Robin Gomez, 20, embodies the American Dream.
Born to poor family in the Dominican Republic, he moved to America when he was 10 and just recently became a citizen. He was the first in his family to graduate from an American high school and will be the first to attend college next semester. He works to help his family with the bills and and, according to him, has a pretty good shot for a promotion soon.
He also owns property–but that last piece isn’t completely American, per se.
Gomez’s grandfather was able to acquire land in their hometown of Santiago, before the city and country’s good economic fortune of the past 20 years, and he left Gomez and other family members five houses and additional land. Whenever money permits, Gomez sends some to his uncle’s wife in Santiago who helps him hire Haitian immigrants to put the finishing touches of paint on his respective house, but Gomez isn’t looking to move back any time soon.
Instead, once the property is renter-ready, Gomez plans on collecting income from one of the many Dominican citizens who have been seeking to live in Santiago, which has flourished in recent years.
Jose Paulino, a fellow barista at the Starbucks Gomez works at, also owns Dominican property he plans on developing in the future.
Paulino, 21, left the Dominican Republic when he was 1 year old, but still maintains close relationships with family overseas, visiting whenever he gets the chance.
Paulino’s family owns multiple properties and land, mostly throughout the Santo Domingo area. Paulino himself owns two tracts of land, one that his father gave him and another he bought from him.
Unlike Gomez, however, Paulino doesn’t see the point in developing right away, insisting the land values will only appreciate over time and the property isn’t going anywhere. He calls his acquisitions “financial security,” and claims they have already gained value since their purchase.
Paulino’s belief that owning land, even if undeveloped, is a form of financial stability was echoed by Barbara High, a Remax real estate broker based in Cabarete, who acknowledged how common it is for Dominicans to believe that “property is money.”
“Land, in their whole concept of the world, is viewed as currency,” she said.
Gomez and Paulino exemplify the transnational entrepreneur, a term coined by Alejandro Portes, a Princeton University professor, and other scholars in 2002. According to the same study where the moniker appears, the idea of transnational entrepreneurship isn’t a uniquely Dominican concept. Portes finds evidence of similar arrangements in San Salvador and Colombia, but also suggests that funding be allocated to research into transnational economies across the globe, especially in key African countries.
In the case of the Dominican diaspora, profiting off assets still present in the Dominican Republic is far from uncommon, according to Paulino and Gomez.
According to High however, long distance development of this sort is not realistic.
“They’re living a fantasy,” High said, and acknowledged the prevalence of cheaper land on the island but doubted their profitability.
According to Gomez, an average house in Santiago costs about $75,000 to construct, and rents for about $1000 a month.
“This is what my whole family does. They come over here, work, and do their houses. Then they rent it out,” Gomez said.
He elaborated that his uncle’s wife’s family also has large tracts of land in Santiago, from a similar acquisition via her grandfather from years prior to Santiago’s economic expansion.
Portes cites a 1990 study that found that 3.7 percent of the Dominicans in Washington Heights at the time were transnational entrepreneurs, and 45.6 percent were self-employed. A similar study for more a recent data period couldn’t be found.
Renting out family property could very well be the ultimate goal, but Gomez believes that his hometown is ripe for development.
He entertained the idea of expanding on his endowment even further, maybe opening up a gas station on his street back home, noting the lack of them and the recent influx of cars with the city’s newfound wealth.
“They get money from their house and start something up for the future, for their kids,” Gomez said about his own family’s traditions.
“Over there, there’s still a lot of land,” Gomez said, and, according to him, it is purchasable for about half the price American land would be bought for.
Paulino maintained that owning land is still a good move, and recalled the success of his own grandfather, who built boilers in America for years before retiring back to the Dominican Republic, building a hotel with 22 rooms and a parking lot with space for 60 cars.
Paulino envisions a similar future for himself. Unlike Gomez, however, he welcomes the possibility of moving back, but also doesn’t feel the need to choose either way.
“I would like to go back and forth. I have the option of doing it. I can stay as long as I want in both places, so why not?” he said. “That’s what I always wanted, to be doing business all around the world.”