West Indian Immigrants Research Articles

Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities. By Mary C. Waters. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. Pp. xviii+413. $36.95 (cloth); $18.95 (paper).

<i>Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities</i>. By Mary C. Waters. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. Pp. xviii+413. $36.95 (cloth); $18.95 (paper).

Migration, Transnationalization, and Race in a Changing New York

Introduction Robert C. Smith, Hector R. Cordero-Guzman, and Ramon Grosfoguel Part I: Transnationalization, Globalization and Migration 1. Transnationalism, Then and Now: New York Immigrants Today and at the Turn of the Century Nancy Foner 2. The Generation of Identity: Haitian Youth and the Transnational Nation-State Georges E. Fouron and Nina Glick Schiller 3. Political Incorporation and Re-Incorporation: Simultaneity in the Dominican Migrant Experience Pamela M. Graham 4. Suburban Transmigrants: Long Island's Salvadorans Sarah Mahler 5. The Rules of the Game and the Game of the Rules: The Political Dimension of Recent Chinese Immigration to New York Zai Liang 6. Gendered and Racialized Circulation-Migration: Implications for the Poverty and Work Experience of New York's Puerto Rican Women Dennis Conway, Adrian J. Bailey, and Mark Ellis Part II: Migration and Socio-Economic Incorporation in New York City 7. Class, Race, and Success: Indian-Americans Confront the American Dream Johanna Lessinger 8. Ethnic Niches and Racial Traps: Jamaicans in the New York Regional Economy Philip Kasinitz and Milton Vickerman 9. Neither Ignorance nor Bliss: Race, Racism and the West Indian Immigrant Experience Vilna Bashi 10. Peruvian Historical Networks for Migration in New York City Alex Julca 11. Entrepreneurship and Business Development among African-Americans, Koreans, and Jews: Exploring Some Structural Differences Jennifer Lee 12. When Co-ethnic Assets Become Liabilities: Mexicans, Ecuadorian and Chinese Garment Workers in New York City Margaret M. Chin

Immigration and the Political Economy of Home: West Indian Brooklyn and American Indian Minneapolis, 1945-1992

In Immigration and the Political Economy of Home, Rachel Buff undertakes an unusual comparison between West Indian immigrants in New York City and Native Americans in the upper Midwest. Although this juxtaposition is atypical, Buff argues that the two groups display interesting similarities. Immigration—or, as she neatly phrases it, “im/migration”—is the common thread linking the groups. In both, notable histories of migration, rooted in capitalist/colonialist hegemony, have led to lasting problems of adjustment after settling in new homelands. Basically, these problems revolve around the racialization of West Indians and Native Americans, their economic status, and the fact of transnationalism, which dynamically links old and new homelands. Moreover, the two groups have evolved similar mechanisms for coping with their im/migration-re-lated problems, and Buff argues that ethnic festivals—Carnival in the case of West Indians and Native American powwows—are of particular significance. By conceptualizing, organizing, |and participating in these festivals, West Indians and Native Americans create new communities and identities through which they adjust to the challenges of migration.

West Indians in New York

Abstract The process by which diverse ethnic groups from around the world blended into a unique civilization called the United States of America has provided insight into how mass immigration impacts on the development of human societies. This study explored the economic, educational, and social integration of a group of 409 first generation West Indian immigrants into the fabric of the society in New York City. It used the self-reports of those who were born and had worked in the West Indies, and had migrated and lived for several years in New York. The survey asked about their economic and educational status in the West Indies, compared with their current socio-economic profile, in order to determine the degree and quality of their social mobility. The criterion variables economic integration and experiencing problems of living in the United States of America were associated with nine input factors: age, citizenship, education, gender, income, length of residence, marital status, occupation, and reason ...

