The readings for this week covered new factors influencing Caribbean transnationalism. In “Caribbean Transnationalism as a Gendered Process” by Christine G. T. Ho, she explains the many transforming roles that Caribbean women have to take for their personal success, as well as the success of their children and their transnational networks. In Chapter 7 of Mary C. Waters’ Growing Up West Indian and African American and Chapter 8 of Reuel Rogers’ Black Like Who?, results of their studies are shown and analyzed and come to the consensus that the American culture towards black skinned people have to change to improve the chances of upward mobility for second generation Caribbean children. For the poor and working-class black Americans, racism and discrimination make up their childhood and cannot afford to get out of that life.
Many Caribbean women are the definition of single mothers. In coming to New York City, they strive to get a job to help their family. While they work, they also have to keep order in the household. They do this to move up social class. However, as the job opportunities for Caribbean women rise in America, the opportunities for men decline. Despite that, women still need the extra income to support their children. In an attempt to not fall behind, they spread their family network across many borders, as well as keeping strong ties to their home nations. Discrimination against their race has prevented full integration into society therefore requiring them to have a back up plan in case of the racial tension getting too hostile.
Future generations of Caribbean Americans are greatly affected by the level of success that the first generation has. In the best-case scenario, the parents have been successful both socially and economically, which gives the children a chance for good education and to visit the parents’ home nation. This gives the child an opportunity to interact more with his ethnic background and learn to appreciate it. He will have his own transnational network built from the ones his parents introduced him to. This was the case of the interviewees that identified themselves as West Indian in the interviews conducted by Waters and Rogers. In the opposite end of the spectrum were the poor families. The children in poor families only have their parents as a connection to their ethnic background. They are more exposed to racial slurs because they look like native blacks. As they grow older, they identify themselves as a black American rather than their ethnic background. They were born in America, just like other black Americans and don’t have access to ethnic trust networks. There is nothing to differentiate themselves from other black Americans, not even a foreign accent.
From these readings, it seems that the worst possible thing is to be recognized as a native black American. This is unfortunate for them and for the new immigrants that are put together with them by the white majority. The worst part is that instead of improving the race relations by spreading knowledge to end prejudice, the immigrants separate themselves from the native blacks. There is no clear manner to end instinctive discrimination, but hopefully there will be efforts made to break this terrible cycle.
