Peopling of NYC 2012

In Sheri Ann Butterfield’s article, she describes the identity of second generation West Indians in terms of both race and ethnicity. She asserts that West Indians do not make a choice between race and identity; they embrace both. According to Butterfield, one may be more emphasized than the other depending on the environment and the context of the situation. Choosing to emphasize one part of identity does not mean rejection of the other. Butterfield also argues that assimilation is not unidirectional and the notion that West Indians distance themselves from African Americans to prevent downward mobility fails to account for class status. West Indians who are financially inclined choose to distinguish themselves from all poor blacks, not just African Americans.

Differences in ethnicity and race fosters racism, as shown by the example of West Indian children being judged for their accents or in many cases where West Indians are assumed to be African Americans. West Indian identity in society is a bit complicated because they are racially the same as African Americans, but ethnically different. Because of this, they face discrimination on both sides.

One good thing that has stemmed from the second generation of West Indians is the changing role of women. The role of West Indian women was to wait on men and perform domestic chores. This has changed in the second generation in that more and more West Indian women are becoming educated which leads to them getting prestigious jobs, a substantial change from the role they were formerly expected to live up to.

Caribbean and West Indian culture is increasingly influencing New York culture, which may be an indication that their culture is now more widely known. This is advantageous to them because people may not confuse them with other ethnicities as often as they did before.

My group is zeroing on the religion of Jackson Heights. Our initial plan was to find the 3 most common religions practiced in the area and then focusing on those. At first we had trouble finding exact percentages of the population that belonged to each religion, but ultimately we decided that Christianity, Judaism and Islam would be the three most common in Jackson Heights. We recalled seeing Churches on our visit, and began to search for places of worship in Jackson Heights on the internet and found churches, synagogues, and masjids, or mosques, to be the most available. We decided to approach this project of learning more about religion in Jackson Heights with research as well as interviews. We will pair internet research (articles) with interviews with the heads of some places of worship in Jackson Heights. My group and I have already emailed many places asking for phone interviews so that we could learn more about religion’s impact on the community. Some of these include Masjid Al-Taufiq,  St. Mark’s Episcopal Chuch, and Elmhurst Kehilla. We emailed multiple places for each religion, to cover the bases and also have diversity, as well as back ups if some places can’t come through with interviews, or chose not to give any.

Sherri-Ann P. Butterfield conducted a very interesting study on the identity formation and classification of second generation West Indians. The main issue for West Indians is that they continue to be distinguished by the color of their skin instead of their ethnic background. Numerous uneducated and racist individuals perceive West Indians to be African Americans, where in fact they are from completely different parts of the world. Such a misconception, socioeconomic class, and gender roles, are causing second generation West Indians to take on a new identity for themselves.

Second generation West Indians continue to struggle in choosing an identity that seems fit by American standards or the identity that their parents desire based on the ethnicity of their homeland. Numerous participants in Butterfield’s study spoke of the racism that they received, purely due to the fact that the color of their skin is black. When racist individuals see a black person, they automatically assume African American, and a multitude of negative stereotypes come to mind. One example that was given astounded me; it was about the West Indian girl who was asked to speak about her family’s transition from the south to the north in her AP history course, and when she said that she was West Indian, and not African American, the teacher responds “I can’t believe you haven’t had a true black experience.” All of these stereotypes from teachers and fellow students have caused some West Indians to actually play an African American role just to fit in at school, and when they return home they become West Indian again to please their parents.

Socioeconomic class and gender also have a major effect on the identities created by second generation West Indians. Differences between working and middle-class West Indians have brought about different perceptions of one another. Middle class West Indians utilize their class and ethnicity to distance themselves from not only poor African Americans, but poor blacks in general. The neighborhood in which a West Indian lives in definitely has an affect on the the class of the people and therefore affects their identity. In addition to socioeconomic class, gender roles are also changing for second generation West Indians. Second generation West Indian women are now diverging from the previous path of West Indian women, where they used to wait on men, to a more independent route where they go to college, get a descent job, and marry a man with “equal-marriage” values. Men, on the other hand, seem to be taking up a more unifying role where they see all men of color equally in a fight to defend themselves from abuse and harassment from cops.

Second generation West Indians are succumb to a multitude of factors that determine their identity and perception of self. Racism from those who see West Indians as African Americans, socioeconomic status, and gender roles are all major factors that contribute to the identity West Indians establish for themselves. Hopefully, people will become more educated and understanding in the future in order for West Indians and all the other immigrants to be proud of their ethnic identities instead of hiding or changing identity.

