The Racialization of Dominicans in the United States and Switzerland

This chapter specifically explores the racialization of Dominicans in the United States and Switzerland, two countries with advanced economies and strong democracies but with very different racial histories. Dominicans’ experiences of discrimination in the two contexts are affected by gender, class, occupation, and sexuality. In both contexts, respondents identified connections that the native majority makes about Dominicanness, which include loudness, blackness, ignorance, poverty, crime, cheerfulness, beauty/hotness, and sex. The discussion contrasts the racial histories of both countries and the dissimilarities in Dominican-Swiss and Dominican-American historical and contemporary relations to clarify known core processes and patterns associated with the racialization of non-white post-colonial subjects.