title: Dominican Americans

text: Since the establishment of the Spanish Empire, there have historically been immigrants from the former Captaincy General of Santo Domingo to other parts of New Spain which are now part of the United States, such as Florida, Louisiana and the Southwest. The first recorded person of Dominican descent to migrate into what is now known as the United States, outside of New Spain, was sailor-turned-merchant Juan Rodríguez. He arrived on Manhattan in 1613 from his home in Santo Domingo, which makes him the first non-Native American person to spend substantial time in the island. He also became the first Dominican, the first Hispanic and the first person with European (specifically Portuguese) and African ancestry to settle in what is present day New York City.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Dominican emigration to the United States continued throughout the centuries. Recent studies from the CUNY Dominican studies Institute identified 5,000 Dominican nationals who were processed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924.


title: Dominican Americans

text: During the 1930s and 40s, the flow of Dominicans to the United States fluctuated after Rafael Trujillo, who rose to power in 1930, imposed heavy restrictions on the outward migration of his citizens. Many of the 1,150 Dominicans immigrating to the United States between 1931 and 1940, came as secondary labor migrants from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Panama.


title: Dominican Americans

text: A larger wave of Dominicans began after 1950, during a time when cracks began to appear in the Trujillo regime. Dominican immigrants during this period where largely classified as anti-Trujilo political exiles. During that decade, the United States admitted an average of 990 Dominican nationals per year.


title: Dominican Americans

text: During the second half of the twentieth century there were three significant waves of immigration to the United States. The first period began in 1961, when a coalition of high-ranking Dominicans, with assistance from the CIA, assassinated General Rafael Trujillo, the nation's military dictator. In the wake of his death, fear of retaliation by Trujillo's allies, and political uncertainty in general, spurred migration from the island. In 1965, the United States began a military occupation of the Dominican Republic and eased travel restrictions, making it easier for Dominicans to obtain American visas.


title: Dominican Americans

text: From 1966 to 1978, the exodus continued, fueled by high unemployment and political repression. Communities established by the first wave of immigrants to the U.S. created a network that assisted subsequent arrivals. In the early 1980s, unemployment, inflation and the rise in value of the dollar all contributed to the third and largest wave of emigration from the island nation, this time mostly from the lower-class. Today, emigration from the Dominican Republic remains high, facilitated by the social networks of now-established Dominican communities in the United States. Until about the early 2000s, the majority of immigration from the Dominican Republic came from the Cibao region and "La Capital" (Santo Domingo area). However now, Dominican immigrants are arriving to the United States from many parts of the country.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Almost half of all the Dominican Americans today arrived since the 1990s, especially in the early part of that decade. There has been another surge of immigration in recent years as immigration from Mexico has declined, which allowed more backlogged Dominican applicants to obtain legal residence. Dominican Americans are the fifth-largest Hispanic American group, after Mexican Americans, Stateside Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans and Salvadoran Americans.


title: Dominican Americans

text: As of 2017, the majority of Dominican Americans are in a handful of states, including New York (872,504; 4.4% of state population), New Jersey (301,655; 3.3%), Florida (259,799; 1.2%), Massachusetts (172,707; 2.5%), Pennsylvania (127,665; 1.0%), Rhode Island (52,100; 5.1%) and Connecticut (40,543; 1.1%). Around 47% of Dominican Americans live in New York state with 41% in New York City alone; close to 40% of all Dominicans in the city live in the Bronx. Rhode Island has the highest percentage of Dominicans in the country and it is the only state where Dominicans are the largest Latino group. Dominicans are the most dominant Latino group in most of southeastern New England (Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts). Dominicans are also becoming more dominant in many areas in North Jersey and the Lower Hudson Valley, including the northern portion of the New York City area like the Bronx and Westchester. In New York City, the borough of Manhattan (New York County) is the only county in the country where Dominicans are the largest ancestral group and its Washington Heights neighborhood has long been considered the center of the Dominican American community. The 2010 Census estimated the nationwide Dominican American population at 1,414,703.


title: Dominican Americans

text: About 41% of Dominican Americans live in New York City alone. Many of New York's Dominicans live in the boroughs of the Bronx and Manhattan, and to a lesser degree in Queens and Brooklyn. There are also small populations in other parts of New York State, like Long Island in towns like Uniondale, Freeport and Brentwood being engulfed by the Salvadoran population, and the Hudson Valley including cities like Yonkers, Haverstraw, Sleepy Hollow and Newburgh. A rapidly growing population of up to 250,000 Dominicans reside across the Hudson River in New Jersey, topped by Paterson in absolute number and with Perth Amboy having the highest proportion in the U.S., alongside other areas of New Jersey, including cities like Jersey City, Union City (even though Union City is mostly Cuban desent) and Newark and many other areas in Passaic County and Hudson County. In Massachusetts, there is a very large Dominican population throughout the eastern part of the state, especially Boston, Lawrence, Lynn, Salem and many other parts of the Boston area. Lawrence in particular has one of the highest percentages of Dominicans in the nation alongside Perth Amboy, New Jersey; Haverstraw, New York; and Hazleton, Pennsylvania. In Rhode Island, there is a large Dominican population throughout the state, especially Providence County, including the cities of Providence and Pawtucket. To a lesser extent, Connecticut has small Dominican populations in Fairfield County and New Haven County, including the cities of Waterbury, Danbury, Bridgeport and Stamford. In Pennsylvania, there are sizeable Dominican populations in the eastern portion of the state, including Philadelphia, Hazleton, Bethlehem, Allentown and Reading. Hazleton in Pennsylvania has one of the fastest growing Dominican communities in the nation, going from 1% in the 2000 census to about 35% according to the 2017 estimate. There are also large Dominican populations in Florida, including in Miami, Pembroke Pines, Orlando, Kissimmee, Tampa and many other parts of the Miami and Orlando metropolitan areas. There are also much smaller but growing Dominican populations in New Hampshire, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Texas and California, as well as the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, in the former of which Dominicans make up the majority of recent immigrants.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Since 2010, there has been huge increases in the Dominican population in New York City (especially the Bronx), but also significant increases in Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Orlando and many smaller cities throughout the coastal Northeast. According to 2014 estimates, Boston and New York City are the only major cities where Dominicans are now the largest Latino group, recently surpassing Puerto Ricans in both cities, due to slower growth (Boston) or decline (New York City) of the Puerto Rican populations in those cities and much faster growing Dominican populations. However, in both cities, Dominicans make up only a plurality of the Latino population. As of 2017, the New York City Area, which includes southern New York state and North Jersey, has nearly 1.1 million Dominicans, making up about 5.3% of the New York metro area and nearly 60% of the Dominican American community, the highest percentage of any metropolitan area. However, even though Dominicans are now the largest Latino group in New York City itself, Dominicans are still second in size to Puerto Ricans in the New York metropolitan area as a whole. The Boston metropolitan area is the only major metropolitan area where Dominicans are the largest Hispanic group, recently surpassing Puerto Ricans. The Providence area also has a huge Dominican-dominant Latino community.


title: Dominican Americans

text: New York City has had a large Dominican community since as early as the 1960s. However, the community did not start to boom until the 1980s. Since then, Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan has remained the center of the Dominican American community, often nicknamed "Little Santo Domingo". The eastern portions of Washington Heights and Inwood, as well as many western areas of the Bronx, such as Highbridge, University Heights, among others, have some of the largest urban concentration of Dominicans in the US.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Many other areas, like Cypress Hills and Bushwick in Brooklyn and Corona, Queens have strong Dominican populations. Despite strong segregation, Dominicans can be seen in many different neighborhoods throughout New York. New York City, as of 2017, has nearly 800,000 Dominicans, over half of them in the Bronx and Manhattan. New York Dominicans usually share communities with other Latinos, particularly Puerto Ricans and other Latinos from Mexico and South/Central America, African Americans, West Indian/African immigrants, and caucasian. Dominicans recently became the city's largest Latino population, dethroning the older longstanding Puerto Rican population, they now make up 9% of New York City and nearly 35% of New York Latinos. Dominicans have strong and growing influential clout and political power in the New York City area.


title: Dominican Americans

text: The largest populations of Dominicans are in the following metropolitan areas, according to the 2010 census:


title: Dominican Americans

text: As of the 2010 census, the top 25 U.S. communities with the largest Dominican populations are the following:


title: Dominican Americans

text: As of the 2010 census, the top 10 U.S. communities with the highest percentages of people claiming Dominican ancestry are the following:


title: Dominican Americans

text: Since 1980, the Census Bureau has asked U.S. residents to classify their race separately from their Latino origin, if any.


title: Dominican Americans

text: In 2010, 29.6% of Dominican Americans responded that they were white, while 12.9% considered themselves black. A majority of 57.5% chose the category 'Other race'.


title: Dominican Americans

text: The prevalence of the 'other race' category probably reflects the large number of people who identify as mixed African and European ancestry in the Dominican Republic, where 73% of the population identified as being of mixed European and African descent, commonly known as "mulatto", similar to other Caribbean Latinos. Genetically, some are tri-racial, however, having also Taíno Native American ancestry. Taíno ancestry among Dominicans usually hovers about 10% on average. With African ancestry hovering between 30 and 45% on average, and European ancestry hovering between 45 and 60%. European ancestry tends to be strongest in the interior Cibao region, while African is strongest in the southeast plain.


title: Dominican Americans

text: According to the 2013 Pew Research Center survey there is an estimation about 1.8 million of Dominican origin that are residing in the United States which account for 3.3% of the US Latino population in 2013. When they were asked to identify themselves about 66% of them said they used the term 'Dominican', 16% use 'Americans', and 17% use the terms 'Hispanic' or 'Latino'. Those that prefer the term Hispanic is 29%, 11% prefer the term 'Latino', and the rest have no preference for either of the terms 'Latino' and Hispanic. When they were asked if they believed to be American about 53% did see themselves as American, 49% Latino adults were more likely to see themselves as typical American than the 44% that saw themselves different from the typical American. More than 55% of Dominican Americans are foreign-born.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Dominican Americans have a Latin Caribbean culture similar to Puerto Ricans and Cubans, they also have very high intermarriage and procreation rates with Puerto Ricans.


