Caribbean Studies ISSN: 0008-6533
[email protected] Instituto de Estudios del Caribe Puerto Rico García-Peña, Lorgia Being Black Ain’t So Bad... Dominican Immigrant Women Negotiating Race in Contemporary Italy Caribbean Studies, vol. 41, núm. 2, julio-diciembre, 2013, pp. 137-161 Instituto de Estudios del Caribe San Juan, Puerto Rico Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=39230911005 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative BEING BLACK AIN’T SO BAD… 137 BEINg BLACK AIN’T SO BAD… DOMINICAN IMMIgRANT WOMEN NEgOTIATINg RACE IN CONTEMPORARy ITALy Lorgia García-Peña ABSTRACT This article explores questions of racial identity and national belong- ing through the experience of Dominican women immigrant in con- temporary Italy. By means of empirical examination that includes oral interviews of women living in Italy as well as in the Dominican Republic, the author considers the racialization of Dominican identity in relation to Italian national identity. Through the stories of two high- profile Dominican women immigrants in Italy, Denny Méndez (Miss Italy 1996) and Mercedes Frías (Parliament Representative 2006), this article explores how blackness permits Dominicans to be represented within the Italian nation, allowing them to belong, although in an often-conflicting border. This essay facilitates an original transatlantic and multi-disciplinary dialogue that engages discourse analysis of oral interviews as well as various theories on gender, race, ethnicity and migration.