Eugenio María de Hostos y de Bonilla, known as El Gran Ciudadano de las Américas, was a Puerto Rican educator, philosopher, intellectual, lawyer, sociologist, novelist, and Puerto Rican independence advocate.
Eugenio María de Hostos Community College of The City University of New York is a public community college in the South Bronx, New York City. It is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system and was created by an act of the Board of Higher Education in 1968 in response to demands from the Hispanic/Puerto Rican community, which was urging for the establishment of a college to serve the people of the South Bronx. In 1970, the college admitted its first class of 623 students at the site of a former tire factory. Several years later, the college moved to a larger site nearby at 149th Street and Grand Concourse. The college also operates a location at the prow building of the Bronx Terminal Market.
Aída Cartagena Portalatín was a Dominican poet, fiction writer, and essayist who was an influential part of the Poesía Sorprendida movement. Many works of hers has been translated into English and other languages.
Salomé Ureña Díaz de Henríquez was a Dominican poet and teacher, being one of the central figures of 19th-century lyrical poetry and advocator for women’s education in the Dominican Republic, influenced by the positivist schools and the normal education of Eugenio María de Hostos, of whom she was an advantaged student. Her works focused on patriotism and family environment.
Juan Rafael Estrella Ureña was a Dominican politician and lawyer. He served as the last acting president of the Dominican Republic from March 3, 1930, until August 16, 1930, when he started to serve as the vice president under Rafael Leónidas Trujillo.
Tito Enrique Canepa Jiménez was a leading Dominican painter of the generation that came of age in the 1930s and 1940s. Canepa's artistic identity was shaped in New York City, where he lived from the age of 21, never returning to stay in his native country. Despite this distance, or perhaps because of it, as León David has pointed out, his works always evince a certain dominicanidad without his setting out to achieve it as a goal — a dominicanidad that is never folkloric. Of the three modernist Dominican painters of the 1930s and 40s singled out by Rafael Díaz Niese as most significant — Canepa, Colson and Suro — Canepa is the one whose artistic activity developed in the most continuous absence from his native country, and the one longest resident in New York. Cánepa is accented in Spanish but not in the original Ligurian.
Camila Henríquez Ureña, was a writer, essayist, educator and literary critic from the Dominican Republic who became a naturalized Cuban citizen. She descended from a family of writers, thinkers and educators; both her parents, Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal and Salomé Ureña, as well as her brothers Pedro and Max, were literary luminaries. Her essays have been published in Instrucción Pública, Ultra, Archipiélago, Casa de las Américas, La Gaceta de Cuba, Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional, Revista de la Universidad de La Habana, and Revista Lyceum. A feminist and a humanist, she lectured during much of her career, advocating intellectual study for women.
Ángela Hernández Núñez is a writer, educator and feminist in the Dominican Republic.
Yadira Henríquez is a Dominican attorney and politician who has worked in criminal law, international law, land law and women's rights throughout her career. Between 1994 and 2000 she served in the Chamber of Deputies as a representative for the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) of the Dominican Republic. In 2000 she was appointed as Minister, serving as the Secretary of State for Women of Dominican Republic and in 2002, was elected as the president of the Inter-American Commission of Women, serving that body from 2003-2005.
Carmen Altagracia Imbert Brugal, is a Dominican jurist, author, journalist and columnist.
Idelisa Bonnelly de Calventi was a Dominican marine biologist who is considered the "mother of marine conservation in the Caribbean". She was the founder of the study of biology in the Dominican Republic, as well as the founder of the Institute of Marine Biology and the Dominican Foundation for Marine Research. She was instrumental in the creation of the first Humpback Whale Sanctuary of the North Atlantic and has won numerous awards, including induction into the UNEP's Global 500 Roll of Honour, UNESCO's Marie Curie Medal and the Order of Merit of Duarte, Sánchez and Mella. The BBC has called her one of the most important women scientists in Latin America.
Martha Ellen Davis is an emeritus professor from the University of Florida, anthropologist and ethnomusicologist known for her multifarious work on African diasporic religion and music. Professor Davis' research has defied conventional tenets about Haitian and Dominican folk music, and her cultural preservation projects has raised awareness of the significance of the Samaná Americanos' enclave.
Delia Mercedes Weber Pérez was a Dominican teacher, artist, poet and film actress, as well as a feminist and supporter of women's suffrage. Through her writing and painting, she portrayed the world in which she lived and the restrictions placed upon her life. Founding several cultural and feminist clubs, Weber successfully navigated the Trujillo years, helping to gain both civil and political rights for women.
Petronila Angélica Gómez was a teacher, entrepreneur and journalist from the Dominican Republic, who established the first feminist organization and first feminist magazine in the country, as a means to protest the United States occupation of her homeland. She developed networks with international feminist organizations and actively sought an increased role for women in society and eventually women's suffrage. Soon after women attained the vote, she lost her vision and retired from public activity, though she published two books after going blind. She is remembered as a pioneering feminist and has been recognized by a street and meeting hall which bear her name.
Virginia Elena Ortea, who wrote under the pen name Elena Kennedy, was a journalist and writer, credited as the first Dominican Republic female journalist and one of the first women novelists in the country. She was also the writer of the only known zarzuela from the Dominican Republic. There is a street and a school named in her honor in the country.
Iliana Emilia García is a Dominican-born, American visual artist and sculptor known for large-scale paintings and installations. She is a co-founder of the Dominican York Proyecto GRÁFICA (DYPG) Collective. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Amelia Francisca Marchena Sánchez de Leyba, known as Amelia Francasci was a writer, considered the first female Dominican Republic novelist. She is known for introducing the autobiographical genre to the national literature of the Dominican Republic. Francasci was a feminist, and she faced significant criticism for writing prose at a time when women were expected to write poetry. She was also criticized for her work in erotic literature.
Socorro Sánchez del Rosario was a Dominican educator and journalist. She was the first feminist journalist of the country. She also founded the first secular coeducational school in the Dominican Republic, as well as the first women's library, first women's normal school and first women's pharmacy training courses. There are several schools in the country which have been named after her.
The city of New York includes a sizeable Dominican population. Dominicans are one of the largest Latino groups in New York City followed by Puerto Ricans. Dominicans are the largest immigrant group in New York City. Dominicans are concentrated in Washington Heights and the Bronx in the city proper; by 2019, the share living in the city fell from 92% to 62%. The rest lived in outlying counties in the metro area. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey found that 702,000 Dominicans live in New York City.