There is one observation in the Butterfield piece that really struck me more than any other, and that is the assertion of one interviewed subject that the very existence of such a broad and diverse range of cultural groups in New York City prevents the unification of large groups of people across ethnic or racial lines. Since a large part of this class is about the coexistence and interaction of various cultural groups, I think the question raised by this subject’s observation is a very interesting and important one to consider: As much as we celebrate diversity, does it ironically impede our progress in learning to work together? If so, why is this the case?
I would tend to disagree with the subject who made this statement. I don’t think that the presence of so many different groups is what makes it so hard to find common ground. Rather, I think that what makes finding common ground difficult is the simple, but basic, desire to remain in one’s comfort zone. There is a lot of hard work involved in reaching out to others and choosing not only to identify, but also to celebrate, your similarities, rather than harp on your differences. If the desire to do so is there, though, then it should be no more overwhelming to find such similarities with people of many different ethnicities but a common uniting factor like race or religion than it would be to do so with just a small handful. The real obstacle to establishing common ground with other ethnic groups is not that there are so many different groups, but rather, than each individual group is so big in and of itself. Ethnic groups are essentially self-sufficient and self-contained, and almost do not “need” each other to help create a community—so there is no need to venture outside of your comfort zone, nothing pushing you to do so. In the absence of such a need, the appeal of unity, in and of itself, gets lost in the shadow of the effort required to attain it.

One of Butterfield’s main points in her article is that a racial identity and an ethnic one are not mutually exclusive traits, and that a person can have both, rather than choose between the two.  For example, a person can be both black and West Indian–the black would be the racial component, and the person is ethnically West Indian.

A girl in my politics class spoke about this in class last week.  She immigrated from Jamaica, and considers herself “black.”  However, she feels that she has been lumped together with other people of black skin color, even though she considers herself to be different from other “blacks,” such as African-Americans (those who are actually from Africa).  She told of how cultures and ideologies are very different between the two groups; therefore, just because her skin color is that of African Americans, she can not be lump summed with them.

I think this teaches us a very striking lesson in understanding and tolerance.  Just because someone appears to be a certain way–by eye at least–does not mean that we can generalize and/or group this person.  People are just much more complicated than that.  How much more so in a city like New York where there are so many different shades of skin, coming from countries all around the world.

Can we even use the terms “black” and “white” anymore?  “Black” nowadays can refer to so many things: African-American?  Afro-Carribean? More specifically, Jamaican or Dominican?  And “white”: European, Irish, English?  And let’s be honest, there are a lot more colors in between “black” and “white.”  Use your imagination.  We have to gain a greater social acceptance and understanding for people, for fear of disrespect and outright rudeness.

I thought an interesting concept raised in the readings for this week was the impact education has on the assimilation process of second-generation immigrants as well the influence it has on immigrants forming an identity for themselves. In the Butterfield piece, which examines the racial and ethnic identities of West Indians, school is where second generation West Indians first learned what their “blackness” meant. In the Lopez article, she regards education as both the “biggest individual challenge” facing second generation immigrants as they grow up and the “most institutional sorting mechanism” in determining their life trajectories.

In her documentation of West Indian second generation immigrants, Butterfield discovered that their racial identities lead to discrimination and limit their possibilities. For instance, West Indian accents led some teachers to believe they were uneducated and gave the teachers incentive to hold them back a grade. One West Indian man recalled being the only one to raise his hand in class when a teacher asked a question a number of times and getting ignored each time. Moreover, in parent teacher conferences this same teacher called out the student on not participating enough. School was where these second generation immigrants were singled out for speaking and dressing funny and ultimately where they realized that they were different.

Amidst her other points regarding education for second generation Dominicans in her article, Lopez delves into the limitations they face as a result of school districting. Districting for these children forces them to go to schools that are not considered to be good schools, in fact they are quite the contrary. These schools are negative environments with the majority of the student population uninterested in receiving a good education. Furthermore, underpaid teachers and lack of resources can further contribute to the downward spiral second generation immigrants may face when they go to these schools.

For better or worse, the education environment these second generation immigrants are entered into have a significant influence in shaping an identity for them. To avoid some of the limitations and discrimination their children may face in public schools, West Indian parents may look to private school as a costly alternative or specialized high schools. Yet even this is not a suitable cure for some West Indian students as the majority white student population in private schools and the few West Indian students in specialized high schools emphasize their apparent differences even further. Districting can be very problematic in that it can have a huge contribution in the assimilation path many second generation immigrants may end up taking. In most instances, poor regional high schools may doom an immigrant child to downward assimilation.

