Buff, Rachel. “Review: Community, Culture, and the Caribbean Diaspora.” American Quarterly 46, no. 4 (Dec. 1994): 612-620. Accessed April 21, 2017, http://ww.jstor.org/stable/41495092.

In this article, the author is reviewing the book Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and the Politics of Race by Philip Kasinitz and further discussing the themes of his work.  The author explains that Kasinitz is a sociologies writing about West Indians in New Yok City and how their identity is inserted in “public life.” This means in the political and economic spheres.  Because of this, Kasinitz work intersects with all aspects of identity, especially race since his study is taking place in the United States.  By analyzing the trends in West Indian immigration to the United States through the twentieth century, the changing political identities of this group can be traced.  The author of this article criticizes Kasinitz’s readiness to accept that the important of race in West Indian political identity declined after 1965, citing that race, along with gender and class, has been a constant factor in united states politics, especially during the 1970-80s.  When concluding the review, the author states that “…we must consider… the cultural strategies and social practices [that] involve individuals in a complex matrix of racial, ethnic, and national formations.”  This closing line is a great point for connecting this article’s historical and sociological background to the presence of West Indian and the greater Caribbean community’s involvement in politics throughout New York City.  By understanding that the formation of political and social identity is connected to “cultural strategies,” the importance of cultural institutions in the American diaspora is underscored.

 

Huggins, Winston. “Caribbean Cultural Aesthetics: A New York Experience.” Caribbean Quarterly 42, no. 4 (Dec. 1996): 11-18. Accessed April 21, 2017, http://ww.jstor.org/stable/23050386.

This article gives a brief overview of how Caribbean immigrants have engaged with the New York City art community through different media.  By guiding readers through Caribbean influences on different layers of art, from the typical forms of writing, painting, architecture, music, and film to the deeper ideas of self-determination and expression discovered through art, the author conveys how essential the Caribbean artist is to the New York art scene while maintaining Caribbean traditions in the diaspora.  This article is important for beginning to read more about Caribbean artists and work specific to New York City.  From the article, one can expand research into different aspects of art, especially when thinking about the role of the artist in both the Caribbean and great New York communities.  Their influence must be taken into account when researching the way Caribbean people find commonalities and places of community in a very diverse place.  The author cites specific communities like Flatbush, Brooklyn as centers for Caribbean art and aesthetics but also notes that wherever a Caribbean community is formed, their artistic influence follows.  This explains how linked art and Caribbean culture are.  Also, the author uses examples of Jamaican musicians in the article, noting that their musical influence is of particular importance to the rest of the Caribbean community, including the diaspora.

 

Misani. “Festival to celebrate the best of Caribbean drama and literature.” The New York Amsterdam News, May 24-30, 2007.

In this printed newspaper article, information on the International Caribbean Diaspora (ICD) Film, Theater, and Literacy Festival from June 2007 is shared.  From the title of the event, the importance the diasporic community places on arts and culture is clear.  By presenting the critically acclaimed work of Caribbean filmmaker Euzhan Palcy and facilitating panel discussions on Caribbean theater and literature, it is evident that the New York City Caribbean community has a great appreciation for the arts and culture that stem from Caribbean ethnicities and the development of Caribbean immigration identities.  The article shows that events based in the intersection of American and Caribbean culture and how the two influence each other are important bases that serve as points of conversation between members of the diaspora.  The arts are often works of activism or rooted in emotion, becoming politicized either by intention or by reception.  This event is a great way to read first-hand about the open discussion held on Caribbean black identity in the political sphere of the United States and how art has reflected or challenged those feelings.

 

Van Nyhuis, Alison. “Caribbean Literature, North American Migration, and the American Dream.” Atenea 32, no. ½ (Jan. 2012): 59-71. Accessed April 21, 2017, Academic Search Complete accession number 98391520.

The American Dream is an idea used in different kinds of literature, but its prevalence in Caribbean-American literature is unique to the immigrant experience, and in this article the author further examines it.  The author identifies rhetorical employments of the “American Dream” in various Caribbean writings, like those of Clade McKay, highlighting the contingencies found in the “utopian” image of America as a place where anyone can make it to the top.  It is found that in order to find success in the American Dream, one must be white and preferably male.  This is a critical point when understanding the power of literature in the Caribbean diaspora in terms of political, social, and economic thought.  By choosing to center novels, biographies, autobiographies, poem, and short stories around the almost mythological idea of the American Dream, Caribbean authors are engaging with the American diaspora to inspire thoughts contrary to the imagery associated with America (success, equality, wealth, education—things much more difficult to achieve once one actually gets here).  This analysis makes written word an essential means of political and social organization of Caribbean people in the American diaspora.  Within stories of people like them, struggling to find their identity as second generation immigrants for example, Caribbean immigrants to America are simultaneously reading texts charged with political fervor, in a way uniting them under the fight for racial equality within the United States rather than being broken up among ethnicities.  This article is extremely important when discussing the effect literature has on the diaspora.

 

Vargas-Ramos, Carlos. “Caribbeans in New York: Political Participation, Strategic Cooperation and the Prospect for Pan-Ethnic Political Mobilization in the Diaspora.” Caribbean Studies 39, no. ½ (Jan.-Dec. 2011): 65-103. Accessed April 17, 2017, http://ww.jstor.org/stable/41495092.

In this study, the author uses the results from a survey and observations of political behavior to analyze the political identities of the Caribbean diaspora in New York City.  The author sets out to discover which identities Caribbean people in New York City use to forge their own political identity in the frame of American politics.  What the author finds is that Caribbean people do not convene under a united political identity when campaigning for a particular politician or deciding who they will vote for in an election. A “Caribbean pan-ethic identity” is not easily found in New York, and the author attributes this to the much heavier influence of nationalistic identities.  In New York City, neighborhoods, social circles, and most often political circles revolve around nationality or socioeconomic background rather than the broad identity of “Caribbean.”  This research is useful in providing context for bases that emerge in Caribbean communities for political and social activism dialogs, especially during the current political climate.  Community centers, churches, local markets, and independent bookstores all serves as places of conversation where political ideas are shared among members of a community, and this article helps identity who belongs to those communities and why.