New York’s Dominicans: A Community in Mourning

by Hishaam Aidi

On this Saturday afternoon, as on every day since November 12, when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed after takeoff from New York’s Kennedy Airport, the bustling corner outside the Alianza Dominicana in Washington Heights falls silent as mourners come together to observe the novena, the nine-day Catholic mourning period. This upper Manhattan neighborhood is home to an estimated 470,000 Dominicans, and it is one of the most lively and spirited ethnic sections of the city. Older men play dominoes, street vendors hawk everything from sugarcane to CDs, young men gather around conga drums, blare meringue. But the small memorials, along with the countless Dominican flags hanging alongside American flags from 9/11, added to the eerie quiet that settles on these streets every evening as mourners appear with candles and bouquets, illustrate the deep wound this community has suffered.

Nearly all of the 252 passengers who died when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in the Belle Harbor suburb of Far Rockaway, Queens, were Dominican and half of them were from Washington Heights. Almost a week after the crash, residents are still talking about the victims: the Leonia Delacruz family, which lost three generations on the doomed flight; Feliz Sanchez, the young Merrill Lynch banker who was spared on 9/11 only to die as he flew down to Santo Domingo to meet with Sammy Sosa and other Major League players about investment in DR; Norma Guzman Valoy, the daughter of the famous meringue singer Cuco Valoy, who perished on the flight along with her three children.

The community’s gloom is palpable, with wreaths, candles and bouquets on the sidewalks, and placards reading “Vuelo 587” and “En luto” (“In mourning”) dotting buildings from 135th Street to the South Bronx.

Many in Washington Heights feel that while the media has made much of Far Rockaway’s tragedy – prior to being the site of Flight 587’s crash, the community had lost 75 residents, mostly police officers and firefighters, in the WTC disaster – not enough attention has been paid to the losses in New York’s Dominican neighborhoods. Washington Heights, residents point out, also lost people on 9/11, at least 44 by one count.

“There’s always more importance given to the white community than to the black or Latino community. We’re used to that. We learned long ago how to play that game,” said Reverend Ruben Diaz, president of New York’s Hispanic Clergy Organization, in a phone interview.

Lillian Martinez of the Alianza Dominicana echoes the criticism: “If you look at the news, everything was ‘Queens, Queens, Queens.’ But people in this community lost so much.”

American Airlines comes under attack as well. “Look at the way American Airlines handled the situation,” said Diaz. “After September 11, the airline released $25,000 for the victims’ families in two days, but with us Dominicans they weren’t doing anything. American Airlines is treating us differently after publicly exploiting Dominicans all their lives with their high fares. Now they’ve finally agreed to pay $25,000 to families, but we’ve created our own bank account to add to that. We’re trying to organize a meeting with Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton to get benefits for the families.”

In response to complaints about American Airlines’ rates, New York General Prosecutor Eliot Spitzer has promised to see if other airlines might be willing to fly more frequently to Santo Domingo.

Despite what many here see as an unfair focus on the victims in Queens, many of New York’s most prominent politicians have visited Washington Heights to pay their condolences. Leaders of the Dominican community organized a vigil the evening of the crash, which most of the city’s elected officials attended. “As human beings, we just have to go on,” Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg told the gathering. “This is still a great, safe city and America is still the place you want to live. We have to deal with adversity.”

And on Sunday, November 18, more than 4,000 people attended a memorial service in Belle Harbor, Queens, at which prayers were offered in both Spanish and English, bringing together both communities.

“I want to express the deepest sympathy again to anyone who lost a loved one, a family member or a friend,” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said last Thursday, speaking by phone to a vigil broadcast live in both New York and Santo Domingo, “and to offer my ongoing assistance to help in any way I can so people will be able to travel freely and they’ll be able to travel back and forth regardless of their immigration status.”

