Dominican Americans
Dominican Americans (Spanish: domínico-americanos,[4] estadounidenses dominicanos) are Americans who trace their ancestry to the Dominican Republic. The phrase may refer to someone born in the United States of Dominican descent or to someone who has migrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic. As of 2021, there were approximately 2.4 million people of Dominican descent in the United States, including both native and foreign-born.[1] They are the second largest Hispanic group in the Northeastern region of the United States after Puerto Ricans, and the fifth-largest Hispanic/Latino group nationwide.
This article is about Americans of Dominican Republic descent. For Americans with ancestry from the Commonwealth of Dominica, see Dominican Americans (Dominica).The first Dominican to migrate into what is now known as the United States was sailor-turned-merchant Juan Rodríguez who arrived on Manhattan in 1613 from his home in Santo Domingo.[5] Thousands of Dominicans also passed through the gates of Ellis Island in the 19th and early 20th centuries.[6] The most recent movement of emigration to the United States began in the 1960s, after the fall of the dictatorial Trujillo regime.
Socioeconomics[edit]
A significant number of Dominican Americans are young, first-generation immigrants without a higher education, since many have roots in the country's rural areas. Second-generation Dominican Americans are more educated than their first-generation counterparts, a condition reflected in their higher incomes and employment in professional or skilled occupations[47] and more of them pursuing undergraduate education and graduate degrees.
Over 21% of all second-generation Dominican Americans have college degrees, slightly below the average for all Americans (24%) but significantly higher than US-born Mexican Americans (14%) and Stateside Puerto Rican (9%).[47] In New York City, Dominican entrepreneurs have carved out roles in several industries, especially the bodega and supermarket and taxi and black car industries.[48]