Caribbean Cultural Aesthetics: A New York Experience

Abstract

With an English-speaking Caribbean population of well over two million, as of the 1980 census, New York can be considered the largest Caribbean city in the world - larger than any city in the Caribbean itself. For the English-speaking Caribbean population, which is the focus of this writing, New York has become the place where individuals learn about each other through various Caribbean media, concerts, as well as through ongoing encounters at work, school, and on the streets within the neighbourhoods in which they live. In contrast to earlier European immigrants to New York, the Caribbean population has access to, and is in fact, part of a relatively continuous flow of people, ideas and practices between the various Caribbean nations and New York '. This highlights a significant difference between previous immigrant groups and the more recent Caribbean immigrants. The earlier European groups saw their relocation as an end to their connection to the old country . This may have been due partly to the high cost of air services which had not been fully developed at that time. Caribbean immigrants on the other hand, do not arrive in New York with the