Searching for boxes to check: constructing boundaries of second-generation Indo-Caribbean identity through community initiatives

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study uses critical ethnography to examine how young community leaders negotiate ethno-racial boundaries through leading initiatives that advocate for an Indo-Caribbean identity in South Richmond Hill, Queens, one of the largest Indo-Guyanese and Indo-Trinidadian communities in the US. The second-generation constructs their own ethnic project by advocating for an Indo-Caribbean identity through leading organizations and initiatives directed specifically towards this group. This complicates their processes of racialization in relation to Afro-Caribbeans and South Asians. Second-generation Indo-Caribbeans who are marginalized by dominant racial categories actively craft their own ethno-racial identity based on shared diasporic experiences and perceived racial advantages and disadvantages in relation to other groups. Community initiatives facilitate these processes while fostering spaces of belonging for the second-generation. At the same time, dominant narratives related to racial hierarchization and differences in the Caribbean and in the US influence how Indo-Caribbeans negotiate their identity separate from a larger Black Caribbean identity.