The Caribbean Diaspora in Canada: Learning to Live with Racism

Abstract

Caribbean Diaspora in Canada: Learning to Live with Racism Frances Henry Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. xv + 297 pp. $60.00 (cloth), $22.95 (paper) Reviewer: Stanley R. Barrett University of GuelphIn this study, one of Canada's foremost experts on racism examines the everyday life of the approximately 300 000 people of Caribbean origin in southern Ontario. A general ethnographic picture is built up in chapters ranging from the family to employment, education, religion, leisure activities and relationships with the police and the legal system. Data were gathered through participant observation and unstructured interviews, the latter carried out by five Black assistants with roots in the Caribbean. Henry supervised the field work, trained the interviewers, selected the interview sample (134 individuals), analyzed the data and wrote the text. Among the book's strengths are pertinent background data on Caribbean history and culture, comparisons with racism in Britain and the United States and rich case material from the interviews, often presented verbatim.The central conclusion of this study is that Black immigrants from the Caribbean (Indo-Caribbeans are not dealt with) have been excluded from full participation in Canadian life, owing to the racism that they have confronted and, also, to a lesser degree, to cultural practices brought from the Caribbean. Such racism is found in the educational system, with its Eurocentric curriculum and the familiar stereotype that Blacks excel in sports rather than scholarship. Henry indicates that people from the Caribbean have tended to concentrate in a few residential areas in Toronto, a product of both their own desires and racist obstacles. Contrary to popular opinion, their participation rate in the labour force is slightly higher than the Canadian average, although few have made it to the top of the class structure. Noteworthy is the number of individuals who have established their own businesses, often in order to escape the widespread racism that exists on the factory floor.Henry argues that, regardless of Blacks' social class, racism is part of their everyday lives in Toronto. class factor leads us to one of the author's most important arguments: there is no single Caribbean community in Toronto. First, Caribbean Blacks come from various countries, and not always do they see eye to eye. Second, there are deep class divisions among people of Caribbean origin. Such divisions also existed in the Caribbean, but with a difference. As Henry states, The main determinant of class in the Caribbean is skin colour and related racial features (p. 268). Among Blacks in Canada, the criterion of skin colour has been replaced by education, income and occupation. In addition, the emphasis placed in the Caribbean on family reputation has diminished among immigrants.Cultural practices imported from the Caribbean that supposedly hinder adjustment and acceptance are influenced by class position. Examples are common-law relationships, single motherhood (sometimes teenagers) and the absence of fathers from the family, all of which are more prevalent in the lower and working classes and which were generated long ago by the Caribbean's history of colonialism and racism. …