Some return home, others put down new roots, but there is always this sense of distance, of the gap between here and there, the States and the Island. Food, music, family ties: all of these take on huge symbolic and emotional importance in the face of what can often be a cold and unwelcoming migrant world. Living double lives between North America and La Isla at home, Dominicans make up the classic transnational community, always on the move, assimilating the culture of their new home, preserving the other culture of what is left behind across the Caribbean Sea. The great majority are in New York state, but neighbouring New Jersey also has its Dominican communities, spread out in the old and declining industrial suburbs. At least half a million are officially resident, while many more are illegal immigrants, living in fear of the authorities and a sudden deportation order.

Climate apart, you could easily imagine yourself in some barrio of Santo Domingo.ĭominicans are now the second biggest Latino group (after Mexicans) in the United States. Merengue music blares out from CD stores, little restaurants serve up spicy sancocho and ice-cold Presidente beer, courier companies promise to deliver dollars anywhere in the Republic within 24 hours. This is the Dominican Republic come to the Big Apple, Nueva York as the locals call it. All big cities have their distinct immigrant districts, but New York’s Washington Heights, at the northern tip of Manhattan, is more conspicuously foreign than most.

Drown by Junot Díaz