Transnational Dominican Activism

Dominican-descended people in the United States are one of the most dynamic Spanish-speaking, Caribbean, and Latin American ethnic and cultural communities in the United States. Whether in the Dominican Republic or as members of a transnational community, the Dominican population is one with a long and rich history of challenging the powers that be, unjust acts, and oppressive laws within the communities they inhabit through their civic engagement. This essay aims to address one question: as Dominican society and the world have largely evolved, what has been the role of U.S.-based online media in sustaining, disseminating and rescuing the long tradition of civic involvement and struggle exemplified by Dominicans at home and abroad? To answer that question, we explore the role of the ongoing online Dominican-centric magazine ESENDOM to demonstrate how online journalism documents activism within the Dominican community. ESENDOM and similar media have filled gaps that the mainstream media has failed to fulfill as there is a media blackout on the Dominican Republic and its people. This project is one about activism. This humanistic project documents some of the most important social movements to take place in the Dominican Republic and the United States in the past thirteen years (2009-2022), coinciding with the founding of ESENDOM in 2009. This project will present a timeline and an attempt to chart a chronology of political dissent and social struggles within Dominican communities in the United States and the Dominican Republic.