City celebrates Dominicans in New London on special day
New London - Against a backdrop of a bright blue sky Friday afternoon, Fernerys Reyes raised a banner of crimson, white and indigo to the top of a flagpole outside City Hall. Reyes was not raising the stars and stripes of the American flag, but rather the white cross, and red and blue fields of his native Dominican Republic's flag.
As Reyes hoisted the flag, a crowd of about 50 sang "Quisqueyanos valientes," the Dominican national anthem, and shouted "¡que viva!" to celebrate the 171st anniversary of the Dominican Republic's independence from Haiti. The Dominican flag will fly over City Hall for the next week as the Caribbean nation celebrates with a weeklong carnival.
"This is a historic event that has happened today in New London," said Ivo Jaquez II, chairman of the Connecticut Dominican Society, which sponsored Friday's event. "Our children need to know where they're coming from, have a connection to their heritage and follow the beauty of their heritage."
In the late 1830s, after almost 20 years of Haitian rule over the entirety of Hispaniola, a secret society called La Trinitaria began organizing a revolution without the help of foreign intervention. After consolidating support, the rebels seized the Haitian-controlled Ozama Fortress on Feb. 27, 1844, and declared Dominican independence from Haiti.
Friday's event also featured a rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner," a recitation of Dominican founding father Juan Pablo Duarte's writings, and an eight-person group holding up letters to spell "together" and, in both Spanish and English, describing things that the Hispanic and non-Hispanic communities can accomplish together.
"This is a great opportunity for the Hispanic community to have a voice and be heard," said Jose R. Diaz of New London. "This is not just a Dominican event, this is a Hispanic event."
Connecticut has the seventh-largest statewide population of Dominican-Americans, with a total of 26,093 reported at the time of the 2010 census. Of the roughly 1.8 million Dominican-Americans living the United States, about 70 percent live in the Northeast, according to Jaquez.
The Connecticut Dominican Society was joined Friday by Superintendent of Schools Manuel J. Rivera and Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio, whose announcement that the celebration of Dominican independence will become an annual event in the city drew loud cheers from the crowd.
"Here in New London, we have the fastest-growing Latino population of any city in the state of Connecticut and over half of our school students - 56 percent - are now Latino," Finizio said. "So it is important for the city of New London to continue to engage our entire community and for everyone in our community to know that they are equal members of the New London community."
c.young@theday.com
Twitter: @ColinAYoung
Comment threads are monitored for 48 hours after publication and then closed.