LYNN — The city held a Dominican Republic flag-raising ceremony at City Hall on Thursday afternoon.
Attending the ceremony were Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson, Salem Mayor Kimberley Driscoll, state Reps. Daniel Cahill (D-Lynn), Peter Capano (D-Lynn), and Paul Tucker (D-Salem), state Sen. Brendan Crighton (D-Lynn), Ward 3 Councilor Coco Alinsug, School Committee member Lenny Pena and members of the Dominican communities of both Lynn and Salem.
The mood was happy and jubilant as around 80-100 people that were participating shook hands and congratulated each other to celebrate the raising of the flag and the role of Dominicans in the community’s history
“It’s a lot of fun,” Cahill said. “We have a lot of folks from Lynn who are Dominican and we are going to celebrate with them.”
The ceremony was spoken mostly in Spanish with some English and highlighted the Dominican communities across the North Shore. The program for the event included prayer, Dominican music, singing the Dominican national anthem and the raising of the country’s flag in the City Hall foyer.
The North Shore is home to many Dominican and Latino immigrants and families. Before the 1990s, many lived in Boston, but due to gentrification and rising house prices in the 1990s, many moved outside of Boston to Essex County to communities such as Lynn, Salem, Chelsea and Lawrence.
According to a study conducted in 2020 by Scholarworks at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Lynn has the third-highest Dominican population in Massachusetts. The communities with the highest and second-highest populations in that study were Lawrence and Boston, respectively.
This is not the first time Lynn has celebrated the Dominican Republic and its history. In 2020, a celebration was held for the nation’s 176th anniversary at City Hall with singing and dancing and around 250 participants.
