Stories of Identity among Black, Middle Class, Second Generation Caribbeans : We, Too, Sing America

297 Pages·2017·2.29 MB·English

by  Lorick-Wilmot, Yndia S

STORIES OF IDENTITY
AMONG BLACK, MIDDLE CLASS,
SECOND GENERATION CARIBBEANS
WE, TOO, SING AMERICA
YNDIA S. LORICK-WILMOT
P S i B ,
raise for torieS of dentity among lack
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iddle laSS econd eneration
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ariBBeanS
“Told mainly through vignettes, Yndia Lorick-Wilmot shows how her
Black Caribbean middle class respondents filter (gender, sexual, ethnic)
identity through specific geographies, and distinct front-and back-stage
personas that guide how Afro-Caribbeans ‘move through the world.’
Avoiding the more common assimilationist to studying immigrants, she
melds postcolonial, intersectional, and double consciousness frames as she
checks still-resonant assumptions (á la Moynihan and his ilk) of what it
means to be black in the USA.”
—Vilna Bashi Treitler, PhD, University of California
at Santa Barbara, USA
“Building on the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Lorick-Wilmot formulates
the notion of triple identity consciousness and mounts a compelling
critique of the endurance of white supremacy and finds among respon-
dents a palpable commitment to the advancement of ‘positive human
excellence for all.’”
—Steven J. Gold, PhD, Michigan State University, USA
“In an engaging, self-reflexive style of oral history, Lorick-Wilmot uses
undervalued but necessary frameworks of class, post-colonial theory,
transnationality, and the diaspora to show that the middle class Caribbean
second generation is also the Black American experience.”
—Nadia Y. Kim, PhD, Loyola Marymount University, USA
“Lorick-Wilmot offers a compelling account from a decolonized perspective,
which refuses to accept the one-dimensionality of white imperial supremacy as
the only reality to understand adult children of Caribbean immigrants.”
—Silvia Dominquez, PhD, MSW, Northeastern University, USA
Yndia S. Lorick-Wilmot
Stories of Identity among
Black, Middle Class,
Second Generation
Caribbeans
We, Too, Sing America
Yndia S. Lorick-Wilmot
Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-62207-1 ISBN 978-3-319-62208-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-62208-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947767
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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a
cknowledgments
Like the popular Igbo and Yoruba (Nigerian) proverb states, it takes a
v illage to raise a whole child, for me, it took a village to write this book.
This book would not have been possible without the continued support of
those who believed in the project and my ability to bring it to fruition. As
always, my family remains my anchor and salvation. My family—my hus-
band Damian and children Justin and Sydney, my parents Taecha and
Curives, and extended relatives and family friends located throughout the
United States and the Caribbean islands of Grenada and Trinidad—too
many to mention here, have given me their love, encouragement, and
patience each day and throughout the writing process. I could not have
done this without you all.
Over the course of this project, I have benefited from the informal and
formal support of my special community of friends, writers, and colleagues,
to name a few—Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, V.B.T, Alicia Anabel
Santos, Anton Nimblett, Delida Sanchez, Michele Simms-Burton, Tawana
Thompson, Summer Edward, Todne Thomas, Tiffany Manuel, Jaronda
Miller-Bryant, Dolores Ortiz, Maureen Kelleher, and Gordana Rabrenovic.
I am grateful to each of you for engaging me in endless discussions and
debates, and providing insightful comments that helped me contend with
the sociological framing of the stories told and issues raised throughout
the book. I also thank Alexis Nelson, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan for
her encouragement and patience, and her editorial support staff for their
preparation of the manuscript.
Finally, I want to especially thank the women and men whom I inter-
viewed. Their beautiful, heart-wrenching, and ever complex stories reflect
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
the lived experiences of so many children of Caribbean immigrants living
in the United States, including my own. During our conversations, we
touched on a number of topics that elicited a range of emotions—from
joy, sadness, and embarrassment to anger, frustration, and hope. I am
grateful to them for their bravery, honesty, and openness.
Let their stories sing and pay homage to the ancestors that came
before—who faced adversity and sacrificed much with the hopes of them
achieving the highly sought after American Dream. Let their stories sing
in the present about the enduring ways they grapple with race, ethnicity,
gender, and class in their public and private lives. And, let their stories sing
their hopes for the future and what lies ahead for their next generation as
they say, We, Too, Sing America.
c
ontents
1 Introduction: My Personal and Scholarly Journey 1
2 Un-Othering the Black Experience:
Storytelling and Sociology 9
3 What Does Race Have to Do with It? 39
4 Blackness as Experience 65
5 Habitus of Blackness and the Confluence
of Middle Class-ness 109
6 From Lessons Learned to Real-life Performances
of Cultural Capital and Habitus 153
7 Performing Identity in Public 197
8 Transnational Community Ties, Black Philanthropy,
and Triple Identity Consciousness 239
vii
viii CONTENTS
9 We, Too, Sing America: Where Do We Go from Here? 261
Bibliography 277
Index 281
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: My Personal
and Scholarly Journey
Scholars like myself are often concerned with exploring the shifting and
complex dynamics and changes that occur across racial and ethnic com-
munities over time. Readers in this topic area may be most familiar with
works by William Julius Wilson, Elijah Anderson, Thomas Shapiro, Melvin
Oliver, Amanda E. Lewis, Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton and Mary
C. Waters, to name a few, who have focused on the experiences and
outcomes for underserved communities, working class African Americans,
and/or new immigrants. As these racial and ethnic communities continue
to expand and diversify a range of public and private, urban and suburban,
social, economic, and political spaces, different lenses are needed to under-
stand this complexity.
This book Stories of Identity among Black Middle Class Second Generation
Caribbeans: We, Too, Sing America is a sociological exploration (albeit a
self-exploration, too) that examines the salience of race and ethnic identity
in the stories children of Caribbean immigrants tell about their complex
experiences navigating public and private spaces. Inspired by Langston
Hughes’ 1945 poem “I, Too, Sing America,” my research points to the
continued struggle blacks experience to be heard and seen as a valued,
vital part of America’s cultural, social, political, and economic fabric.
As folklore suggests, Langston Hughes was compelled to write a
response to Walt Whitman’s (1886) poem “I Hear America Singing.” For
many, Whitman’s poem celebrates America and the individuals that make
© The Author(s) 2018 1
Y.S. Lorick-Wilmot, Stories of Identity among Black,
Middle Class, Second Generation Caribbeans,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-62208-8_1