuals who say the following:
(1) there are no Indian genes only Indian culture left ( and very little of it)
(2) when the genetics proves the above statement to be untrue, then the counter argument is- Yes there are genes but no Indian culture.
As if you can have a strong genetic contribution to population and somehow not pass on ideas, culture, beliefs, etc.
The fact that we have at least 800 Taino words that persist in our Spanish today is remarkable, where else in the history of the world have an "extinct people" influenced a culture as much as the Taino?
I believe that identity is a personal matter and the individual has the right to choose.
Since I was very, very young I have identified with Indian. Somehow for me it boils down to this: If you mixed Africans and Spanish anywhere else in the world and giving rise to mulatto people, would these people be Kiskeyanos and Boricuas or Cubans? Of course not. What makes us a unique people is that we have customs (the above mentioned), beliefs (ciguapas, misterios, opias, etc) linguistic traits that are indigenous only to the Caribbean, rendering us a unique people. If as if by magic we can subtract everything that is Taino from Caribbean culture, would we still be the same Dominicans? One can argue that if you subtract any portion of our multi-ancestries we would not be the same, but one thing is certain, as long as the Taino is there, we will always be indigenous to the Caribbean and not Dominicans by chance.
Regarding Dominican women straightening their hair to deny their negritude: I found that line of reasoning to be rather laughable.
Hair straightening with chemicals began in the 50's and officially in the 70's by Revlon. Before that hair straightening was done with hot comes, and this began in the late 1880's. Now check out these excerpts:
So much so that the national complexion of skin and general physiognomic traits may well be described as being alight brown, approaching the copper color of the North American aborigines, straight black hair in the case of the females, glossy and in luxurious profusion and a combination of features resulting from about an equal blending of the African, Caucasian and -Indian physiognomies. The very visible traits of the latter would seem to indicate, although we are not aware of the existence of any other evidence of it, that the aboriginal race instead of having been entirely exterminated, had been particularly amalgamated. In “The Dominican Republic in the Island of St. Domigue” by S. A. Kendall, page 243, 1849
The “pure” race wholly died in (Hispaniola) at the latter end of the “last” century; but their characteristic features and luxuriant hair, are still to be traced among their descendants, from intercourse with Europeans, Africans and colored people. These are still called Indios. In Harper's statistical gazetteer of the world / by J. Calvin Smith ; Illustrated by seven maps. Publication date: 1855.Collection: Making of America Books
In other words, many Dominican women were known for their straight hair long before there were any hair straightening techniques. That said, why do so many women in the DR straighten their hair? First off, not ALL DR women do. Some do, some don’t. Second its not about denial of race is about aesthetics. More women straighten their hair in Africa than in the DR, are they too trying to deny being black? Also white women dye their hair blond, and I assure you that more of them are using peroxide to dye their hair than DR women using lye to straighten theirs. So what are these white women denying? NOTHING! It’s all about people trying to look better in their own eyes. When a Japanese man perms his hair curly or makes an dreadlock, he is simply making a fashion statement, not a racial one.
All these articles are an attempt by Ultra-Afro-centric intellectuals to force people into their own points of view.
I would never suggest that all Dominicans with straight hair are Indian. Indian, Black or white are matters of culture. WE as a tripartite people will always either identify with one or all of our heritages.
This argument is weak. If Dominicans don’t identify with their African roots as we should its because we have very few African Icons that survived during slavery. Other than Music and religiosity (two strong vehicles for "escaping" the reality of slavery) there is few material cultural remains to identify with. Once Dominicans can pinpoint where are African descendants came from, perhaps we can then investigate that part of ourselves. To say that Dominican women are denying their negritude because of the hair thing, begs for another question, if the women straighten their hair to deny their negritude, what do the men do? or is it just the women?!
I agree with most of his assertions, except I don't think Latinos are forced to choose a side. Most people treat Latinos as both a race and ethnic group.
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Clearly then, African ancestry exists among Latinos. It has, however, been minimized in mass U.S. culture. When one moves away from specialists like Aguirre Beltran and Esteva-Fabregat and into the realm of "popular scholarship" geared for mass consumption by a U.S. audience, African ancestry seems to fade from importance and the Indian genetic contribution (which is more acceptable to North Americans) is emphasized. According to Richard Schaefer, writing in a college survey text on race relations, "The Chicano people trace their ancestry back to the merging of Spanish settlers with the Native Americans of Central America."(9)