¡Vecina, Tráeme una Leche!: An Ethnographic Study of the Formation of Social Life and Transnational Identities in Dominican Bodegas in Lynn, Massachusetts

Abstract

This thesis takes an ethnographic approach to understand the social life in Dominican-owned bodegas in the low-income immigrant community of Lynn, Massachusetts. Through an ethnographic approach of three well-established, Dominican owned bodegas, this project aims to understand why and how relationships grow in the bodega as well as the development, strength, and possible benefits of social networks within this particular space. My analysis of the bodega provides a particular context with which we will further explore the shaping of transnational identities, coping capital, machismo, and as experienced by members of this immigrant community who frequent the bodega. Incorporating literature on social capital with emphasis on poor communities, transnationalism, and gender theory we find the bodega space is defined through its ability to be fully inclusive to who enters it while at the same time only making its resources and community accessible to those who participate in the active symbolic domination of space and women.