Chapter 1: Introduction: Dominican Immigrants, Cultural Practices and Homemaking

At the Starbucks in Rotterdam Central Station, I spoke with 40-year-old Bryan, who had been living in the Netherlands for the last 20 years. He spoke of his childhood in the Dominican Republic, his mother’s insistence that he come to the Netherlands, and the difficulties he had encountered in building a new life there. He told me about his accomplishments and where he considered to be home and shared thoughts on Dominican culture and its importance in his own life. In fact, he said, he cared little about Dominican cultural practices, which he considered narrow-minded. At the same time, he thought that if he had grown up differently and lived in better economic circumstances in the Dominican Republic, he might have different memories and miss the country and its culture. As it was, he equated the Dominican Republic with poverty, which he had no desire to recreate. Of his food memories, he said, ‘You just had to eat whatever was put in front of you. Otherwise, you’d stay hungry. Some days, for example, my parents had no money to buy food. They gave you whatever they could’. Though Bryan loved Dominican food, he did not need food to create a sense of home in the Netherlands.