Book Reviews

Books Reviews: Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, American Project: The Rise and Fall of the Modern Ghetto Leonard S. Rubinowitz and James E. Rosenbaum, Crossing the Class and Color Lines: From Public Housing to White Suburbia Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf, and Todd Swanstrom, Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty‐First Century Mary Waters, Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities John Walton, Storied Land. Community and Memory in Monterey

Points of Contact: A Wachian reappraisal of the African Orthodox Church and the early steel industry in Sydney, Nova Scotia

In 1900, the Dominion Iron and Steel Company began production in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Active recruitment of West Indian immigrants created, by 1923, Sydney's most segregated community. In 1928, St. Philip's African Orthodox Church was erected, and it became the fulcrum of the community. Explanations for this success have stressed social or economic factors. This article suggests that although such factors are significant, the explanation is nonetheless religious. Employing the work of the historian of religion Joachim Wach, it argues that the church's success was due to its ability to reflect at once human religious nature, and the temporal and spatial contexts in which this nature is expressed. Examining St. Philip's Church advances what Wach regarded as the goal of the study of religion : to understand both the historical particular and the more general phenomenon of human religiosity.

Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities

The story of West Indian immigrants to the USA is considered a great success. However, the author found that over time the realities of American race relations begin to swamp their positive cultural values and racial discrimination soon undermines their initial openess to whites.

Book Review: Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities

Book Review: Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities

Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities. By Mary C. Waters. Harvard University Press, 1999. 413 pp. Cloth, $35.00

Journal Article Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities.By Mary C. Waters. Harvard University Press, 1999. 413 pp. Cloth, $35.00 Get access Min Zhou Min Zhou University of California, Los Angeles Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 79, Issue 4, June 2001, Pages 1550–1552, https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2001.0058 Published: 01 June 2001

Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities

Book Review| April 01 2001 Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities, Mary C. Waters. Charles Green Charles Green Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of American Ethnic History (2001) 20 (3): 170–172. https://doi.org/10.2307/27502733 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Charles Green; Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities. Journal of American Ethnic History 1 January 2001; 20 (3): 170–172. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/27502733 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of American Ethnic History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2001 Immigration and Ethnic History Society2001 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review: Crosscurrents: West Indian Immigrants and Race

Book Review: Crosscurrents: West Indian Immigrants and Race

Rents and Race in 1960s London: New Light on Rachmanism

A crisis in the London housing market was created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by a combination of pressure on central London land and the liberalization of rent control in 1957. Economic tensions in the working-class housing market were exacerbated by racial tensions, with large-scale West Indian immigration from the mid-1950s. The scandal associated with the name of Peter Rachman was a product of this crisis, and Rachman has symbolized exploitative landlordism since 1963. It is argued, though, that Rachman's ‘exposure’ was largely accidental—a spin-off of the Profumo scandal—and that what is striking about the episode is in fact the problems encountered by those anxious to give housing a greater prominence, despite the severe problems created by housing shortage. With immigrants driven into house ownership by discrimination in the rental market, the race and housing questions became entwined. Those anxious to make an issue of housing were generally reluctant to amplify racial tensions. Only with the emergence of a racy but tangential scandal was the housing issue made to ‘run’ The episode provides a case study of the way in which conventional politics could fail to provide an outlet for extensive social grievances during the ‘age of affluence’

Crosscurrents: West Indian Immigrants and Race

Crosscurrents: West Indian Immigrants and Race

Racism and Nationalism in the Creation of Costa Rica's Pacific Coast Banana Enclave

The creation of the new banana enclave on Costa Rica's Pacific coast in the 1920s marks a significant watershed in the social and political history of race relations in the country. The culminating event in what was a lengthy battle over the composition of the workforce on the new plantations was the signing of the 1934 banana contract between the government of Costa Rica and the United Fruit Company. In addition to allowing for the continued growth of the industry in Costa Rica, the agreement took aim at the West Indian immigrant by prohibiting “people of colour” from working for United Fruit on the Pacific coast. Subsequent to the agreement, the state made a conscious effort to force the integration of the West Indian community. The government closed English schools, pushed farmers off their land, and deported West Indians in order to purge the province of Limón of people who were not citizens, but who belonged to a well-established immigrant community. As a result, resident West Indians were forced to re-examine their relationship with the country and they engaged in a protracted struggle to overcome heightened levels of discrimination.

Crosscurrents: West Indian immigrants and race

This text presents first-hand accounts of racial experiences among West Indian immigrants living in New York City. These interviews show how, through contact with whites and African Americans, West Indians construct a unique identity for themselves which emphasizes achievement and successes over racial solidarity.

