"Diaspora Connections: African American Engagement with U.S. - Dominican Republic Relations," by Lauren Hammond, Postdoctoral Fellow at Denison University.
Hammond is a historian of the African Diaspora in Latin America and the United States whose current research focuses on the Dominican Republic. Her research interests include racial identity formation, diasporic practice, U.S. empire, dictatorship, the island of Hispaniola, and African-American-Dominican relations. Her current research examines African-American interventions in U.S.-Dominican relations from Reconstruction to the height of the Civil Rights Movements. The work shows how African-American elites, moved by the African ancestry they shared with Dominicans, sought to use their limited influence in U.S. foreign policy circles to attempt to shape U.S. policy in the Dominican Republic. The project also highlights the limits of Afro-diasporic politics, particularly between African-descended groups who identify as black and those whose histories preclude them from doing the same.
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