Chapter 3: Dominicans' Culture and Home After Migration to the Netherlands

Mercedes tells about where she feels home is since migrating to the Netherlands. Her answer highlights several dimensions of attachment to one’s country of origin and feelings of home. Firstly, home has a dynamic nature: the Netherlands has become home because she has changed and on the other side the Dominican Republic has changed as well. Secondly, her quote highlights home’s dual character: a home in one’s mind differs from a home in one’s heart. She feels love for the Dominican Republic, but her mind is in the Netherlands, where she can do what she finds important for the current stage of her life. She has come to appreciate aspects of the Netherlands: opportunities for growth, enrichment and broadening horizons. And thus home, thirdly, is related to certain qualities of a country and activities which can be carried out there. Fourthly, this quote also points to a lost home: the Dominican Republic Mercedes knows does not exist anymore; there is a certain longing for a bygone time, nostalgia. In sum, Mercedes’ quote shows that attachment to a place and feelings of home can change and ‘that there is elasticity to how we think about home; aspects of home are not fixed, rather fluid or even ambivalent’ (Wiles, 2008, p. 123).