Dominican political incorporation in the United States

Dominicans represent one of the largest and fastest growing Latino groups in the United States. Since 1990, the Dominican population in the United States has more than tripled, from 517,000 to nearly two million in 2019, becoming the country’s fifth-largest Latino group. As the Dominican population grows, the number of Dominican elected officials has also grown. However, although Dominicans have been elected to political office in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, Dominicans have amassed very little political representation in South Florida, home to the third-largest Dominican population in the United States. In this article we examine the Dominican communities in Washington Heights/Inwood, New York City; Providence, Rhode Island; and Miami/Miami-Dade, Florida, to examine the factors that influence Dominican political incorporation in the United States. Our findings show that the interaction of population size, institutional context, and civic organizations plays a significant role in shaping Dominican political incorporation.