Only in 1908 did the Church in the United States emerge from its former mission status. Soon afterward American Dominicans began to send members on mission to other countries. The first were the sisters from Mission San Jose, who in 1910 opened a school and then a novitiate in Mexico.

In 1912 the Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic were founded by Mary Joseph Rogers at Hawthorne, New York to be the first American Dominican congregation of sisters founded specifically to serve in the foreign missions. They were given official approval of the Church in 1920.

The first American friars to staff a foreign mission were those of St. Joseph Province, who in 1924 sent men to Kienning-Fu in south China and later invited the Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs, Ohio, to join them.

The Dominican nuns of Los Angeles opened in 1959 the first monastery of Americans at Karachi in Pakistan, following the mission initiative of the friars of St. Joseph Province.

As all branches of the Order heard the call of peoples outside the United States, a special summons to the lands of Latin America was sounded by Pope Pius XII in the 1850's. Many sisters and friars responded; and many places continue to be staffed by Dominican congregations and provinces.

At the close of the twentieth century Dominican men and women offer a variety Or ministries in the following mission fields:

• BAHAMAS: Caldwell
• BELIZE: Kentucky
• BOLIVIA: St. Albert Province, Columbus, Maryknoll, Sinsinawa,Dighton
• BRAZIL: San Rafael, Maryknoll
• CHILE: Maryknoll
• CHINA: Columbus, Maryknoll
• COLOMBIA: Amityville
• DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Adrian
• EL SALVADOR: Maryknoll, Sinsinawa
• GUATEMALA: Akron, Houston, Maryknoll
• HONDURAS: St. Albert, St. Martin de Porres
• JAMAICA: Blauvelt
• KENYA: St. Joseph, Adrian, Newark, N.Guilford, Racine, St. Albert, Maryknoll
• MEXICO: Holy Name, Mission San Jose, Racine, San Rafael
• NIGERIA:St. Albert, Great Bend
• PAKISTAN: St. Joseph, Sparkill, Los Angeles Monastery
• PANAMA: Maryknoll, Adrian
• PERU: St. Joseph, St. Martin de Porres, Columbus, Springfield, Sparkill, Grand Rapids, Kentucky, Maryknoll
• PHILIPPINES: Maryknoll; Los Angeles, Summit, Corpus Christi
• PUERTO RICO: Adrian, Amityville, Columbus, Newburgh
• ROMANIA: Kentucky
• SOUTH AFRICA: Adrian
• TRINIDAD: Sinsinawa
• VIRGIN ISLANDS: Adrian