While a number of pertinent issues were discussed in this weeks set of readings I felt as though the disparity of cultural attitudes between Caribbean’s and American Blacks was the most interesting. Caribbeans by and large have stronger connections with their countries of origin. This makes quite a bit of sense seeing as Caribbeans living in the United States are usually only separated from their homelands by a few generations at maximum. American blacks usually have been here for hundreds of years and many generations. As such, even though they originally came (re: were taken) from Africa the bonds that connect them to their homeland are usually much less pronounced.
When presented with the struggles of being an American Caribbeans have the support network of their paesani and family in place to ease the transition and provide them with an “escape” should living here prove too difficult. They tend to reside in ethnic enclaves to insulate themselves from American society. This is often the case for any immigrant group that comes here in substantial numbers. Blacks in America don’t segment themselves nearly as much along national lines, they have all shared a similar story in this country regardless of where they might have came from hundreds of years ago. Instead of looking for support networks, they generally tend to rely on traditionally black institutions. Among the black population there is a much higher reliance on solidarity and “working within the system” because they had no home country they could go back to. As such they put much more importance on trying to change conditions domestically. This fundamental difference in mentality led to people identifying stronger and stronger with their own.
Another equally interesting concept discussed in this weeks readings is the disparity between female and male inculcation within West Indian households in the United States. It comes as no surprise that women have had a harder time trying to build a life for themselves when migrating to a new country. What does come as a surprise, however, is how female-centric the West Indian family paradigm is. Women seemed to be looked upon in a more respectful light even though they were relegated to the stereotypical “female” lines of work. Boys coming from these families faced the brunt of racial discrimination, as such their behaviors became polarized into “acting white” and “acting black”. In each case acting in that manner promotes a sense of racial solidarity and, to me, seems like a defense mechanism to protect them from the harsh realities of discriminatory American society. Men were expected to venture out into this intimidated new society while females were generally more insulated. While this was the case, women were the ones who held the family together, established the support and trust networks and paved the way for more members of the family/community to come to America. In this vein I feel like the women coming from the Caribbean had a much greater impact than the men due to their responsibilities including being caretakers, breadwinners, and anchors in the community.
