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A Tale of Two Cities: Santo Domingo and New York After 1950. By Jesse Hoffnung- Garskof. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Pp. xxxi, 319. Appendix. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
Since the 1990s, there have been numerous efforts to internationalize the fields of American Studies and United States history in ways that go beyond traditional diplomatic history and contemporary international relations. While many of these efforts are still underway, one of the fields where transnational American Studies has flourished is migration history, and Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof's book A Tale of Two Cities should be recognized as an important contribution.
Using archival and oral history methods, Hoffnung-Garskof explores the experiences of Dominicans in both Santo Domingo de Guzmán and New York City and in the process advances new historiographical arguments about the role of ordinary migrants in both the Dominican Republic and the United States. Hoffnung-Garskof pays close attention to the ideological and political developments of the Dominican Republic and their influence on people moving to both Santo Domingo and New York City; thus, his account does not fit into a narrative of what happens to immigrants only after they reach their destination in the United States. Indeed, he views the immigration of Dominicans...