Dominican-descended people have established some of the most dynamic Caribbean and Latin American communities in the world. More than nine million Dominican-descended people live on Hispaniola—the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. More than 1.2 million people whose roots can be traced to the Dominican Republic call the United States their home.

Since 2009, a group of independent writers, journalists, photographers, and videographers have been documenting the transnational Dominican population through the online project: ESENDOM.

ESENDOM is a cultural digital platform that blends the beauty of Dominican culture with current and past social issues that affect the Dominican community today, examining these areas of concern and putting them into perspective. Launching as a hobby by its founders—Emmanuel Espinal and Nelson Santana—this bilingual digital platform has been documenting Dominicans and the communities they inhabit through articles, interviews, oral histories, photographs, and video, providing commentary on the political landscape and popular culture as it relates to the transnational Dominican community. One aspect of Dominican society ESENDOM has captured pertains to grassroots social movements. Dominicans have played a pivotal role by challenging government corruption, police brutality, violence toward women, anti-abortion legislation, and more social causes. Among the social movements captured by ESENDOM one will find the worldwide anti-corruption Movimiento Marcha Verde, anti-femicide Marcha de las Mariposas, Dominican-Haitian solidarity, and #NiUnaMás movement. This exhibit explores the role the online Dominican-centric magazine ESENDOM plays in demonstrating how online journalism documents activism within the transnational Dominican community.

Transnational Dominican Activism: Documenting Grassroots Social Movements is a culmination of the work by photographers, writers, artists, and activists who have captured transnational Dominican activism between 2009 and 2020. This exhibit provides a glimpse into one aspect of Dominican culture as documented by ESENDOM’s team of collaborators including Amaury Rodríguez, John Carrero, Lorena Espinoza Peña, Emmanuel Espinal, and Nelson Santana.