title: Dominican Americans

text: The intermarriage of Dominicans with partners of other ethnicities sometimes creates circumstances that, depending on the dominant ethnic presence in the environment surrounding the family, may lead the children to identify with the ancestry of one of their parents rather than the other. Poet Sandra Maria Esteves has identified mainly with the ethnicity of her Puerto Rican father rather than that of her Dominican mother.


title: Dominican Americans

text: In contrast to Puerto Ricans who have high overall intermarriage rates with non Latinos, Dominican Americans have the lowest intermarriage and reproduction rates of all major Latino groups with populations over 500,000. Majority of Dominican Americans marry and create families with other Dominican Americans, smaller numbers with other Latinos primarily Puerto Ricans as stated earlier. Only 2.8% of marriages involving a Dominican American are with a non-Latino partner.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Cities with the highest percentages of Dominicans are usually smaller cities that are 40% Latino or higher, with large Dominican populations and many times larger numbers of other Latino groups as well, including Providence, Rhode Island; Allentown, Pennsylvania; Lawrence, Massachusetts; and Paterson, New Jersey, among others. Among neighborhoods in larger cities like New York City, Dominicans usually settle in neighborhoods that are majority Latino, like Washington Heights, Bushwick, Jackson Heights, and many areas of the Bronx. The South Bronx, west of the Bronx river and south of Fordham Road, is around 70% Latino, a majority of which is Dominicans and Puerto Ricans.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Dominican Americans tend to be heavily focused on issues in Dominican Republic, rather than that of the United States, with many having intentions of returning. It is normal in the Dominican American community to work in the United States and later invest the money in a house and business back in Dominican Republic. Dominican American investments are a major contribution to the economy of the Dominican Republic. A large portion of Dominican immigrants and Dominican Americans engage in circular migration, in which they would live the early years working in the United States to retire the later years in Dominican Republic, or frequently relocate between homes in the United States and the Dominican Republic, oftentimes a home of a family member.


title: Dominican Americans

text: A significant number of Dominican Americans are young, first-generation immigrants without a higher education, since many have roots in the country's rural areas. Second-generation Dominican Americans are more educated than their first-generation counterparts, a condition reflected in their higher incomes and employment in professional or skilled occupations and more of them pursuing undergraduate education and graduate degrees.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Over 21% of all second-generation Dominican Americans have college degrees, slightly below the average for all Americans (24%) but significantly higher than US-born Mexican Americans (14%) and Stateside Puerto Rican (9%). In New York City, Dominican entrepreneurs have carved out roles in several industries, especially the bodega and supermarket and taxi and black car industries.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Over two dozen Dominican Americans are elected local or state legislators, mayors or other in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Dr. Eduardo J. Sanchez was the Commissioner of Health for the state of Texas from 2001 to 2006, and Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, held her post as New York Secretary of State from 2007 to 2010.


title: Dominican Americans

text: In November 2016, Adriano Espaillat became the first Dominican-American to be elected to the United States Congress, he represents New York's 13th Congressional District which is predominantly Dominican-American. He also became the first formerly undocumented American to be elected to Congress.


title: Dominican Americans

text: The electoral participation of Dominicans in the United States may improve as a result of the 1994 approval of dual citizenship by the Dominican legislature, which makes it easier for migrants to become U.S. citizens without relinquishing their Dominican nationality. A 1997 Dominican law, which took effect in 2004, allows Dominicans living abroad to retain their Dominican citizenship and voting rights even if they become citizens of another country.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Traditionally, Dominicans living in the United States are passionately involved in politics "back home", but unlike other Latino national groups, such as Cuban Americans and Mexican Americans, they are not as inclined to take an active part in U.S. politics, but recent research has shown an increasing involvement in this area.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Dominican-Americans tend to vote for the Democratic Party. In 2020, Joe Biden carried Dominican-American voters with 64% support to Trump's 33%, according to voter surveys conducted by the Associated Press. Biden won Dominican-American neighborhoods of New York City 85%-15%, according to a post-election New York Times analysis of precincts.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Junot Diaz drew on his life and the Dominican American experience generally in authoring "Drown" and "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", the latter of which won him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008 and made him the first Dominican American and the second Latino American in history to win the Pulitzer Prize. Julia Alvarez is the nationally recognized author of "In the Time of the Butterflies," a fictional book based on the lives of the Mirabal sisters, and "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents". Nelly Rosario, born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City, also won critical acclaim for her debut novel "Song of the Water Saints".


title: Dominican Americans

text: Héctor Rivera was a Dominican poet who lived in New York. He was born in Yamasá, República Dominicana in 1957 and died from cancer in July 2005. He lived during the diaspora, in which Dominican authors wrote about nostalgia that Dominican immigrants experienced in New York. Some of his works include: "Los emigrantes del siglo", "Poemas no comunes para matar la muerte," and "Biografía del silencio."


title: Dominican Americans

text: Another Dominican-American writer and poet, Elizabeth Acevedo, was born in New York City. She is the winner 2018 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the Boston Globe-Hornbook Award Prize for Best Children's Fiction, and the Pura Belpré Award. She also won the National Poetry Slam Competition. She received her bachelor's degree at The George Washington University in performing arts, and she received her MFA in creative writing at the University of Maryland. Some of her works include "Beastgirl & Other Origin Myths, The Poet X, With The Fire On High," "Afro-Latina" and "Hair".


title: Dominican Americans

text: Dominican Americans have increasingly made a presence in the financial industry. Cid Wilson was ranked #1 Wall Street financial analyst in the Specialty Retailing category by "Forbes" in 2006. On July 14, 2014, he was named President & CEO of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility (HACR) in Washington, DC, thus becoming the first Afro-Latino to lead a major national Latino organization in the U.S.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Julio A. Portalatin, Chairman and CEO of Mercer LLC (subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies), is the highest ranking Dominican American Fortune 500 executive in the U.S.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Traditional Dominican cuisine has translated well to the United States as Dominican Americans have opened reputable restaurants throughout the diasporic communities. Traditional cuisine is very colorful with red and green peppers and cilantro. Traditional cuisine consists of rice, beans, tostones (known as "fritos"), and a meat like chicharrón de pollo (deep-fried chicken), mangú (mashed green plantains served with sautéed onion), slices of avocado, fried eggs, salami, empanadas and pastelitos (fried meat pies), and sancocho (stew of meats and root vegetables).


title: Dominican Americans

text: The most well known drink is "Morir Soñando" which translates to "die dreaming". It is a drink of orange juice, cream and vanilla. Desserts include flan, bread pudding, rice pudding and tres leches. Dominican restaurant owners in the diasporic community really aim to conserve the taste of the mainland as they feel that is what immigrants seek out when looking for authentic Dominican cuisine.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Achieving that taste is not hard in the United States as most grocery stores stock Dominican, Puerto Rican and other Latin American products made by Goya Foods. Dominican Americans take pride in their food from their homeland and they use it as a symbol in times of celebration. For example, when the Dominican Republic won the World Cup of Baseball, Dominican Americans cheered carrying plantains.


title: Dominican Americans

text: The experience of Dominican-American cuisine goes beyond the consumption of the food, however. It is vitally integrated into the everyday culture of the Dominican-American community. Through the sensations of eating, to the act of cooking, Dominican-American food is part of the Dominican-American experience.


title: Dominican Americans

text: The vast majority of Dominicans adhere to Christianity, with most being Roman Catholic and many others being Protestant. Some Dominican Americans are non-religious, while a few others practice African diasporic religions like Dominican Vudú. It is estimated that 59% of Dominican Americans are Catholic, 21% are Protestant, together Christianity makes up 80%. Another 16% are non-religious and 4% practice other religions.


title: Dominican Americans

text: The Dominican American community is split between those that only know Spanish and little to no English, and those that are fully bilingual in both languages. Very few Dominican Americans speak English only and no Spanish, as preserving aspects of Dominican identity, including the Spanish language, is very important to Dominican Americans. About 51% of Dominican Americans are Spanish-dominant, 5% are English-dominant, and 44% are fully bilingual. Dominicans who only speak English fluently usually come from families that been in the United States for many generations. In many cities in the Northeast region, the Dominican dialect of Spanish is the most commonly heard. Spanish is spoken at home by 88% of Dominican American families, higher compared to 73% of the overall Latino community.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Designer Oscar de la Renta, born in the Dominican Republic, was one of the most recognized names in the fashion industry.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Maria Montez was dubbed "The Queen of Technicolor" for the numerous Hollywood adventure films that she starred in the 1940s. Zoe Saldana, the female lead of the 2009 film "Avatar", is an actress born in New Jersey to a Dominican father and a Puerto Rican mother. Michelle Rodriguez, born of a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father, is known for her roles on the television series "Lost" and the films "The Fast and the Furious", "S.W.A.T." and "Resident Evil".


title: Dominican Americans

text: Dania Ramirez is known for playing Callisto in "", Sadie in "Quarantine", Alex on "Entourage" and Maya Herrera on "Heroes". Merlin Santana was a New Yorker whose most notable role was as Romeo on "The Steve Harvey Show". Carlos De La Mota, born in New York to Dominican parents and raised in La Vega, and José Guillermo Cortines are popular telenovela actors who often work stateside.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Claudette Lali is a former model turned actress also born in New York and raised in the Dominican Republic. Charytín is an actress, singer, dancer, and television host who has been a longtime fixture in the U.S. Latino media. Tina Aumont, Miguel A. Nuñez, Karen Olivo (a Tony Award winner), Victor Rasuk, Judy Reyes, Shalim Ortiz (son of Charytín) and Tristan Wilds also have Dominican origin.