Senator Clinton’s remarks were especially warmly received, as many illegal Dominican immigrants who lost loved ones at the WTC have been reluctant to claim their relatives’ bodies for fear of deportation. Many also worry that if they travel to the Dominican Republic to bury their loved ones they’ll be prevented from returning to the US, possibly facing separation from their children, many of whom are US citizens. Particularly in the wake of 9/11, many express concern about the rising anti-immigrant sentiment. “We don’t just want visas from the Dominican Republic to New York, we want visas from New York to the Dominican Republic and back,” community leader Fernando Mateos told a New York television station. “We want to make sure these people have proper amnesty, that we allow them to go and bury their loved ones.”

Senator Charles Schumer has promised to help smooth immigration issues. “The State Department and the United States Embassy have agreed to expedite the visa application and approval process for all immediate family members of Flight 587 so the families can attend the funerals of their loved ones.”

The tragedy of Flight 587 may prove to be an opportunity to improve the community’s often rather tense relations with law enforcement and other officials. Members of the local police precinct and firehouse have been present at the vigils. “The community was very supportive when we lost firefighters down at the World Trade Center,” Lieutenant Joel Gerardi told a television station. “We had a memorial service in front of our fire house and a lot of people from the community showed up for that. So we’re going the same thing in return for them.”

New York’s religious leaders have also reached out to the Dominican community. Archbishop Edward Egan, who speaks Spanish, has held masses and services at Saint Elizabeth Church in Washington Heights and has met with children of victims.

But most of the work is being done by the Alianza Dominicana, from its home on Amsterdam Avenue and 180th Street. “We’re providing grief and crisis counseling. We’re doing house visits, exciting families to Javits Convention Center. We have lawyers stationed here, and officials from the Social Security Administration,” says Lillian Martinez. “But we still need volunteers in the area of mental health and to work with children.”

According to the New York City Department of Planning, in the past 25 years, Dominicans have become the largest group of immigrants to New York, numbering about 750,000 (documented and undocumented), and settling mostly in Washington Heights and the Bronx.

“With cheap airfares and phone rates, the Dominican Republic is just not that far away anymore,” Phillip Kasinitz, a sociologist at Hunter College, told USA Today. “It’s easier to go from New York to Santo Domingo than from New York to Los Angeles.”

Most Dominicans in Quisqueya – as the Dominican Republic is fondly referred to – dream of migrating to “Nueva York.” One Dominican folk saying states, “he who dies without seeing New York dies blind.” A 1987 Gallup-Hay poll found that more than half of adult Dominicans would emigrate to the US if they had the chance. And compared to their impoverished homeland, the money is good for Dominicans in New York – a medical doctor from the Dominican Republic can quadruple his salary working as a livery cab driver in Harlem. According to Romana Hernandez, assistant professor of Latino Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dominicans are more entrepreneurial than other Hispanic groups in New York: “Seven percent of Dominicans own their businesses, compared with 5.8 percent of other Hispanics.” Dominicans in the US send home an estimated $1.5 billion every year.

Dominican culture has become part of the Big Apple’s social fabric. Dominican baseball players like Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martinez and Alex Rodriguez are adulated by young New Yorkers, Dominican food – empanadas, kepas and frio-frio (ice cream) – is sold all over the five boroughs, and bodegas and botanicas have appeared everywhere. Salsa, meringue and bachata play at clubs, parks and ballgames all over the city.

“Dominicans are a group of friendly, family-oriented people with a strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit, which is noticeable by the thousands of Dominican business owners you can find here in the five boroughs,” said City Councilman Guillermo Linares, the first Dominican-American to serve in that office. “You have to be practically blind to walk around the neighborhoods in the different boroughs of New York and not notice this.”

From all the wreaths, bouquets, notes and candles being laid down at memorial sites around Manhattan  and Queens, it’s obvious that countless New Yorkers who have been so energized by the Dominican community are now grieving with their Dominican neighbors.

Over the years American Flight 587 had taken on nearly mythic proportions within the community, with popular meringue artist Kinito Mendez recording a song about the flight, “El Avion.” “The song symbolizes the way Dominicans live, moving back and forth,” Mendez told New York Newsday. “It’s going to be difficult for me to play it [now]. … But if the people request it, I will.”

[November 21, 2001]