Diaspora
Diaspora
Dominicans in the Diaspora  Juan A. Paulino, Revered Activist of the Dominican Diaspora in the United States Juan A. Paulino (Santiago, Dominican Republic, 1931), revered activist of the Dominican Community in the United States, passed away on May 30, 2008. In response to your interest, we are publishing the following piece by Ramona Hernández, Professor of Sociology and Director of the City College of New York’s Dominican Studies Institute, in commemoration of his outstanding commitment to preserve Dominican history and culture.
It is with great sadness that I share with you the news of the passing, on Friday, May 30th, of Juan A. Paulino, a great Dominican man, an important community activist, and cherished friend of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute. We came to know Don Juan better when we launched the Dominican Archives four years ago, the first archives dedicated to preserve the historical records of the Dominican people in the United States. Don Juan became one of the first individuals who recognized the importance and the value of the Dominican Archives for the Dominican people and society at large. Guided by a great sense of commitment for the preservation of Dominican culture and history, Don Juan came forward and donated all his personal papers and mementos to what was then an unknown institution. Because of his action, the New York State Archives and New York City Council members Miguel Martínez and Diana Reyna, the Dominican Archives became a reality, a state-of-the- art facility that is the pride of those who believe that all people’s history is worth preserving so that it is not forgotten. Don Juan was one of the two people who first donated records reflecting their lifelong work as builders of the Dominican community. As he learned more about the Dominican Archives, Don Juan went further, becoming a supporter and advocate of the work we do, spreading the word and persuading other fellow senior Dominican activists to donate their papers to the Dominican Archives. At times when his health did not fail him, it was common to find Don Juan sitting at a table, working side by side with the youngsters assigned to work on his collection under the guidance of Don Idilio, a senior member of the Puerto Rican community and the head of the Dominican Archives. The convergence of those who made our history and those who are currently making it permeates the walls of the Dominican Archives and concretizes the mission of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at the City College of New York. Juan A. Paulino was a Dominican immigrant who came to New York City in 1960 before the great migration wave that unfolded after the Dominican Civil War of 1965. Soon he began to reach out to fellow Dominicans in the City with the goal of creating organizations and groups like the Club Cívico Cultural Juan Pablo Duarte that would take it upon themselves to preserve Dominican culture and history in the United States. His efforts, alongside with other pioneers, nurtured a collective memory of the founders of the Dominican Republic and the ideals of national sovereignty. After four decades of struggles and experiences accumulated by Dominicans in the United States, we have learned to appreciate the validity and significance of the actions and the message promoted by pioneers like Juan A. Paulino. He promoted a vision of Dominicans as a people who worked together for a common good, in spite of factional differences. His insistence on exalting commonality laid the foundation for the development of a mentality of pride about our Dominican heritage. For many, Don Juan will be remembered for his persistent, relentless leadership during the 1960s and 1970s in making a reality the erection of the first statue of Juan Pablo Duarte in the United States, located at the very beginning of New York City’s Avenue of the Americas. The dedication of Don Juan and others like him, in materializing the erection of this palpable, tangible symbol of Dominicanness in New York City will remain forever. This is a testimony of the wisdom of those who realized early on the importance for immigrant communities to create a collective mentality based on solidarity as a tool to achieve and guarantee the survival of one’s history and culture in the midst of a nation where so many great histories converge. Director, CUNY DSI & Professor of Sociology, The City College of New York More information: http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/ci/dsi/paulino.cfm
 Robert Mercedes: The Dream of a Dominican Who Wants to Return HomeA the age of 8, Robert Mercedes left his native Villa Juana in Santo Domingo for New York where he lived with his parents in the Bronx.
Following graduation he returned to the Bronx to go to Fordham College where he earned a Masters Degree in adult education and human resources. He went on to earn two more Masters Degrees in different areas of education. Between 1988 and 1992, he worked with a program geared toward preventing young people from dropping out of school. That same year he took a job at PS 390 in the Bronx where he taught elementary school. Three years later he was promoted to assistant director of the school. Today he is now the director. Mercedes is also the president of the Dominican-American Association of Supervisors and School Administrators (ADASA) which has 60 members. The ADASA’s goals include finding solutions to the educational problems that affect members of the organization as well as to establish the Dominican system of educational collaboration and to carry out activities for the benefit of Dominican schools.  Yohanna Guzmán Gursey: A Dominican Designer in New Jersey Success in New York is arriving quickly for Yohnanna Guzmán Gursey...
