DOMINICAN - September 2021 - Ongoing

DOMINICAN is an ongoing body of work shaped by several trips to the Dominican Republic, the birthplace of my father.

Spanish was not spoken in my home. I grew up around very few Latino people and with little exposure to my roots as a Dominican American. When I moved out of the suburbs and into New York, in shops and in the neighborhood streets I often was addressed in Spanish. Unable to respond, confusion and curiosity about my roots began to grow.

Visiting the Dominican Republic for the first time as an adult in 2021, unsure of my place in a country where I looked like those around me but felt like a foreigner, I began taking photographs in an attempt to understand what it means to be Dominican. It was a natural exercise in expressing my curiosity, and a longing to bridge a gap in my identity. 

Through images of relatives and strangers made in the countryside where my father was born and my great-grandparents lived their entire lives, and through self-portraiture that projects my own presence into this foreign home, the work seeks to reestablish a cultural link lost through my family’s emigration.

DOMINICAN is a personal journey and a broad reflection on belonging, inviting viewers to dwell in the tension and beauty of rediscovering one’s heritage.