An Espaillat campaign party (photo: Infinity Media IM/John R. Gagain Jr. @jgagain)

New York City, in all likelihood, won’t have a Dominican-American mayor after this year’s election. But that does not mean that the political power representing roughly 700,000 New Yorkers of Dominican heritage — about 30% of the city’s entire Hispanic population and just behind Puerto Ricans, who number around 730,000, according to ...

Puerto Rican Day Parade (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor’s Office)

About 2.5 million New York City residents are Latino, making the community the second largest ethnic group in the city only after non-Latino whites. The majority of the city’s Latino population is U.S. born and nearly 80% say they speak Spanish at home.

But despite strong population growth, Latino New Yorkers face a number of adverse conditions that continue to put constraints on their economic progress. About 26.4% of all Latino families live in poverty. That number jumps to 49.9%