Guzmán, born Santo Domingo, attended the Armed Forces and National Police Vocational School then later studied industrial arts at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. She earned her degree in 1992 but continued to enrich her knowledge with other specialized courses. She worked with designer Jeannina Azar and for various fashion shows and beauty contests. She later married North American photographer Steve Gursey and moved to the United States where she studied advanced technical drawing, textiles and color creation at Parson School of Design. Today she has her own business, along with her husband with whom she has formed a professional team. Guzmán specializes in wedding and graduation gowns and Quinceañera dresses (Dominican tradition comparable to a “Sweet Sixteen” parties). She continues to take part in beauty contests and fashion shows. Guzman also designs her own accessories and has participated twice in New York’s Latin Fashion Week.  César González: A Contribution Through Books Books, César González, Villa González and New York all have in common one of the most emblematic book stores of the Dominican community in New York. It is called Calliope. ..
Born in Santiago, González has been in New York for the past 45 years where he arrived when he was 13. In 1969, he returned to the Dominican Republic with the intention of staying there but ended up for only five years. In 1974, he returned to New York. He never lost his Dominican identity nor desire to make a contribution to his native land which he did through his bookstore, Caliope, located on Dyckman St. in upper Manhattan. The bookstore, which specializes in Dominican books, is also the scene every Thursday of cultural activities that include book launchings, conferences, concerts and seminars. He works as a systems analyst but his real love for books propelled him to open the book shop nine years ago. Caliope has gone through tough times but is still surviving, more than anything because César is in a business he likes and one in which he feels at home.  Mary Eli Peña Gratereaux: Working for Peace in New York Mary Eli Peña Gratereaux is considered a worker for peace. She has indeed confirmed this in her work as community mediator for the past 22 years..
Her history of service is a long one. It began when she arrived in New York in 1965 and became involved in community and religious activities and clubs. She was a part of the movement that convinced the Catholic Church to say Mass in the Spanish language. It was a long and difficult movement that endured persecution, held protests and engaged in clandestine activities. Mary Eli studied at City College in New York and earned a Masters in American Studies from Buffalo State University. Peña Gratereaux is a native of Santo Domingo, has one son and three granddaughters. While she is still interested in returning to her native country and has been unable to do so, she makes good use of her time in her adopted land. In addition to her work as a mediator and program director, she owns the Cayena Publishing Company and has written four books with bilingual text about women and children immigrants. She also wrote another book and two shorts stories, published in 2007.  Miriam Mejía: Commited to Her New York Community Native of Mao, Miriam arrived to the Dominican capital when she was 17 years old to study statistics and sociology at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo.
She moved to New York with her three children in 1988 to join her companion who lived there. Her first jobs in the city were in specialized tax libraries on Wall Street. While her future in this line of work was promising, she chose to answer her calling from the labor community to help her compatriots, the Dominican workers. This is how, in 1990, she became part of the Alliance team, a social service agency that helps Latinos living up in New York’s Washington Heights. She held various posts in the Alliance, from school advisor to director of the Center for Education and Health Promotion. Since 2001, she has held the post of deputy director of the agency. Miriam has also written the following short story collections: Chrysalis and Of Internal Phantoms and Other Complexities. She is preparing a multi-genre brochure called Scrawl in Purple. The themes of Miriam’s books are women and immigration. As a Dominican proud of her homeland, Miriam needs to feel the earth of Mao under her feet at least twice a year in order to maintain her emotional stability.  Rita Mella and Her Amazing Victory Dominican attorney, Rita Mella is a civil judge in the 7th Judicial District that has jurisdiction over Washington Heights, Inwood, Harlem and Morningside Heights in Manhattan.
Her triumph is the result of her education, her community work and her professional development in the Dominican Republic as well as in the United States. Mella studied law in education at the Pedro Henríquez Ureña National University of Santo Domingo. She worked in the educational area of the Research Center for Women’s Action (CIPAF) also in Santo Domingo. Through CIPAF she was awarded a scholarship to do a Masters Degree in Latin American studies at the University of Florida. She later moved to New York and found a place in Washington Heights where she became aware of the problems in the Dominican community. She decided to study law at City University of New York (CUNY) and got her degree in 1991. She worked at a private law firm but soon realized that public law practice was more attractive to her. She worked for ten years in various courts as an assistant to Puerto Rican Judge Richard Rivera. She later served as an assistant for Judge Margarita López Torres whom she is currently substituting and who supported all of Miriam’s aspirations  Doña Josefina Velásquez Mainardi: A Dominican in Havana, Cuba By Fior Pichard, Consul General and Elvin Matos, Vice Consul of the Dominican Republic in Havana Cuba ..