title: Dominican Americans

text: For Dominican Americans, there is a disparity between men and women in terms of access and ability to complete education.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Men complete more years of education than women. Dominican women, on the average, complete 8.3 while men complete 8.5 years of school, and over one third (36%) of these men and women immigrants do not speak English at all.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Also increasing is the Dominican American profile in government and politics. Milestones along the way have been marked, among others, by Guillermo Linares and Kay Palacios, the first Dominican Americans elected in the United States, as former New York City Council Member and former Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey city council respectively; Marcos Devers, the first Dominican American mayor in the U.S., who was appointed as Acting Mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts; Passaic, New Jersey mayor Dr. Alex D. Blanco, the first Dominican American mayor ever elected in the United States; The first person of Dominican descent elected anywhere in the U.S. was former New York assemblyman Arthur O. Eve, serving parts of Buffalo, New York from 1966 to 2002.


title: Dominican Americans

text: The first Dominican American New York County Supreme Court Judge was Rolando T. Acosta; Camelia Valdes, the first Dominican American to become a head prosecutor or district attorney in U.S. history; Adriano Espaillat and Grace Diaz, respectively the first Dominican American person and the first Dominican American woman to be elected to a state legislature in the United States; Juan Pichardo, Rhode Island State Senator, the first Dominican American to be elected State Senator in the United States.


title: Dominican Americans

text: President Barack Obama made his first major Dominican American appointment on March 13, 2009, when he nominated Thomas E. Perez to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Perez was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 6, 2009. Angel Taveras, mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, is the first Latino mayor of the city, the third elected, and the fourth serving Dominican American mayor in the United States.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Sarah Loguen Fraser (1850–1933) was the first female doctor in the Dominican Republic. She obtained her medical degree from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in 1876. Fraser is believed to be only the fourth African-American woman to become a licensed physician at the time. When she died in 1933, the Dominican Republic declared a nine-day period of national mourning with flags flown at half-mast. A small park in Syracuse honors the Loguen family, while the Child Care Center at Upstate Medical University is named in Sarah’s honor.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Juan Manuel Taveras Rodríguez was a Professor Emeritus at Harvard Medical School and Radiologist-in-Chief Emeritus of the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is widely regarded as the father of the medical specialty of neuroradiology, having co-authored the first textbook of this specialty and founded both the American Society of Neuroradiology and its journal, of which he served for several years as editor.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Dominican music includes above all merengue and bachata. Bachata, as well as reggaeton, are very popular among many Dominican Americans. Along with Bachata and Reggaeton, Dominican American youth also enjoy Dembow and Latin trap. To a lesser degree, house, salsa, rock, hip hop and other musical genres are also commonly enjoyed.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Some notables in the music industry include: bachata singers Romeo Santos Prince Royce and Leslie Grace, Fuego Merengue singer, Ralph Mercado, founder of RMM Records and music producer; Johnny Pacheco, singer, godfather of New York salsa; Karina Pasian, singer and pianist; Proyecto Uno, merengue hip-hop group; Anthony Romeo Santos, singer and songwriter; Rosanna Tavarez, Rita Indiana, singer and songwriter, singer and television host; Ivan Barias, music producer and songwriter.


title: Dominican Americans

text: In September 2017, New York-based rapper Cardi B became the first person of Dominican descent to reach number one in the history of the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, since it was launched in 1958.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Dominican Americans have made great strides in the field of baseball, the community's favored sport. Alex Rodriguez, New York-born, is the most well-known Dominican American in this field. He was the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball (MLB), and one of the most famous athletes in the United States. The larger portion of MLB players of Dominican origin immigrated from the Dominican Republic, number in the hundreds, and count among them Robinson Canó, José Bautista, Rafael Soriano, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols, Edwin Encarnacion, Hanley Ramírez, Manny Ramírez, Bartolo Colón and Hall of Fame members Juan Marichal, Vladimir Guerrero and Pedro Martínez.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Some of them, including Manny (2004), Pujols (2007), Ortiz (2008), Canó (2012), Colón (2014), Hanley (2019), and Carlos Santana (2019) have obtained U.S. citizenship. Dominican natives Felipe Alou and Tony Peña were managers and Omar Minaya is a general manager in (MLB). Basketball has seen the likes of Felipe López, Francisco Garcia and the father-son pair of Tito and Al Horford, all originally from the Dominican Republic, as well as Charlie Villanueva and 2015 NBA draft top pick Karl-Anthony Towns from the New York area. In the National Football League (NFL) there are Luis Castillo, Tutan Reyes and Dante Rosario.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Baseball is a lifestyle among many in the Dominican community, and most Dominican American MLB fans are split between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Basketball is also a popular sport among Dominicans.


title: Dominican Americans

text: Among other notables of full or partial Dominican origins are Nancy Alvarez, sexologist and talk show host in Spanish-language media; Susie Castillo, Miss USA 2003; Mary Joe Fernández, a tennis player and television commentator; CNN columnist Geovanny Vicente, a community leader and political strategist in Washington, D.C.; Providencia Paredes, an assistant and confidante to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; and Ilka Tanya Payan, an AIDS/HIV activist, actress and attorney.


title: Sailor Mars

text: , better known as , is a fictional character in the "Sailor Moon" manga series written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi. In the series, Rei is her sailor form's alternative human identity as part of the Sailor Soldiers, female supernatural fighters who protect the Solar System from evil.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Rei is the second Sailor Soldier to be discovered by Usagi. She possesses powers associated with fire, the Ofuda charm, and psychic clairvoyance. Aside from the main body of the "Sailor Moon" series, Rei is featured in two different manga short stories. The first, "Casablanca Memories", is entirely about her and her past; the second, "Rei and Minako's Girls School Battle", is shared with Minako Aino. A number of image songs mentioning her character have been released as well, including the contents of three different CD singles.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Takeuchi based Rei on her own personal experience as a miko. Originally designed with her own unique outfit, when Takeuchi decided to give all of the Guardians identical outfits, Rei's high heels were the only aspect that was carried over. A cold and aloof character in the manga, her personality was drastically changed in the anime adaptation at the behest of Kunihiko Ikuhara, where she became stubborn.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Rei first appears as a miko at the , and is shown to have an affinity with two crows who live there. It is revealed in the manga that as a child, the crows "told" her that their names are Phobos and Deimos (the same as Mars' two moons). In the manga, she is portrayed as imperial, ancient, conservative, old-fashioned, traditional, serious, disciplined, and practical, having contempt for men and disliking modern romantic relationships.


title: Sailor Mars

text: In the anime adaptation, Rei is a disciplined and practical person. She is also greatly interested in pop culture, and she excels at music - composing songs for a school festival. Rei and Usagi Tsukino have a very tempestuous relationship, and argue frequently. Though these arguments are usually petty, early in the series Rei attempts to usurp Usagi as the leader of Sailor Soldiers. Even though Rei does become more loyal to Usagi, with slightly calmer emotions in the later seasons, she still remains somewhat more of a typical teenager than her manga counterpart. In the anime, Rei also tends to engage in long periods of antagonizing Usagi (who returns the same reaction), as a running gag in their arguments.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Rei goes to a different school from the other girls, namely T*A Private Girls School, a Catholic institution run by nuns. She herself is a practitioner of Shinto, living and working at Hikawa Shrine with her grandfather, its head priest. Her mother died when Rei was very young; her father is a famous politician who cares more about his job than about her (though in the live-action version he still tries to be involved in her life), and who only visits Rei on her birthday. She carries a certain amount of dislike towards him, especially in the live-action series, in which the character of her grandfather does not appear.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Because of the lack of respectable males in her life, Rei harbors a generally low opinion of men. She considers them untrustworthy and seems genuinely uninterested in romance. The one exception is in a manga side-story centering on her, "Casablanca Memories", which tells of Rei's friendship with her father's young secretary, Kaidou. He had been kind to her for her entire life and, in the story, she fancies herself in love with him. She is shocked when he suddenly announces his engagement to another girl and his decision to become a politician, despite having once said that he did not like what had happened to Rei's family as a result of her father's work. Proof of her feelings are further cemented when she moves to kiss Kaidou, asking why, if he wanted to marry into the profession, did not he choose to marry her due to her father's political influence. In the manga, this is the only potential romance in her life; in the live-action series, nothing of the sort is ever shown, as Rei unquestionably detests boys. In the anime only, she "dates" Mamoru Chiba in the first season (though he thinks they are just friends), and occasionally seems open to a relationship with Yūichirō Kumada, her grandfather's pupil. In one episode, on the brink of death, she states that she wished she had kissed Yūichirō before leaving. In the original anime, she states in episode 152 that she dreams of one day getting married.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Later on, members of the Dead Moon Circus harass Rei with a reflection of her young self, which mocks her for her friendships and her dream of being a priestess. The reflection tells her that the only way for her to be happy is to try her luck with numerous men until she ends up married to someone rich. Rei is able to defeat this illusion, and in the process gains her Sailor Crystal along with the memory that, long ago, she had in fact made a vow of chastity to Princess Serenity. After this realization, she is never again shown having any doubts about her lack of interest in romance. This is never mentioned in the other series.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Rei's lifelong dream is to become the head priestess at Hikawa Shrine, and much of her life is influenced by spirituality, particularly in the manga. Meditation is given as her strong point, and she enjoys fortune-telling as a hobby. The elegance of her character is further underscored by the contrast between her favorite subject, ancient writing, and her least favorite, modern society. She also belongs to the Archery club at school, which later provides the context for her most powerful weapon, the Mars Arrow. Rei is also skilled in martial arts and a talented skier in the anime. As for more general tastes Rei likes fugu, Thai food, white casablancas, ruby gemstones, little lizards, and pandas and dislikes men in general. The manga states that she once enjoyed "Devilman", which the English manga changes to "Buffy".