Preparing for the 21st Century: Immigrants and Education for West Indian Immigrant Children

Preparing for the 21st Century: Immigrants and Education for West Indian Immigrant Children

BABYLON'S 'NATURAL MYSTIC': THE NORTH AMERICAN MUSIC INDUSTRY, THE LEGEND OF BOB MARLEY, AND THE INCORPORATION OF TRANSNATIONALISM

Bob Marley's significance as a popular cultural icon, both during his initial emergence in North America in the 1970s and after his death in 1981, has been a constantly evolving phenomenon. As American society and culture has adapted to the presence of new, racialized, West Indian immigrants, so too has Marley's legend been adapted to fit the changing moods of the past three decades. This article identifies and examines three aspects of Marley's changing image in the United States. From the Rastafarian outlaw of the 1970s through the natural family man of the 1980s to the natural mystic in the 1990s, Marley has represented ideologies of national liberation and black power, multiculturalism, universal pluralism and, most recently, transnationalism. In this article, I show how the construction of Marley as the ‘natural mystic’ reflects the growth of the multinational corporation and mass media industries in this era of postmodernism and late capitalism. The resources and networks available to American record labels have been central to the wide-scale promotion of Marley‘s message across the world. However, in addition, Marley’s life and work also profoundly benefited from a rich, century-long tradition of black internationalist movements and ideologies, which I term ‘black transnationalism’. This black transnational legacy tells a larger story, one which contests the more mainstream versions of Marley which have made him more palatable to a white liberal audience in America. He therefore stands as an interesting case study ofthe impact of black transnational cultural production on American popular culture.

Undesirable Aliens: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in the Comparison of Haitian and British West Indian Immigrant Workers in Cuba, 1912-1939

Undesirable Aliens: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in the Comparison of Haitian and British West Indian Immigrant Workers in Cuba, 1912-1939

Race, Colonial Exploitation and West Indian Immigration in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico, 1800-1850

“Unlike some Latin American mainland societies which still contain large numbers of indigenous peoples,” Jorge Duany observed, “Caribbean societies are immigrant societies almost from the moment of their conception.” Médéric-Louis-Élie Moreau de Saint- Méry likened the latter to “shapeless mixtures subject to diverse influences.” Their population, Dawn I. Marshall reminds us, “is to a large extent the result of immigration—from initial settlement, forced immigration during slavery, indentured immigration, to the present outward movement to metropolitan countries.” Throughout their history, David Lowenthal noted, limited resources and opportunities kept West Indian societies in a constant state of flux, impelling continuous transfers of people, technology, and institutions within the area. Despite the frequency and importance of these population movements, the bulk of scholarship on American migration history has traditionally concentrated on areas favored by European settlement. Moreover, the overwhelming quantity of research on immigration to the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil has tended to overshadow the study of similar processes in other American regions. Due to its historical association with the arrival of involuntary settlers, migratory currents in the Caribbean have been too narrowly identified with bondage, penal labor and indentured workers. Nowhere is the imbalance more conspicuous than in the study of trans-Caribbean migratory streams during slavery. Discussions on pre-1838 population shifts have centered largely on inter-island slave trading and the exodus prompted by Franco-Haitian revolutionary activity in the Caribbean. The parallel legacy of motion hinted by Neville N.A.T. Hall's “maritime” maroons and Julius S. Scott's “masterless” migrants has attracted noticeably less attention.

Psychodynamic Therapy and Culture in the Treatment of Incest of a West Indian Immigrant

This article discusses treatment of an adult West Indian female who was the vitim of incest during childhood and adolescence. West Indian immigrants are those African-Carribbeans from the English-speaking Caribbean Islands who subsequently immigrated to the United States. Studies of West Indians provide a knowledge base for incorporation into appropriate and culture-specific treatment techniques. Winnicott's object relations construct of holding processes and facilitating environment are expanded to incorporate cultural knowledge in the interventions for this case study. As the client works throught the experiences of the sexual abuse, ego integration results in a developing maturity in love and work.