Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 1116
Part of Session 131: Latino Social networks and the city (Other abstracts in this session)
Community and Construction of Identity:Dominicans in Puerto Rico
Authors: Martínez, Doris; Dayton, Elizabeth
Submitted by: Martínez, Doris (Universidad de Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico (U.S.))
According to the American Community Survey 2005-2007, the population of Puerto Rico (PR) consists of 3,926,678 people, with 99% reporting Hispanic-Latino origin. Of this Hispanic-Latino population, 2% (n=67,083) report Dominican ancestry; in other words, their immigrant roots are in the Dominican Republic
According to Labov (2006), “the linguistic behavior of individuals cannot be understood without knowledge of the communities that they belong to” (p. 380). One of the uses to which the linguistic behavior of individuals is put is the construction of individual and community identity. Given Labov’s view, a reasonable first step towards understanding the linguistic behavior of Dominicans in PR, and the identities which they construct, is an understanding of the community which Dominicans, themselves, form and an understanding of the community with which they are in contact in PR.
In PR, the largest number of Dominicans is concentrated in the San Juan-Caguas-Fajardo combined statistical area (n=63,262). This paper focuses on two barrios in these areas: Barrio Obrero and Barrio Savarona. It raises the following questions: Do the Dominicans in these two barrios form communities? Do they form a wider Dominican community within Puerto Rico? How is the identity of the Dominican immigrant community constructed with respect to the wider Puerto Rican host community? It considers these questions in the framework of Coupland (2010) who approaches the conceptualization of community as 1) community-as-demography and 2) community-as-value. As Coupland points out, “the local dynamics of socio-cultural organization…; the subjective experience of communal participation; the linguistic/discursive means by which a valued sense of community is achieved; and the subjective…outcomes of community participation” (p.102) all shed light on the subjective community-as-value.
To answer these questions, this paper draws on census data, published accounts of Dominicans in PR, and critical discourse analysis of local press. It also draws on fieldwork initiated in 2007, which includes both tape-recorded interviews and ethnographic observation, and a “give back” (Schilling-Estes, 2007) project carried out in Barrio Obrero.
Preliminary results indicate that the Puerto Rican host community constructs the Dominican immigrant community in terms of the opposition of “us” Puerto Ricans and “them” Dominicans. Puerto Ricans are constructed as speaking good Spanish, white, educated, and clean. Dominicans are constructed as speaking bad Spanish, black, non-educated, and dirty. Thus, the Puerto Rican host community imposes an identity on the immigrant Dominicans, and the immigrant Dominicans must form their communities and construct their identities inside of this imposed identity.
This paper contributes to research on Dominicans in the diaspora, communities, immigrant and host communities in contact, and the construction of identity.
Work Cited:
Coupland, N. 2010. The authentic speaker and the speech community. In C. Llamas and D. Watt (eds.), Language and identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 99-112.
Labov, W. 2006. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schilling-Estes, N. 2007. Sociolinguistic fieldwork. In R. Bayley and C. Lucas (eds.), Sociolinguistic Variation: Theories, Methods, and Applications. Cambridge: CUP. 165-189.