title: Sailor Mars

text: In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Rei has problems trusting people, even her fellow Sailor Guardians, and has a tendency to rely too much on herself. She says that she hates karaoke (which the other girls love, especially Usagi), but is later forced by Minako into posing as an idol. As "Mars Reiko," she appears on three occasions: performing for hospitalized people, working alongside Minako, and staging a contest with Minako in order to stop her from quitting the idol business. She has a complex relationship with Minako; though they often disagree and compete with each other, they also share great respect. Minako even sometimes lets her guard down around Rei, and eventually confides to her about what she feels is her destiny as a Sailor Guardian. Rei is told that she is to be the secondary leader of the Guardians, and alternately admires and resents Minako's teachings about what that means. She later becomes aware of Mio hurting Usagi just to keep Mamoru at Beryl's side and confronts her while in the Dark Kingdom. Rei tells her off it is her own selfishness that is encouraging Serenity to keep using the crystal and give her a choice: allow Mamoru and Usagi to see each other even for a day or she will tell her friends about Mio (which will not end well for her). Mio wisely chooses to let them see each other in order to keep Rei quiet about her. Mars uses her own dagger with Venus' to attempt to stop Serenity from destroying the Earth.


title: Sailor Mars

text: In the "Special Arc" movie, Rei senses Mio's return and investigates it with Luna. She is later incapacitated by Mio's growing dark powers.


title: Sailor Mars

text: As a character with different incarnations, special powers, transformations and a long lifetime virtually spanned between the Silver Millennium era and the 30th century, Rei gains multiple aspects and aliases as the series progresses.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Rei's Soldier identity is Sailor Mars. She wears a sailor suit colored in red and purple, along with red high heels, and in the manga and live-action series has a small red jewel at the waist, though this vanishes upon upgrades. (Concept art shows this was supposed to appear as a necklace when not transformed but never does) She is given specific titles throughout the various series, including Soldier of War and Guardian of Flame and Passion. Her personality is no different from when she is a civilian, although certain powers are unavailable to her in that form.


title: Sailor Mars

text: In Japanese, the name for the planet Mars is , the first kanji meaning 'fire' and the second indicating a celestial object. Although the Roman planet-name is used, Sailor Mars' abilities are fire-based due to this aspect of Japanese mythology. Most are offensive attacks, although as a priestess, she also possesses a certain amount of psychic ability, and is able to do fire-readings, sense danger, and subdue evil spirits. In the manga, she is listed as the secondary leader of the Sailor Soldiers, after Sailor Venus. This fact is especially significant in the live-action series.


title: Sailor Mars

text: As she grows stronger, Sailor Mars gains additional powers, and at key points her uniform changes to reflect this. The first change takes place in Act 36 of the manga, when she obtains the Mars Crystal and her outfit becomes similar to that of Super Sailor Moon. She is not given a new title. A similar event is divided between episodes 143 and 152 of the anime, and she is given the name Super Sailor Mars. A third form appears in Act 42 of the manga, unnamed but analogous to Eternal Sailor Moon ("sans" wings). In the official visual book for Sailor Moon Eternal, this form was named "Eternal Sailor Mars".


title: Sailor Mars

text: In Silver Millennium, Sailor Mars was also the Princess of her home planet. She was among those given the duty of protecting Princess Serenity of the Moon Kingdom. As Princess Mars, she lived in Phobos-Deimos Castle and wore a red gown—she appears in this form in the original manga, as well as in supplementary art. Naoko Takeuchi once drew her in the arms of Jadeite. In the manga, he expresses at least a physical attraction to her, and in "Sailor Moon Crystal" and in the stage musicals it is clearly stated that Sailor Mars and Jadeite were in love at the time of the Moon Kingdom.


title: Sailor Mars

text: It is revealed later in the manga that Phobos and Deimos are actually maidens from Planet Coronis sent to protect Princess Mars. They take the form of crows during the present time and were near Rei when she first came to the shrine as a child, supposedly "telling" her their names. Phobos and Deimos reveal their true forms when delivering the Mars Crystal to her and refer to her using her princess title.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Rei is one of few "Sailor Moon" characters who is able to use special powers in her civilian form. These are mainly the result of her role as a shrine maiden, which gives her heightened spirituality as well as certain resources. In addition to some psychic talent, including occasional unprompted premonitions, Rei is able to do fire readings and to dispel evil spirits. She does the latter by performing "Kuji-Goshin-Ho", a ritual which consists of chanting nine words of power ("Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen!") while making relevant hand signs. She then shouts , and throws one or multiple "ofuda" scrolls. She commonly uses this attack while in her Sailor Mars form as well as when she is in her civilian form.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Rei must transform into a Sailor Soldier, however, before she can access her celestial powers. She makes this change by raising a special device (pen, bracelet, wand, or crystal) into the air and shouting a special phrase, originally "Mars Power, Make-up!" As she becomes more powerful and obtains new transformation devices, this phrase changes to evoke Mars Star, Planet, or Crystal Power. In both anime, Sailor Mars' transformation sequence evolves slightly over time, whether to update the background images or to accommodate changes to her uniform or new transformation items, but they all involve rings of fire that circle her body as she spins, forming her outfit in a flash of light.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Sailor Mars has the power to create and control fire. Her named powers are somewhat inconsistent across the various series—in the first arc of the manga, she says "Evil spirits, begone!" the same phrase she uses as a civilian while using an ofuda, for her fire attacks. In the anime, she shoots a fireball from her index fingers and shouts the words "Fire Soul" and in the live-action series she shouts "Youma Taisan" ("Monster, begone"). This basic power is improved to "Fire Soul Bird" in the second arc of the anime only; the manga and "Sailor Moon Crystal" anime also have her develop an animal-based attack, "Mars Snake Fire," but it does not appear until the third story arc and third season respectively. Her first attack to be the same across all versions is "Burning Mandala," which incorporates Buddhist symbolism in the fiery rings Sailor Mars summons. She is not immune to her own powers, as she is able to use them for a suicide move in the anime.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Sailor Mars' final and greatest power comes in the fourth story arc, when she takes on her second Soldier form (Super Sailor Mars in the anime). At this point in the series, she acquires a special weapon, the Mars Arrow, and with it "Mars Flame Sniper," which is her primary attack for the duration of the series. In the manga, the Mars Crystal and Mars Arrow are among her most significant mystical possessions. The former is her Sailor Crystal and the source of all of her power. The latter is associated with her skill as an archer, and although she does not receive a physical bow, she recalls some advice given to her by Michiru Kaioh—"[If] you think you're being taken advantage of by the enemies, stretch a line taut in your soul. Then, with your whole body and spirit, shoot the arrow of your finishing blow!" In the live-action series, she is given a tambourine-like weapon, called the Sailor Star Tambo, by Artemis. During the final battle, her Tambo transforms into a dagger, which she uses alongside Venus's similar dagger. In the "Special Act", Venus wields both weapons.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Rei is not named in the original proposal for a hypothetical "" anime, but an identical character in miko clothing is present, named Miyabi Yoruno. Creator Naoko Takeuchi revealed that this character eventually became Rei, and wrote that her role as a shrine maiden was inspired by Takeuchi's own experience working as a miko for Shiba Daijingu Shrine while in college. She also stated that she was frequently hit on by the shrine's patrons, a source of annoyance that carries over into the character.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Hikawa Shrine, where Rei lives and works, is based on the Hikawa Shrines, one of which is in Azabu Jūban, where the story is set. The kanji for "ice" in the original name (氷川神社) is replaced with the kanji for "fire"—a reflection of Rei's fire-related powers.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Sailor Mars' original costume design, like the others', was fully unique. It featured an alternate bow, double shoulder-guards, plate-armor, elaborate jewelry, and a gold-rimmed mask. Her trademark high-heeled shoes were already present, as well. Later, Takeuchi was surprised by these sketches and stated that she did not remember drawing them. In an intermediate design, the pendant that sat at her waist in the early manga was also intended to be worn as a necklace in her civilian form. Hitoshi Doi states that Kunihiko Ikuhara was responsible for much of Rei's changed personality in the anime.


title: Sailor Mars

text: The kanji of Rei's surname translate as and . Her given name is in katakana ; possible meanings include , , , and . Because katakana is the alphabet usually used for foreign loanwords, it may also be intended as a Western name, such as Raye (which is indeed used in American continent localizations) or Rae. In the Chinese versions of the series (anime and manga), Rei's name is written with the character "麗", which carries the same phonetic as "Rei", but means "beauty" and "elegance", and, ultimately, is the one included in the 5th "Original Picture Collection Volume Artbook (Vol. V)" (meaning that Rei's name written all in Kanji "is" "火野麗" (lit. "Fire-Field Beauty/Elegance" / "Beauty/Elegance of Fire")). Regardless, the entire name is structured as a pun, as the syllable "no" indicates a possessive, so that her name can also be understood as "Ray of Fire." Her prototypical name, , means "Elegance of Night" (みやび = 雅).


title: Sailor Mars

text: It has been noted that her outfit as Sailor Mars echoes the colors of her "miko" robes, and she is the only character that is mostly tied into tradition.


title: Sailor Mars

text: In the Japanese anime television series, Rei is voiced by Michie Tomizawa, who later said that working on "Sailor Moon" had been "exactly like magic" for her. Rina Satō voices the character in "Sailor Moon Crystal" and all media since.


title: Sailor Mars

text: In the DIC/Cloverway English adaptations produced in association with Optimum Productions, her name was spelled as Raye Hino and was voiced by Katie Griffin, in her first voice acting role, for most of the franchise; however, Emilie-Claire Barlow filled in for the last 17 episodes of the second season while Griffin was involved in a film production. Raye was also Barlow's first voice acting role, and she said that during recording, it was difficult to take care of her voice, as Raye "had a lot of yelling." She also listened to Griffin's recording sessions to help with the voice matching. Barlow would later become the permanent replacement voice for Sailor Venus after Griffin returned to voice Sailor Mars. Sandy Howell also provides English vocals for songs sung by Raye in the English dub.


title: Sailor Mars

text: In the Viz Media English adaptation produced in association with Studiopolis, her voice is supplied by Cristina Vee, a long-time "Sailor Moon" fan.