They travelled first to Puerto Rico following the first wave of Dominican exiles who left the country that year when Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina grabbed power in 1930. In this first contingent of exiles were Federico Velásquez and family, José Dolores Alfonseca, Angel Morales, Sergio Vilchez, Luis Felipe Mejía, Rafael Mainardi Reyna, Gustavo Díaz, Félix Servio Doucudray, Rafael Lara, Oscar Michelena, Nene Bernal and Antonio Borrell. This group of compatriots fled their country pursued by the Trujillo tyrants whose political intolerance never let up. These patriots left behind a messianic dictator who would become entrenched in a cruel hold on power for 30 long years. During this period, the Dominican Republic shared the complex historical situation of military-supported dictatorial rule with a large part of Latin America with all of its negative effects on family life as political struggle became the order the of the day and soon transforming into a violent avalanche threatening to tear apart the fabric of Latin American society. Among the convulsive events of those days, Josefina recalls the image of the anti-Trujillo combatant Enrique Jiménez Moya, leader of the first expedition against the tyrant that arrived in the Dominican Republic through Luperón. This is one of the many memories that cross her fuzzy memory along with numerous assassinations of revolutionary leaders perpetrated by Trujillo in Cuba under the dictator Fulgencio Batista. With the passing of the years, the geopolitical situation opened up in the region and Josefina Velásquez Mainardi began to lay down roots in the Cuban revolution. She married Cuban Ismael Vivanco González, (who passed away in 1994) and had two sons Ismael Eduardo and Hugo Manuel Vivanco Velázquez. Her oldest son Ismael Ricardo died in Germany in 2003 where he’d been living since 1985. Hugo Manuel has lived in the Dominican Republic since 1993. Josefina arrived in Cuba at the age of 18, got her first job at the beginning of the 1950s at the CIPROFA Laboratories, a Cuban branch of Hoffan LaRoche Laboratories and which Dominican Juan Luís Corasie managed while living in Cuba. She later worked for ten years in the Cafeteria of the Tomás David Arroyo Valdés School as a volunteer combatant. She worked in the laundry area for foreign technicians, located in the huge FOCSA building, until she retired after a few years. At this last job, Josefina remembers her pleasant encounters with the Dominican community who were taking high level courses in Cuba throughout the 1970s, namely José Juan Castillo Almonte, Vilma Cabral, Rafael Estevez Roché, Jacqueline Sánchez and Mayi de La Hoz who became doctors after studying at the University of Havana. Of these compatriots and others she has since forgotten, Josefina recalls moments when she fed them their meals of fruit, vegetables and other products that were available at the time. During this period, the Dominican student population lived in a residence hall located across from the internationally known Cira García Clinic for Specialized Medicine. In more recent times, Josefina still raises her arm high in support of the 1997 decision made by Dominican President Leonel Fernández to re-establish consular and diplomatic relations with the revolutionary government of Cuba, beginning a progressive process of cultural, commercial and technical exchange as well as the establishment of immigration agreements, uniting the two countries in the already globalized world. At the moment, Josefina, now 74, lives with her grandchildren Hugo Manuel and Martha María Vivanco Andarcio, both descendents of her youngest son Hugo Manuel. When she arrived to Havana, Josefina lived in the La Víbora neighborhood which is part of the October 10 District of Havana. She lived there since her first pregnancy then later moved to her parents-in-law’s home on 15th Street between E and F near the Revolution Plaza where she continues to reside today. With knowledge and good judgment as well as the experience gained through travel, Josefina reaffirms her support and gratitude to the Cuban government and people who supported her until her family was able to join her from the DR. Beginning with the revolutionary government of Commander Fidel Castro Ruz, with whom she feels identified, in addition to her Cuban family, Josefina says they have all helped her feel that Cuba is her second home. After 74 years of an intense life and having endured so many difficulties, Josefina’s message to the younger generation is to listen to life’s lessons with an open mind and heart and to learn from history. She calls on young people to serve the best interests of their country and not to worry about the road destiny may take you down. Her aspiration and dream at the moment is to see her country continue to develop and move down the path of progress. She calls on all of Dominican society to maintain the struggle for public order and to make an effort to participate in the function of the government in the area of community service with the goal of creating a more just and supportive society. |
Despite having spent nearly his whole life in New York, he has not lost his Dominican essence nor his dream to return to his homeland to live and to offer his knowledge as an educator to Dominican children in need.
Yohanna, a designer of Dominican fashion, has only been living in the United States for four years, already has her own shop in New Jersey with a well-known and ever growing clientele.
and in her job as Director of the Conflict Resolution and Mediation Program of Washington Heights-Inwood in Upper Manhattan, New York.
For ten years she worked in various Dominican government and non-government agencies such as the National Population and Family Council, the Association for Family Well Being and the Research Center for Female Action.
She enjoyed this amazing success first in the Democratic primaries then later in the midterm elections of November 2006. 
Josefina Velásquez Mainardi, along with her mother Ana Antonia Velázquez Reyna and her siblings Miguel Angel, Rafael Gregorio and Eneida Velázquez Mainardi arrived in Cuba at the end of the 1940s.
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