Chapter 2 introduces Dominican political mobilization, and how new immigrant communities can penetrate political structures, offering an overview of how the center of Latino political identity in New York City has shifted from being predominantly Puerto Rican as the Spanish-speaking community of New York City. This chapter lays the groundwork for exploring how Dominican immigrants first developed communities and strategies then deployed them to overcome obstacles to obtaining political representation. In addition to presenting a mid-range theory for immigrant political incorporation, the chapter touches on the existing literature on ethnic political incorporation, pluralism and urban politics, that may account for varying outcomes in the competition for power, and grounds them in the specific New York City context of evolving political machines. The chapter also introduces the importance of transnationalism in Dominican political mobilization. Furthermore, it illustrates the ways in which Dominicans have used political openings to realize the political potential of their demographic growth, just as the Puerto Rican community once claimed power from the Irish in the Bronx and the Italians in East Harlem. It shows how Dominicans have built a kind of new political machine in some places and adapted in others.