Oral history interview with Maricela Medina

Maricela Medina spoke in detail about growing up, including games and entrepreneurial activities, and her school experience, including boarding school, in the Dominican Republic during the Trujillo dictatorship; Monte Plata, the town where she lived; her family origin and history, including when and why they migrated to the Dominican Republic; her mother and her father; the two years she lived in Dominican Republic after her mother immigrated, on a diplomatic visa, to the United States; the circumstances her mother immigrated to the United States; and domestic worker experiences. Medina described preparing to immigrate to the United States; her first impressions of the United States when she arrived in Washington, DC at the age of 12, including her realization that Black people lived in the United States; her life and educational experience, including overcoming the language barrier, through Catholic high school and Howard University in Washington, DC, and University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan; the Latino community in Washington, DC, social gatherings, and how the community evolved; the tensions, including biases and prejudices, between the Hispanic and African American communities; customs, traditions, and values she learned in the Dominican Republic and maintained when she moved to the United States; and specific plights of immigrants and how immigrants' plights have changed over time. Medina also spoke about identity and described herself as a Black Hispanic woman, Black Latin American woman, or Black Dominican woman; her Dominican and Catholic upbringing; her role as a godmother; race and racism in the United States, Dominican Republic, Latin America, and at the schools she attended; prejudice versus racism; and the Mount Pleasant disturbance. She also stated she is an American citizen, and explained why uses Hispanic and Latino interchangeably. Maricela Medina was interviewed by Hector Corporan. Interview is in English and minimal Spanish. Digital audio files include loud white noise and static; and some background noise. Interviewee can be heard clearly. Interviewer often spoke at same time as interviewee.