This week we finished reading Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall. Reading this book has been very helpful and insightful for me. Seeing the individual lives and perceptions that are repeatedly brought up in the book really help to give an image of the Harlem immigrant experience on the micro scale.

A big scene is the breakfast scene in book three. Around this point World War II is starting and the women are speaking about this. They are concerned that the young men will be taken away. Soon the conversation transitions away to regular gossip. They speak about who is buying houses and who is getting married. As we discussed in class, this is a feminist novel. It shows how important the women’s’ gossip is to the community, which is the often trivialized. These women, often lead the households by giving the family direction, and thus their gossip and methods of spreading information are very important.

Some more important social analysis can be done in regard to ‘Gatha’s daughter’s wedding scene and the treatment of weddings in the novel. As one reads, one realizes that the wedding isn’t really for the bride. The festivities go on as the sits and remains uninvolved. This shows how weddings are more for social status then love. She originally wanted to marry one man but since he was Southern black and not Caribbean, her family pressured her to marry someone else. This makes evident the racial and ethnic prejudices that existed within black communities. But the main reason that the wedding was held and made so luxurious was to display wealth. They were showing everyone else in the community how well everything was turning out for them. The community then tends to bring them down and remind them of where they came from.

There is also big factor of race. The scene with Selina in Margaret’s house is pivotal in the story and to Selina’s life. For much of her childhood, she wanted to grow up and live with a family. But once in Margaret’s house, she confronts the reality of racism. Margaret’s mother reminds Selina of who she is and where she comes from in a way that tries to appear kind but is extremely aggressive in a passive way. She says that Selina is good for her race and can’t help the color of her skin. It makes Selina extremely uncomfortable and she tries to leave but the woman does not let her. This as very significant to Selina, as it served as a reality check. In the novel it is stated that after this moment Selina cannot look at a white person without thinking about that moment. This moment changes her and in the end influences her to go to Barbados to see it for herself.

This week we also read From Immigrant To Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration by Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch and Cristina Szanton Blanc. This article discussed the idea of the transmigrant. These people are defined as follows “”Transmigrants are immigrants whose daily lives depend on multiple and constant interconnections across international borders and whose public identities are configured in relationship to more than one nation-state.” The transnational networks and relations are extremely important to the movement and settling of these people. The first reason for the transational immigration phenomenon is the drastic change in capital and political and economic situations. The second is racism in both the U.S. and Europe, which leaves the immigrants in instable economic positions. And the third reason is because different loyalties to nation states emerge, wherever the networks exist.

I found it interesting that the Greek immigrant example was used as a central concept for understanding the situation. The article states “the current efforts of both immigrants and states with dispersed populations to construct a deterritorialized nation-state that encompasses a diasporic population within its domain can be understood through examining the trajectory of Greek migration.” Even when the Greek population disperses they continue to build their nation and identity wherever they arrive. A collective world wide identify for Greeks was created which included both Greeks in Greece and abroad.

This recent wave of migrants broke with the trend of settling in a country and abandoning their roots in order to assimilate. The transmigrants do what is necessary and move in necessary ways in order for them to survive as an individual or family unit. This is explained in the line: “By stretching, reconfiguring, and activating these networks across national boundaries, families are able to maximize the utilization of labor and resources in multiple settings and survive within situations of economic uncertainty and subordination.” It is pointed out how big of a role these transnational migrants play a role in different societies. But despite of this they are often cast in a very negative light and are blame for internal deterioration of nation states.