Same Boat, Different Stop: An Exploration of the Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Afro-Dominican Students on Columbia University’s Campus

Abstract

There is an increasing number of Dominican-Americans, particularly on college campuses, that are identifying as black, yet we have a poor understanding of how they are navigating their black identity in black spaces. Using Columbia University as a case study, this thesis explores the experiences of and attitudes towards Afro-Dominicans as they negotiate their black identity in explicitly black spaces. I interviewed 10 Afro-Dominican students and 10 African American students as a way to gauge what the black community is imagining the place of Afro-Dominicans to be within the group. I found that while all of the African American participants expressed that Afro-Dominicans belong within the black community on campus, the Afro-Dominican participants differed in their actual feelings of belonging. At the conclusion of the paper, I make recommendations as to how the relationship between the Afro-Dominican and African American identities/people/communities can be improved upon.