A Patriarchal Rite of Passage: Arab Women’s Migration to the Dominican Republic and the Gendered Politics of Immigration History

This article aims to further the understanding of gendered migration practices as well as the complex factors that structure the gendered creation of memory among Arabs in the Dominican Republic. More precisely, we focus on the patriarchal erasure of female migration, racial politics, and the gendered family institution through a critical analysis of oral and archival sources. We will show that the silencing of Arab women as unnamed, though implicitly obedient and subservient wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters, is a product of contemporary tensions over how Arabs integrate and incorporate themselves into the racial landscape of Dominican society.