title: Sailor Mars

text: In the musical productions, Rei has been portrayed by ten actresses: Hiroko Nakayama, Misako Kotani, Asuka Umemiya, Hiromi Sakai, Eri Kanda, Megumi Yoshida, Aiko Kawasaki, Risa Honma, Kanon Nanaki, Karen Kobayashi., Kazumi Takayama, Ranze Terada, Kotomi Hirai, Kyoko Ninomiya and Yui Hasegawa.


title: Sailor Mars

text: In "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon", Rei was played by Keiko Kitagawa. In addition, Haruhi Mizukuro and Akira Tanaka portray the younger Rei in flashbacks and childhood photos.


title: Sailor Mars

text: The character has been well received by manga readers. Official "Sailor Moon" popularity polls listed Rei Hino and Sailor Mars as separate entities. In 1992, readers ranked them at thirteenth and fourteenth respectively, out of thirty eight choices. One year later, now with fifty choices, Mars remained at fourteenth most popular while Rei dropped to fifteenth. In 1994, with fifty one choices, Rei was the twentieth most popular character, whereas Sailor Mars was the twenty-second, with a gap between the two characters of over three thousand votes. In early 1996, with fifty one choices, Sailor Mars was the thirty-first most popular character and Rei was the thirty-second. In Animage's 1993 poll, she came sixth. In 1994, she came tenth.


title: Sailor Mars

text: A five-book series was published, one book on each of the Sailor Soldiers and Sailor Moon. Rei's was released in 1996. This book was later translated into English by Mixx. The episode where Sailor Mars gained her powers was novelised by Mixx. Other merchandise has been released based on her character, including T-shirts, fashion dolls, trading card stickers, gashapon and UFO dolls.


title: Sailor Mars

text: Rei Ayanami of "Neon Genesis Evangelion" is named after Rei Hino. She has also been referenced in non-Japanese media: DC Comics character Martian Manhunter briefly assumes the form of a female Japanese journalist named Rei Hino and is told by Batman that the name is a "giveaway."


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: This article is about the demographic features of the population of Lithuania, including population density, ethnicity, level of education, health, economic status, and religious affiliations.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The earliest evidence of inhabitants in present-day Lithuania dates back to 10,000 BC. Between 3000 and 2000 BC, the people of the Corded Ware culture spread over a vast region of eastern Europe, between the Baltic Sea and the Vistula River in the West and the Moscow–Kursk line in the East. Merging with the indigenous peoples, they gave rise to the Balts, a distinct Indo-European ethnic group whose descendants are the present-day Lithuanian and Latvian nations and the former Old Prussians.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The name of Lithuania – "Lithuanians" – was first mentioned in 1009. Among its etymologies there are a derivation from the word "Lietava", for a small river, a possible derivation from a word leičiai, but most probable is the name for union of Lithuanian ethnic tribes ('susilieti, lietis' means to unite and the word 'lietuva' means something which has been united).


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The primary Lithuanian state, the Duchy of Lithuania, emerged in the territory of Lietuva, the ethnic homeland of Lithuanians. At the birth of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL), ethnic Lithuanians made up about 70% of the population. With the acquisition of new Ruthenian territories, this proportion decreased to 50% and later to 30%. By the time of the largest expansion towards Kievan Rus' lands, at the end of the 13th and during the 14th century, the territory of the GDL was about 800,000 km, of which 10% was ethnically Lithuanian. The ethnic Lithuanian population is estimated to have been 420,000 out of 1.4 million in 1375 (the territory was about 700,000 km), and 550,000 out of 3.8 million in 1490 (territory: 850,000 km) In addition to the Ruthenians and Lithuanians, other significant ethnic groups throughout GDL were Jews and Tatars. The combined population of Poland and GDL in 1493 is estimated as 7.5 million, of whom 3.25 million were Poles, 3.75 million Ruthenians and 0.5 million Lithuanians. With the Union of Lublin Lithuanian Grand Duchy lost large part of lands to the Polish Crown (see demographics of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth). An ethnic Lithuanian proportion being about 1/4 in GDL after the Union of Lublin was held until the partitions. There was much devastation and population loss throughout the GDL in the mid and late 17th century, including the ethnic Lithuanian population in Vilnius voivodeship. Besides devastation, the Ruthenian population declined proportionally after the territorial losses to the Russian Empire. In 1770 there were about 4.84 million inhabitants in GDL, of which the largest ethnic group were Ruthenians, about 1.39 million – Lithuanians. The voivodeships with a majority ethnic Lithuanian population were Vilnius, Trakai and Samogitian voivodeships, and these three voivodeships comprised the political center of the state. In the southern angle of Trakai voivodeship and south-eastern part of Vilnius voivodeship there were also many Belarusians; in some of the south-eastern areas they were the major linguistic group.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The Ruthenian population formed a majority in GDL from the time of the GDL's expansion in the mid 14th century; and the adjective "Lithuanian", besides denoting ethnic Lithuanians, from early times denoted any inhabitant of GDL, including Slavs and Jews.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The Ruthenian language, corresponding to today's Belarusian and Ukrainian, was then called Russian, and was used as one of the chancellery languages by Lithuanian monarchs. However, there are fewer extant documents written in this language than those written in Latin and German from the time of Vytautas. Later, Ruthenian became the main language of documentation and writing. In the years that followed, it was the main language of government until the introduction of Polish as the chancellery language of the Lithuanian–Polish Commonwealth in 1697; however there are also examples of documents written in Ruthenian from the second half of the 18th century. The Lithuanian language was used orally in Vilnius, Trakai and Samogitian voivodeships, and by small numbers of people elsewhere. At the court of Zygmunt August, the last king of the Duchy, both Polish and Lithuanian were spoken.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: After the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on October 24, 1795, between the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg monarchy, the Commonwealth ceased to exist and Lithuania became a part of the Russian empire. After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the use of the Polish language noticeably increased in eastern Lithuania and western Belarus. Many Lithuanians, living further east, were unable to receive the Lithuanian printed books smuggled into Lithuania by knygnešiai during the time of the ban on printing books in the Latin alphabet, and they switched to Polish. Although this also used the Latin alphabet, it was much less affected by the ban, because Polish was still used by the politically important class of the nobility, and also used predominantly in the biggest towns of Lithuania, and supported by the church.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The Lithuanian National Revival had begun to intensify by the end of the 19th century, and the number of Lithuanian speakers and people identifying themselves as ethnic Lithuanians started to increase; but at the same time many Polish speaking Lithuanians, especially former "szlachta", cut themselves adrift from the Lithuanian nation. There were population losses due to several border changes, Soviet deportations, the Holocaust of the Lithuanian Jews, and German and Polish repatriations during and after World War II. After World War II, the ethnic Lithuanian population remained stable: 79.3% in 1959 to 83.5% in 2002. Lithuania's citizenship law and the Constitution meet international and OSCE standards, guaranteeing universal human and civil rights.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Lithuanians are a Baltic ethnic group (i.e. Balts), closely related to neighbouring Latvians, who speak Lithuanian, a Baltic language of the Indo-European language family. The group is distinct from neighbouring Slavic and Germanic peoples, although the historical union with Poland in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well German and Russian colonization and settlement left cultural and religious influences.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Source: . The Klaipėda Region was annexed from Germany in 1923, but was not included in the 1923 census. A separate census in the Klaipėda region was held in 1925.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Among the Baltic states, Lithuania has the most homogeneous population. According to the census conducted in 2021, 84.6% of the population identified themselves as Lithuanians, 6.5% as Poles, 5.0% as Russians, 1.0% as Belarusians, and 2.3% as members of other ethnic groups.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Poles are concentrated in the Vilnius Region, the area controlled by Poland in the interwar period. There are especially large Polish communities in Vilnius district municipality (47% of the population) and Šalčininkai district municipality (76%). The Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, an ethnic minority political party, has strong influence in these areas and has representation in the Seimas. The party is most active in local politics and controls several municipal councils.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Russians, even though they are almost as numerous as Poles, are much more evenly scattered and lack strong political cohesion. The most prominent community lives in Visaginas (47%). Most of them are engineers who moved with their families from the Russian SFSR to work at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. A number of ethnic Russians (mostly military) left Lithuania after the declaration of independence in 1990.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Another major change in the ethnic composition of Lithuania was the extermination of the Jewish population during the Holocaust. Before World War II about 7.5% of the population was Jewish; they were concentrated in cities and towns and had a significant influence on crafts and business. They were called Litvaks and had a strong culture. The population of Vilnius, sometimes nicknamed Northern Jerusalem, was about 30% Jewish. Almost all of these Jews were killed during the Nazi German occupation, or later emigrated to the United States and Israel. Now there are only about 4,000 Jews living in Lithuania.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Lithuania's membership of the European Union has made Lithuanian citizenship all the more appealing. Lithuanian citizenship is theoretically easier (see court ruling notes below) to obtain than that of many other European countries—only one great-grandparent is necessary to become a Lithuanian citizen. Persons who held citizenship in the Republic of Lithuania prior to June 15, 1940, and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (provided that these persons did not repatriate) are eligible for Lithuanian citizenship .


