Dominican Domino in the Diaspora

About 1.3 million Dominican immigrants lived in the United States in 2018-22, the second-largest Caribbean immigrant group after Cubans (Migration Policy Institute). Counting everyone of Dominican origin, Pew Research Center put the figure at 2.4 million in 2021.

About a third of all US Dominicans live in New York City (CUNY Dominican Studies Institute). Up to the early 2000s Manhattan, above all Washington Heights and Inwood, held the most; in 2020 the Bronx had 343,403 Dominicans and Manhattan 174,214. After New York City, the largest communities in 2020 were Paterson (43,068), Boston (39,993), Providence (38,818) and Lawrence (34,352).

Trujillo restricted emigration. The unrest that followed his assassination in 1961, and especially the US military intervention in 1965, led to mass emigration, according to the Migration Policy Institute. A second large wave began in the 1980s.

Historically most of them settled in New York City, in neighborhoods such as Washington Heights (MPI).

From the mid-1960s, Dominican immigrants came to define Washington Heights, and games of dominoes dotted the neighborhood, both east and west of Broadway (Leo Baeck Institute). When the weather allows, people play domino in the parks or on the sidewalk (amNY, 2018).

The Bronx Journal found tables in Highbridge Park and the Raoul Wallenberg Playground. Latino Rebels described older Dominicans meeting at a sidewalk table outside a bodega on Audubon Avenue.

The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute tells how, in 1966, 31 young Dominicans met in co-founder Conrado Guzmán's Washington Heights apartment to found the Club Deportivo Dominicano, a club born from nostalgia and a love of dominoes.

A New York State Senate resolution adds that a group of friends who loved domino decided in the summer of 1964 to form a social club to play dominoes and other games, and that it was incorporated on 23 March 1966 as the Dominican Sports Club, to keep their cultural roots.

No source we found compares New York tables with tables on the island. What the sources show is that rules change from table to table everywhere. One Washington Heights group told The Bronx Journal its games usually go up to 200 and a capicúa adds 25; the linguist Roberto Guzmán writes in Acento that Dominicans count to 100.

FichaFlow starts capicúa, pase de salida and pase redondo (o corrido) at 25. At the table they pay 25 or 30, depending on the table. Chuchazo is a Puerto Rican finish and pollona a Cuban word; both start at 0 in FichaFlow.