Total population | |
---|---|
(1,873,097 |
|
Regions with significant populations | |
Mostly concentrated in New York City, New Jersey, South Florida, Boston, Providence, and Philadelphia | |
Languages | |
Spanish, English | |
Religion | |
Predominantly Roman Catholicism Minorities practicing Protestantism · Jehovah's Witness. |
|
Related ethnic groups | |
White Latin Americans, Afro-Latin Americans, Mulatto, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Afro-Dominicans, White Dominicans |
(1,873,097
0.6% of the U.S. population (2015)
Dominican Americans (Spanish: domínico-americanos,norteamericanos de origen dominicano or estadounidenses de origen dominicano) are Americans who have full or partial origin from the Dominican Republic. Although their emigration began in the sixteenth century, thousands of Dominicans passed through the gates of Ellis Island in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The most recent movement of emigration to the United States began in the 1960s, after the fall of the Trujillo regime. In 2010, there were approximately 1.41 million people of Dominican descent in the US, including both native and foreign-born. Dominican Americans are the fifth-largest Hispanic group in the United States.
Since the establishment of the Spanish Empire, there have historically been immigrants from the former Captaincy General of Santo Domingo to other parts of New Spain which are now part of the United States, such as Florida, Louisiana, and the Southwest.
The first recorded person of Dominican descent to migrate into what is now known as the United States, outside of New Spain, was sailor-turned-merchant Juan Rodríguez. He arrived on Manhattan in 1613 from his home in Santo Domingo, which makes him the first non-Native American person to spend substantial time in the island. He also became the first Dominican, the first Latino and the first person with European (specifically Portuguese) and African ancestry to settle in what is present day New York City.