Being La Dominicana

Abstract

With this book, Rachel Afi Quinn makes the case for a transnational feminist cultural studies lens of analysis and an ethnographic approach to the study of race, gender, and visual culture in the Dominican Republic. This book provides a new window into contemporary life in Santo Domingo through which surrealist cultural productions reflect the social climate. Quinn theorizes the ways that the racial meaning of Dominican women’s mixed-race bodies “see/saw” in the viewing moment, as they are read visually in relation to others and informed by particular narratives of identity. Drawing on some forty interviews conducted by the author, this text centers these voices as it reveals the ways that the mixed-race bodies of Dominican women and girls signify within a racial schema tied to an economy in which they are commodified. Queer identities and fluid sexualities intersect with racial ambiguity and Dominican whiteness, Quinn argues, while incorporating public art, digital images, and Dominican film and music videos that are circulated transnationally, including performances by Rita Indiana Hernández and Michelle Rodriguez. Numerous other works by Dominican women artists and activists including print and online publications, documented live performances, photographic images, and social media discourse compose this text. Transnational political organizing is also considered here as part of a legacy of Dominican feminist activism against patriarchal oppression