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Lithuanian citizens are allowed to travel and work throughout the European Union without a visa or other restrictions.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The Lithuanian Constitutional Court ruled in November 2006 that a number of provisions of the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on citizenship are in conflict with the Lithuanian Constitution. In particular, the court ruled that a number of current provisions of the Citizenship Law implicitly or explicitly allowing dual citizenship are in conflict with the Constitution; such provisions amounted to the unconstitutional practice of making dual citizenship a common phenomenon rather than a rare exception. The provisions of the Citizenship Law announced to be unconstitutional are no longer valid and applicable to the extent stated by the Constitutional Court.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The Lithuanian Parliament amended the Citizenship Law substantially as a result of this court ruling, allowing dual citizenship for children of at least one Lithuanian parent who are born abroad, but preventing Lithuanians from retaining their Lithuanian citizenship after obtaining the citizenship of another country.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The Lithuanian language is the country's sole official language countrywide. It is the first language of almost 85% of population and is also spoken by 286,742 out of 443,514 non-Lithuanians. The Soviet era had imposed the official use of Russian, so most adult Lithuanians are able to speak Russian as a second language, while the Polish population generally speaks Polish. Russians who immigrated after World War II speak Russian as their first language. The younger generation usually speaks English as their second language, while a substantial portion of the total population (37%) speak at least two foreign languages. According to census of 2011, 30% of the population can speak English.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Approximately 14,800 pupils started their 2012 school year in schools where the curriculum is conducted in Russian (down from 76,000 in 1991), and about 12,300 enrolled in Polish schools (compared to 11,400 in 1991 and 21,700 in 2001). There are also schools in the Belarusian language, as well as in English, German, and French.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: As per the 2011 census, 77.2% of Lithuanians identified themselves as Roman Catholic. The Church has been the majority denomination since the Christianisation of Lithuania at the end of the 14th century. Some priests actively led the resistance against the Communist regime (symbolised by the Hill of Crosses).


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: In the first half of the 20th century, the Lutheran Protestant church had around 200,000 members, 9% of the total population, mostly Protestant Lithuanians from the former Memel Territory and Germans, but it has declined since 1945. Small Protestant communities are dispersed throughout the northern and western parts of the country. Believers and clergy suffered greatly during the Soviet occupation, with many killed, tortured or deported to Siberia. Various Protestant churches have established missions in Lithuania since 1990. 4.1% are Orthodox, 0.8% are Old Believers (both mainly among the Russian minority), 0.8% are Protestant and 6.1% have no religion.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Lithuania was historically home to a significant Jewish community and was an important center of Jewish scholarship and culture from the 18th century, until the community, numbering about 160,000 before World War II, was almost entirely annihilated during the Holocaust. By 2011, around 3000 people in Lithuania identified themselves as Jews, while around 1200 identified with Judaic religious community.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: According to the 2005 Eurobarometer Poll, 12% said that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force", 36% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 49% of Lithuanian citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: According to the 2011 census, only around 0.2% of the Lithuanian population aged 10 and over were illiterate, the majority of them in rural areas. The proportion is similar for males and females.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: The general education system in Lithuania consists of primary, basic, secondary and tertiary education. Primary, basic and secondary (or high school) education is free of charge to all residents and is compulsory for pupils under 16 years of age. Pre-primary education is also available free of charge to 5- and 6-year-old children but is not compulsory. Pre-primary schooling is attended by about 90% of pre-school age children in Lithuania. Primary, basic and secondary education in Lithuania is available to some ethnic minorities in their native languages, including Polish, Russian and Belarusian.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Primary schooling () is available to children who have reached age 7 (or younger, should the parents so desire) and lasts four years. Primary school students are not assessed through a grade system, instead using oral or written feedback. Students begin studying their first foreign language in their second year of primary school. Data from the 2011 census showed that 99.1% of the population aged 20 and older have attained at least primary education, while around 27,000 pupils started the first grade in 2012.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Basic education () covers grades 5 to 10. It is provided by basic, secondary, youth, vocational schools and gymnasiums. After completing the 10th grade, the students must take the basic education achievement test in the Lithuanian language, mathematics, and an elective basic education achievement test in their mother tongue (Belarusian, Polish, Russian or German). In 2011, 90.9% of the population of Lithuania aged 20 or older had attained the basic level of education.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: Secondary education () in Lithuania is optional and available to students who have attained basic education. It covers two years (11th–12th grades in secondary schools and 3rd–4th grades in gymnasiums). At this level, students have the opportunity to adapt their study plans (subjects and study level) to their individual preferences. Secondary education is completed upon passing national "matura" examinations. These consist of as many as six separate examinations of which two (Lithuanian Language and Literature and one elective subject) are required to attain the diploma. As of 2011, 78.2% of the population of Lithuania aged 20 or older had attained the secondary level of education, including secondary education provided by vocational schools.


title: Demographics of Lithuania

text: More than 60% of the graduates from secondary school every year choose to continue education at colleges and universities of the Lithuanian higher education system. As of 2013, there were 23 universities (including academies and business schools recognized as such) and 24 colleges operating in Lithuania. Vilnius University, founded in 1579, is the oldest and largest university in Lithuania. More than 48,000 students enrolled in all higher education programmes in Lithuania in 2011, including level I (professional bachelor and bachelor), level II (masters) and level III (doctorate) studies. Higher education in Lithuania is partly state-funded, with free-of-charge access to higher education constitutionally guaranteed to students deemed "good". There are also scholarships available to the best students.


title: Wayne Coyne

text: Wayne Michael Coyne (born January 13, 1961) is an American musician. He is the lead singer, guitarist, keyboardist, theremin player and songwriter for the band the Flaming Lips.


title: Wayne Coyne

text: Coyne was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Thomas Coyne and Dolores "Dolly" Jackson. The fifth of six children of an Irish Catholic family, Coyne moved with his family from Pittsburgh's Troy Hill neighborhood to Oklahoma in early 1961. Coyne grew up in Oklahoma City. Coyne preferred listening to music and playing pickup football. He, his sister, and his brothers dubbed themselves "The Fearless Freaks" for their brutal backyard football games. Tommy Coyne, Coyne's older brother, described the games as a "semi-civilized gang fight."


title: Wayne Coyne

text: In 1977, while in high school, Coyne began working as a fry cook for a Long John Silver's restaurant in Oklahoma City. During his second year of employment, there was a rash of robberies in Oklahoma City. The restaurant was robbed and Coyne and other employees were held at gunpoint and forced to lie on the ground. Coyne was certain he was going to die. The assistant manager could not open the restaurant's safe, however, and the robbers eventually fled the scene. Coyne believes "this is really how you die...one minute you're just cooking up someone's order of french fries and the next minute you're laying on the floor and they blow your brains out. There's no music, there's no significance, it's just random." Coyne continued working at Long John Silver's until 1990.


title: Wayne Coyne

text: Coyne formed the Flaming Lips in 1983 with brother Mark singing lead, Michael Ivins on bass guitar, and Richard English on drums. Mark later left the band and Wayne assumed vocal duties. Wayne and Michael have been the only two constant members of the band since its founding. (According to allmusic.com Coyne "became the primary singer and songwriter" of the band.) According to an article in the September 16th, 1993 issue of Rolling Stone Mark and Wayne Coyne came up with the name "The Flaming Lips" as a reference to a rumor of a High School classmate who contracted Genital Herpes after receiving cunnilingus from a partner with active cold sores. Wayne remarked on this unsubstantiated claim:When Mark and I were in, I think it was Junior Year in High School, there was a rumor about this girl who got herpes from this guy at a party. He went down on her with a cold sore. I don't think we knew the girl, and I'm not sure if she even existed, you know how kids just spread bullshit. But when we were thinking of band names one night over a pack of Schlitz and some left-handed cigarettes and remembered how we joked that they both had "Flaming Lips" and it just stuck.During large-crowd festival performances, Coyne makes his entrance by descending from an alien mother ship (a nod to Parliament-Funkadelic) in a bubble and floats across the audience. Coyne has also been known to pour fake blood down his face via a hidden tube during live shows. Coyne does this to pay homage to a famous picture of Miles Davis who, after a performance, had blood on his suit because a police officer had beaten him during the show.


title: Wayne Coyne

text: Flaming Lips concerts also feature confetti cannons, lasers, laser pointers, images projected on to a screen, dozens of large balloons, a stage filled with dancers dressed as aliens, yetis, the gloves etc. Before performing, Coyne can be seen helping the stage crew. Their performances have been likened to psychedelic experiences rather than simply music shows, a tradition that goes back to the band's formation.


title: Wayne Coyne

text: In 1996 and 1997, Coyne developed "The Parking Lot Experiments," where forty different tapes were distributed. The band instructed forty cars to start the tapes at the same time, resulting in a surround sound. Over 1,000 people gathered in a parking lot for this experiment.


title: Wayne Coyne

text: The parking lot experiments led to the experimental album "Zaireeka", which is made up of four stereo tracks, each on four different CDs. The four CDs are meant to be played simultaneously in order to hear the complete tracks. Coyne believes Zaireeka embraces "...a kind of anarchy in art. It was like an art happening – you have to bring four sound systems together. Sometimes you get great synchronicity; other times, it sounds haphazard. You get to hear music in a whole new way."


title: Wayne Coyne

text: At the New Year's Eve Freakout in Oklahoma City on January 1, 2010, Coyne instructed the audience to set their cell phone alarms for 12:55 a.m. When the alarms went off, the alarm sounds were drowned out by cheering. Coyne remarked that "someone has a loud fucking iPhone."


title: Wayne Coyne

text: In October 2010, Coyne created a screen print using his own blood. The poster commemorated The Flaming Lips' appearance at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. It has a picture of a skull drawn in a Wes Wilson style. Coyne printed it using his blood collected in a vial. The frontman stated, "We thought it would be silly to use chicken blood or something, they don't need to sacrifice their vital fluids any more than I need to" Livemusic.fm


title: Wayne Coyne

text: In February 2017, Coyne debuted an art exhibit at the Waterloo Center for the Arts in Waterloo, Iowa called "Works by Wayne Coyne". The exhibit featured "The King's Mouth," a 14-minute light attraction you can enter and enjoy.


title: Wayne Coyne

text: Coyne began making his science fiction film, "Christmas on Mars", in 2001. It was a low budget project and principal photography was shot on a set in his backyard. The different parts of the spaceship set were built by Coyne.


title: Wayne Coyne

text: The film tells the story of the first Christmas on a colonized Mars. In the film, Coyne plays a super-being who is curious about a baby being born on Mars.


