When progressives use such phrases as “communities of color” or “people of color,” it assumes unity among those who fit these categories. But at Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof describes in A Tale of Two Cities, Dominicans do not readily identify with others of a similar skin color, and do not easily fit into “color-based” categories. In fact, amidst the cauldron of New York City’s racial politics, Dominicans in the early 1970’s were first identified as “Spanish” or “Hispanic,” and then as “black,” despite their reluctance to identify with the city’s African-American community. But Dominicans came to New York City with their own sense of national identity. They did not want to be lumped with Puerto Ricans, Haitans or other groups often linked as “communities of color.” Dominican immigrants were faced with the question “What are you” in a city whose politics and social services broke down on racial and ethnic lines. The ethnic/racial aspect of Dominican lives is just one of the many thought-provoking features of what is likely the most comprehensive book available on the lives of Dominicans in New York City and Santa Domingo.

Prior to reading Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof’s new book, my knowledge of the Dominican community in the United States was limited to their predominance in New York City and on Major League Baseball teams. While Hoffnung-Garskof curiously ignores the latter phenomena, he provides a detailed analysis of the rich cultural lives and political and social challenges of Dominican immigrants in New York City and in their homeland of Santa Domingo.

From its title, the author makes it clear that this is a book as much about Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic as New York City. While focusing on both cities fulfills Hoffung-Garskof’s goal of examining their interplay, readers lacking a prior knowledge of the post –1950 political history of the Dominican Republic could find some of the book hard going. The author does provide a capsule history, particularly the United States invasion and occupation of the Dominican Republic in 1965 that resulted in a flood of immigrants being allowed to come to New York. U.S. foreign policy felt that allowing disenchanted Dominicans to leave the country was preferable to their staying, and politically opposing the leadership we imposed on the once democratic nation. By 1990, 10% of Dominicans had relocated to New York City.

My interest in the book was to learn more about how Dominicans have fared in their new land, and Hoffung-Garskof does not disappoint. As noted above, he describes the odd place Dominicans found themselves in a city where skin color and ethnicity---rather than land of origin---often dictated the neighborhood’s politics, culture, jobs, and schools.

On the latter issue, the author describes how Dominicans rejected being associated with the negative stereotypes associated with Puerto Ricans and African-Americans, yet in the eyes of whites once a school was primarily Dominican it became an “inner-city” school. Dominicans saw themselves as distinct from Puerto Ricans because their nation had not been colonized, and their Spanish language distinguished them from African-Americans.

Anyone familiar with the racial politics of New York City understands the significance of these racial and ethnic distinctions. And Hoffung-Garskof’s account of how Dominicans often responded to issues at the expense of black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers explains much about the city’s ongoing inability to sustain a progressive political coalition.

Much of the book focuses on the impact of rising Dominican immigration in the 1970’s and 1980’s, adding an important and often missing component to the standard books on that era in New York City. This is particularly clear in his discussion of the era’s Dominican youth activism, which saw high school students having to navigate through school politics divided between blacks, whites and Puerto Ricans.

The author also describes Dominicans’ conflicting views toward immigration. These attitudes were shaped through the lens of the U.S. invasion, which led leftist Dominicans to view New York City as corrupting immigrants while surveys of immigrants reported strongly positive experiences in their new land.

The U.S. invasion and its backing of dictatorship over democracy set in motion a major migration of rural residents into Santa Domingo, creating barrios teeming with drugs and violence. It is understandable why migration to New York City would increasingly be seen as a better option, even though its own violence led a section of one Santa Domingo barrio to be renamed “the Bronx.”

It is a sad but familiar tale, one common to South and Central America. When Hoffnugg-Garskof returns to barrios in 2005 that he had first visited five years earlier, he finds life conditions much deteriorated. By book’s end one is left encouraged by the Dominicans’ indomitable spirit, but discouraged by the many obstacles that the United States has thrown into the path of the Dominican Republic’s progress.