It is possible to be black and Dominican: Notes on the British, Cocolos and Dominican Sancocho

The experience of Cocolos (Immigrants from British-controlled islands
in the Caribbean and their descendents) offers an excellent opportunity
to understand and contextualize changes within the racial system of the
Dominican Republic. A study about the transformation of the Cocolos from a
racial group to an ethnic group would have broad application to the situation
of Haitians in the country today. How and when did the Cocolos become a
group that, despite their blackness, were accepted as part of the Dominican
sanchocho?

In this article it is proposed that the Cocolos were accepted as part of Dominican
society not for their culture necessarily, but because they escaped—or were
rescued—from their hyper-racialization as blacks and considered part of the
racial system as an ethnic group and not only a racial group. As an ethnic
group, Cocolos could integrate into the Dominican sancocho as blacks but
were not so black or blacks of a different class.