title: Wayne Coyne

text: "Christmas on Mars" was shown for the first time at the Sasquatch! Music Festival in a circus tent. The Flaming Lips took the tent on tour, showing the movie after each performance. "The concept was to come up with another one of those midnight movies, like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" that I went to see as a teenager, all toked up, before the days of cable."


title: Wayne Coyne

text: Coyne lives on a compound of four houses in the same neighborhood in which he grew up. Each Halloween, Coyne dresses up to scare trick-or-treaters who come to his home. He feels that it is good to scare children, because when they grow older, there are things "that are horribly scary . . . you can't just run away from them or turn on a light and it runs away." Though an atheist, Coyne states: "I wish I did believe in God. It would be a great relief to think, 'God'll take care of it. God'll put gas in the car tomorrow.'"


title: Wayne Coyne

text: In 2012 Coyne separated from his common-law wife, J. Michelle Martin-Coyne. In September 2013, Martin-Coyne filed for divorce on the grounds of "irreconcilable incompatibility." The two had no children together and disagree on how long they lived together (Martin-Coyne claiming since 1989, Coyne since 2004).


title: Wayne Coyne

text: Coyne began dating Katy Weaver in 2012. The two got engaged in September 2018 and in November 2018 announced they were expecting their first child together. They got married January 5, 2019, in downtown Oklahoma City. In June 2019, Coyne and Weaver welcomed their first child, a son, named Bloom Bobby Coyne. On March 13, 2022 the Coynes announced the arrival of a second son named Rex Roses Coyne.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: The Way of the Gun is a 2000 American Neo-Western heist action thriller film directed and written by Christopher McQuarrie in his directorial debut. It stars Ryan Phillippe and Benicio del Toro, with Juliette Lewis, Taye Diggs, Nicky Katt, Scott Wilson, and James Caan in supporting roles.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: The film was released on September 8, 2000, and was a commercial disappointment, grossing $13 million against a production budget of $8.5 million. The critical reception was mixed, with some critics praising the acting, direction and action sequences, but criticizing the limits of the script, pacing and character development.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: Parker and Longbaugh are a pair of low-level petty criminals who fund their existence through unconventional and often illegal means. Wanting to move past petty crime, they vow to get the proverbial "big score." While at a sperm donation clinic, the pair overhear a telephone conversation detailing a $1,000,000 payment to a surrogate mother for bearing the child of money launderer Hale Chidduck. Parker and Longbaugh resolve to kidnap the surrogate, Robin, but their attempt escalates into a shootout with her bodyguards, Jeffers and Obecks. The kidnappers are able to elude the bodyguards, who are arrested. Jeffers and Obecks are bailed out and returned to Chidduck by his right-hand man Joe Sarno. As Sarno begins coordinating Robin's rescue, Longbaugh contacts her gynecologist, Dr. Allen Painter, and orders him to a truck stop to examine Robin.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: After the examination, Painter returns to Chidduck, and it is revealed that the doctor is Chidduck's son. It is also revealed that Jeffers and Chidduck's wife are romantically involved. Longbaugh calls from a motel south of the Mexican border and demands a $15 million ransom. Jeffers and Obecks, tempted by the money, begin forming a plan to save the child and keep the money. As Longbaugh hangs up the telephone outside the motel, he is approached by Sarno, who identifies himself as the “bag-man” and offers to pay $1 million if they surrender Robin and simply walk away. Longbaugh, who is clearly skeptical of the offer from a “bag-man” declines the cash offer, but accepts Sarno's subsequent offer to buy him a cup of coffee. While having coffee the two discuss the current state of their chosen profession including the character of criminals and how no one takes “being a criminal” seriously anymore.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: Longbaugh jokingly mentions “they want to be criminals more than they want to commit crimes”, to which Sarno agrees. After the two leave the coffee shop Sarno tells Longbaugh that he “seems like a good guy” and ought to get out of this business. To which Longbaugh replies “what would I do then?”, indicating he is a true criminal. Sarno again offers to pay them $1 million dollars cash to turn Robin over to which Longaugh replies that he wishes he could accept the money but because Sarno is a bag-man he knows it would be a double cross alluding to that fact he was also a bag-man in the past. The two shake hands and guardedly go their separate ways. Longbaugh returns to his room, where Parker and Robin are playing cards. Sarno then returns to Chidduck's home to plan the next step. Jeffers comes to realize that Robin is Sarno's daughter.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: Jeffers, Obecks, and Painter leave to meet with the kidnappers, while Sarno departs separately with the ransom. At the motel, Parker is having second thoughts. As he confers with Longbaugh outside the motel room, Robin takes the opportunity to seize a shotgun and barricade herself inside. As sirens are heard in the distance, Parker and Longbaugh hastily escape, and Robin emerges just as Mexican police arrive, followed by Jeffers, Obecks, and Painter. As Painter and the bodyguards try to persuade Robin to leave with them, the officers pull their guns and order everybody onto the ground. Parker and Longbaugh open fire from a nearby hilltop, and the shootout leaves the two officers dead and Obecks wounded. Jeffers shoves Painter and Robin into his car and drives off.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: Parker and Longbaugh torture Obecks to learn Robin's location, while Jeffers confines Robin in a room in a Mexican brothel. Jeffers forces Painter to perform a Caesarean section to retrieve the baby, despite Robin's confession that the child is hers and Painter's and is not Chidduck's. Meanwhile, the heavily armed Parker and Longbaugh infiltrate the brothel. The ensuing gunfight, which leaves Parker wounded, turns into another standoff, until Painter shoots Jeffers. Outside, Sarno arrives with a group of men and the ransom, which they stack in the courtyard. Parker wants to kidnap Robin and Painter again, but Longbaugh, guilt-ridden after seeing her condition, responds: "She's had enough." Despite realizing that the money is bait, Parker and Longbaugh charge headlong into an ambush.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: All of Sarno's men are killed in the ensuing firefight. However, Sarno manages to shoot and cripple the already wounded Parker and Longbaugh, and then calls for an ambulance. Painter emerges with Robin and the baby. Lying in a pool of blood, Parker and Longbaugh call out to Sarno, informing him that the baby is in fact Robin and Painter's, and thus Sarno's grandson. Parker wonders aloud if this fact will influence Sarno to let them keep the child. Robin and the baby are then taken away in the ambulance with Painter, Sarno and the money, leaving Parker and Longbaugh to die. Days later, Chidduck's wife reveals that she is pregnant.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: After winning an Academy Award for "The Usual Suspects", Christopher McQuarrie assumed that he would have no problem making his next movie "and then you slowly start to realize no one in Hollywood is interested in making your film, they're interested in making their films." He spent years as a script doctor while trying to get financing for an epic biopic of Alexander the Great for Warner Bros. before finally realizing that he "had to make a film with some commercial success to be taken seriously." He approached 20th Century Fox and told them that he would be willing to write and direct a movie for any budget they would be willing to give him as long as he had complete creative control. "Fox told me to get fucked. No money. No control. No nothing. They didn't want my input, they just wanted me. For nothing."


title: The Way of the Gun

text: Over coffee, Benicio del Toro asked McQuarrie why he had not made another crime film. McQuarrie replied that he did not want to be typecast as "a crime guy" but realized that he had nothing to lose, "unemployed and ready to make trouble." Del Toro convinced him to write a crime film on his own terms because he would get the least amount of interference from a studio. McQuarrie was interested in making a movie "that you can follow characters who don't go out of their way to ingratiate themselves to you, who aren't traditionally sympathetic."


title: The Way of the Gun

text: McQuarrie started to write the script and "the first thing I did was to write a list of every taboo, everything I knew a cowardly executive would refuse to accept from a 'sympathetic' leading man." The first ten pages were a prologue, a trailer to another movie with Parker and Longbaugh (the real last names of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and was "to be shot as slick and hip as possible, but with horrible, unspeakable acts of violence and degradation." During pre-production, McQuarrie realized that this was too extreme and cut it out. He and del Toro gave the script to several high-profile actors at the time all of whom turned them down. Ryan Phillippe wanted to change the direction of his career and "was besieged with choice offers, and we didn't want him, but he would not take no for an answer."


title: The Way of the Gun

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 45% based on 132 reviews, with an average rating of 5.50/10. The site's consensus read: "Christopher McQuarrie may exhibit a way behind the camera in the stylish "The Way of the Gun", but his script falters with dull characterization and a plot so needlessly twisty that most viewers will be ready to tune out before the final reveal." On Metacritic, the film had a score of 49 out of 100, sampled from 30 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B− on scale of A to F.


title: The Way of the Gun

text: In his review for "The New York Times", Elvis Mitchell wrote, "It's a song you've heard before, but each chord is hit with extraordinary concentration." Andy Seiler praised James Caan's performance in his review for "USA Today", "To hear Caan menacingly intone 'I can promise you a day of reckoning you will not live long enough to never forget' is to remember why this man is a star." In his review for the "Village Voice", J. Hoberman wrote, "Phillippe talks like Brando; Del Toro apes the body language. Nevertheless, James Caan steals the movie as a veteran tough guy, rotating his torso around some unseen truss." "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "B" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, ""The Way of the Gun" plays like an unusually ritzy festival circuit audition film, though McQuarrie, it must be said, aces the audition."


title: The Way of the Gun

text: Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "McQuarrie pulls, pummels and pushes us, makes his characters jump through hoops, and at the end produces carloads of 'bag men' who have no other function than to pop up and be shot at ... Enough, already." In his review for "Time", Richard Corliss criticized McQuarrie for devising, "a two-hour gunfight interrupted by questions of paternity. But he's not so hot as a director, so what aims at being terrifying is just loud and goofy." Peter Stack, in his review for "San Francisco Chronicle", wrote, ""The Way of the Gun" attempts to be poetical Peckinpah, but it's a pointless exercise in gun violence with characterizations so thin they vaporize."


title: The Way of the Gun

text: About the movie's reception, Christopher McQuarrie said: "I'm very proud of the film. Is the film flawed, is it uneven? Certainly. But it's sincere."


