Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Senior Theses and Projects Student Scholarship Spring 2020 Women's Empowerment in the Dominican Republic Yisbell Lucia Marrero
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses Part of the Comparative Politics Commons, Development Studies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, and the Organization Development Commons Recommended Citation Marrero, Yisbell Lucia, "Women's Empowerment in the Dominican Republic". Senior Theses, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 2020. Trinity College Digital Repository, https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/852 Women’s Empowerment in the Dominican Republic 1 Women’s Empowerment in the Dominican Republic Understanding the Dominican Women’s Perspectives on their empowerment in Santiago and Santo Domingo. Yisbell Marrero 2 For my mother, Sudelania Cabrera, and my grandmothers, Ana Morel and Isabel Marrero 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………… 5 Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………….10 Chapter 2: Situating Santo Domingo and Situating Santiago de Los Caballeros……. 28 Chapter 3: Social Empowerment…………………………………………………... 47 Chapter 4: Economic Empowerment…………………………………………….... 63 Chapter 5: Political Empowerment ………………………………………………... 78 Chapter 6: Moving Forward……………………………………………………….. 95 References………………………………………………………………………… 97 4 Acknowledgments In 2003, at age 4, I migrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic. My mother left behind her cosmetology business, a house, and financial independence with the goal of establishing a new future in the United States. Everything that would grant her the status as an empowered woman in the perspective of liberal feminists. However, the empowerment she thought she would achieve in the United States ended up being subjectively insufficient and something that could not fulfill her “true” ambition. The moment we set foot in Jersey City, New Jersey, we began our journey as migrant Dominican women in the United States.