title: Mimi Smith

text: Mary Elizabeth "Mimi" Smith ("née" Stanley; 24 April 1906 – 6 December 1991) was a maternal aunt and the parental guardian of the English musician John Lennon. Mimi Stanley was born in Toxteth, Liverpool, England, the oldest of five daughters. She became a resident trainee nurse at the Woolton Convalescent Hospital and later worked as a private secretary. On 15 September 1939 she married George Toogood Smith who ran his family's dairy farm and a shop in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool.


title: Mimi Smith

text: After her younger sister Julia Lennon separated from her husband, Julia and her son, the young John Lennon, moved in with a new partner, but Smith contacted Liverpool's Social Services and complained about his sleeping in the same bed as the two adults. Julia was eventually persuaded to hand over the care of John to the Smiths. He lived with the Smiths for most of his childhood and remained close to his aunt, even though she was highly dismissive of his musical ambitions, his girlfriends and wives. She often told the teenage Lennon: "The guitar's all right, John, but you'll never make a living out of it".


title: Mimi Smith

text: In 1965, John bought her a bungalow in Poole, Dorset, where she lived until her death in 1991. Despite later losing touch with other family members, he kept in close contact with Mimi and telephoned her every week until his death in 1980. The Smiths' house in Liverpool was later donated to The National Trust.


title: Mimi Smith

text: According to Lennon, the Stanley family once owned the whole of Woolton village. William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, did once own the manorial rights to Woolton but Lennon's Stanley family were from humbler origins and only came to Liverpool in the 1870s. Smith's grandfather was born in Birmingham and her great grandfather was born in London. Smith's father, George Ernest Stanley, was born in the Everton district of Liverpool in 1874 to William Henry Stanley and Eliza Jane Gildea; Eliza was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Ulster, Ireland. By 1891 the Stanleys were living in Upper Frederick Street, south of the city centre, in the same inner city area of Liverpool as the family of George's future wife, Annie Jane Millward, who was born in Chester in 1873 to Welsh parents. George Ernest Stanley and Annie Millward were married at St Peter's Church, Liverpool (since demolished) on 19 November 1906. Stanley was a merchant seaman often away at sea so was absent from some census records.


title: Mimi Smith

text: Mimi was the couple's first daughter, born seven months before her parents married. Four more daughters followed: Elizabeth Jane ("Mater"; 1908–1976); Annie Georgina ("Nanny"; 1911–1988); Julia ("Judy"; 1914–1958); and Harriet ("Harrie"; 1916–1972). After the birth of his daughters, Stanley stopped going to sea and got a job with the Liverpool and Glasgow Tug Salvage Company as an insurance investigator. He moved his family to the Liverpool suburb of Allerton, where they lived in a small terraced house at 9 Newcastle Road. According to Beatles biographer Bob Spitz, Mimi assumed a matriarchal role in the Stanley house to help her mother, and dressed "as if she was on her way to a weekly garden club meeting". Friends of Lennon later stated that his aunt based everything on decorum, honesty, and a black-and-white attitude: "Either you were good enough or you were not." Annie Stanley died in 1941, and Mimi accepted the responsibility of caring for her father with help from Julia.


title: Mimi Smith

text: When other girls were thinking of marriage, Smith talked of challenges and adventures that arose from her attitude of "stubborn independence", and often said that she never wanted to get married because she hated the idea of being "tied to the kitchen sink". She became a resident trainee nurse at the Woolton Convalescent Hospital, and later worked as a private secretary for Ernest Vickers, who was an industrial magnate with businesses in Manchester and Liverpool. She had long-term plans to buy a house in a "respected suburb" of Liverpool one day so that she could entertain the "scholars and dignitaries of Liverpool society".


title: Mimi Smith

text: In early 1932 she met George Smith, who lived across from the hospital where she worked, and to which he delivered milk every morning. Smith and his brother Frank operated a dairy farm and a shop in Woolton that had been in the Smith family for four generations. Smith started courting Mimi, but was constantly thwarted by her indifference and her father's interference. Stanley would only allow the couple to sit in the back room at Newcastle Road when he or his wife were in the front room, and before it grew too late he would burst into the back room and loudly order Smith home. The courtship lasted almost seven years, but Smith grew tired of waiting. After delivering milk to the hospital one morning he gave her an ultimatum that she must marry him, "or nothing at all!"


title: Mimi Smith

text: Mimi and Smith were finally married on 15 September 1939. They bought a semi-detached house called Mendips – named after the range of hills – at 251 Menlove Avenue, in a middle-class area of Liverpool. Menlove Avenue suffered extensive damage during World War II, and Mimi said that she often had to throw a wet blanket on incendiary bombs that fell in the garden. During the war, the government took over the Smiths' farmland for war work, and Smith was called up for service. However, he was discharged three years later and worked in an aircraft factory in Speke until the end of the war. Smith later left the milk trade and started a small bookmaker's business, which led Mimi to complain later that he was a compulsive gambler and had lost most of their money.


title: Mimi Smith

text: Mimi's sister Julia married Alfred ("Alf" or "Fred") Lennon on 3 December 1938; on 9 October 1940, the couple's first and only child was born. Smith phoned the Oxford Street Maternity Hospital that evening and was told that Julia had given birth to a boy. According to Smith, she went straight to the hospital "as fast as [her] legs could carry me". during the middle of an air raid, and was forced to hide in doorways to avoid the shrapnel. Smith later recalled a story that began with a parachute-born landmine landing outside the hospital: "My sister stayed in bed, and they put the baby under the bed. They wanted me to go into the basement, but I wouldn't. I ran all the way back to Newcastle Road to tell Father the news. 'Get under the shelter,' the wardens were shouting. 'Oh, be quiet,' I told them."


title: Mimi Smith

text: The story about the air raid has since been refuted, as there was no attack that night. The previous raid had been on 21–22 September, and the next was on 16 October, when the areas of Walton and Everton were badly hit.


title: Mimi Smith

text: After Julia separated from her husband, she and the infant Lennon moved in with her new partner, John Albert "Bobby" Dykins. However, Smith twice contacted Liverpool's Social Services and complained about John sleeping in the same bed as Julia and Dykins. Julia was eventually persuaded to hand over the care of John to the Smiths, who had no children of their own. Smith later confided to a relative that although she had never wanted children, she had "always wanted John". In July 1946, Alf Lennon visited the Smiths and took Lennon to Blackpool, ostensibly for a long holiday, but with the secret intention of emigrating to New Zealand with him. Julia went to Blackpool and took John back to her house, but a few weeks later she handed him back to Smith. John then lived continuously at Mendips in the smallest bedroom, which was located above the front door. Although she was a caring guardian, Smith was also known for being very strict, compared to the more relaxing influence of her husband and John's mother. Family friends described Smith as stubborn, impatient and unforgiving, but also said that she had a strong sense of humour. On many occasions when she criticised John, he would respond with a joke and the two of them would be "rolling around, laughing together".


title: Mimi Smith

text: Smith bought volumes of short stories for John, and her husband taught him to read at the age of five by reading aloud the headlines of the "Liverpool Echo". Every summer between 1949 and 1955, Smith sent John alone on a ten-hour bus journey to visit his Aunt Mater and her family at their home near Loch Meadie in Durness, on the north coast of Scotland. Smith also took her charge to a garden party in Calderstones Park every year, where a Salvation Army band played. Strawberry Field, in Beaconsfield Road, was the name of a Salvation Army house that Lennon would later immortalise in the Beatles' song, "Strawberry Fields Forever". She would later say: "John loved his uncle George. I felt quite left out of that. They'd go off together, just leaving me a bar of chocolate and a note saying 'Have a happy day'".


title: Mimi Smith

text: The Smiths had rented their two first-floor bedrooms to students for extra income since 1947, while the Smiths slept in the former dining room on the ground floor. One of the students who lodged there included John Cavill, who stayed from September 1949 until June 1950. Cavill played piano, but as the house had none he bought a guitar; admitting he knew almost nothing about chords: "My father had a violin and I had learned to play pizzicato on it, so when I got the guitar I played tunes on the strings, and John [Lennon] did the same".


title: Mimi Smith

text: George Smith died of a liver haemorrhage in June 1955, leaving £2,000 in his will (equivalent to £ in 2022). Three years later, Julia was killed on Menlove Avenue when she was knocked down by a car driven by an off-duty police officer, PC Eric Clague. Smith did not witness the fatal collision, but cried hysterically over Julia's body until the ambulance arrived. Clague was acquitted of all charges, given a reprimand and a short suspension from duty; when Smith heard the verdict, she shouted "Murderer!" at Clague.


title: Mimi Smith

text: After John Lennon became famous, Smith berated him for speaking in a Liverpudlian accent, but Lennon replied: "That's show business. They want me to speak more Liverpool.” Despite the talk of Lennon being working class – as were Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – he later rejected the idea, saying, "I was a nice clean-cut suburban boy." Later comparing his pre-fame living circumstances at Mendips with those of the other Beatles, he said, "In the class system it was about a half an inch in a higher class than Paul, George and Ringo, who lived in subsidised government houses. We owned our own house, had our own garden. They didn't have anything like that".


title: Mimi Smith

text: Although Smith later claimed that she had bought John's first guitar, it was actually his mother who did so, after Lennon had pestered her incessantly for weeks. Julia insisted that the £5 instrument (equivalent to £ in 2022) had to be delivered to her house and not to her sister's. The two sisters first saw John perform with the Quarrymen at the St Peter's Church, Woolton fête on the afternoon of 6 July 1957. Julia, who knew that her son would be performing, heard music coming from the field behind the church (now the site of the Bishop Martin School), and pulled Smith along with her to listen. John saw his aunt coming through the crowd and comically changed the words of a song to feature her name: "Oh-oh, here comes Mimi down the aisle now...". Smith related two versions of what she thought that day after seeing him on stage: "I was horrified to behold John in front of a microphone", and "as pleased as Punch to see him up there".