I found one particular line that Sherri-Ann P. Butterfield said very interesting.  “In many ways New York City is more Caribbean than the Caribbean itself.”  In many ways this is true, as the 1999 “Current Population” survey puts West Indians at roughly 600,000, about one-third of New York City’s black population.

Butterfield documents the interviews of many second generation West Indians in her article.  One of them who lived in New York for thirty-five years, Shauna, says that she finally decided to take advantage of the parades New York had to offer, even though she does not belong to those ethnic groups that were being represented.  Butterfield says that immigrants appreciate New York for all it has to offer, and because they can bond with other “like-minded” people within their own enclaves.  However, sometimes the extreme diversity comes at a price.  Thirty-year-old Marie discusses an incident that occurred when she was in high school, where her teacher assumed she was African American because she has their skin color.  Her teacher asked her to discuss the “black experience,” while Marie had no idea what it was.

Just because two people have the same skin color does not mean they are from the same place or have the same culture.  This is a much too common assumption made by Americans.  Americans generally are too close-minded, and seem to think that there are only a few cultures represented in New York—European, Asian, African American, and Spanish.  They do not seem to realize that within those cultures are many smaller divisions of subcultures.

This incident brought up the issue that West Indians sometimes felt pressured to be more “black American.”  Because not much is known about West Indian culture, they feel like they need to conform to other cultures to satisfy the general public.  However, this does not sit well with the first generation West Indians, who strongly believe in culture preservation.  Minority cultures should not have to act like others to be accepted and understood in society.  New York is a place of diversity, and if everyone acted like everyone else, it wouldn’t be such.

While reading these two sources, I could not help but think of my own recent contemplations regarding the authenticity of ethnicity and the differing perspectives of individuals within modern, urban New York society.  For some reason, even though my parents are not immigrants (only one of my grandfathers is an immigrant), I feel like I can relate to the confusions experienced by some of the participants in Butterfield’s study.  Perhaps this is due to the structure of New York City more than any other factor.  Sure, we all have certain customs in which we participate at home and with family members, but we also have another life outside of our homes where we participate with others, regardless of their ethnic background.  In this sense, maybe New Yorkers somehow adopt an additional ethnicity simply from living in this ethnically diverse urban arena.  I would not go as far as saying that this is an American addition but just a uniquely New York one.

With the immense diversity bursting forth from our city, I’m also coming to learn that no two people are the same.  Granted, that seems silly and simple; however, a different sense of knowledge comes when you actually start to experience something for yourself.  In the Butterfield article, the author writes that the members of the West Indian communities in New York that usually come in contact with other West Indians (from different regions) generally categorize themselves through a broader classification lens.  Perhaps this is caused by a sense of connection to one’s own ethnicity while participating in the customs of another’s, albeit similar or vastly different.  It is interesting, though, because ethnic customs cannot be isolated when categorizing groups of peoples; to forsake the effect of family practices, for example, on ethnicity does not make sense.  In light of this, I find it difficult to categorize people.  Correction: when I think about categorizing people for classroom purposes, etc., I find it difficult and somewhat inaccurate because there are myriad overlapping aspects of what identifies the people who constitute a particular group.

Whether or not this is relevant, I’m not sure, and this is a difficult reaction to properly articulate.  However, the more I learn about the ethnic diversity of the residents of New York City, the more I realize the diversity of the human race and the complexity involved in the makeup of who an individual truly is.  Does that make sense?

“The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants” by Portes and Zhou was an enjoyable read because a lot of the conclusions the authors reached through observation of specific communities were some of the same I had reached in my own life experiences. With the example of “Valleyside” High School (a made up name used to protect individuals interviewed) it was particularly interesting that the Punjabi students excelled academically in spite of the racism they faced, unlike in the previous example with Mexicans in “Field” High School. Punjabis disregarded opposition from the white majority and instead dedicated themselves to education, in a way, to prove themselves academically. It was interesting that a portion of the Mexicans, “Chicanos”, disregarded education because to them academics was something for the white majority and to dedicate themselves to school would be equivalent to losing their culture.  In my opinion, this notion is quite false and I’m not too sure why it is a popular idea to Chicanos. As stated in the example of Valleyside, Punjabi kids were told by their parents to do well in school but still retain their culture and roots, and to not give in to “American” social pressures of dating and the like. It seems the Punjabi students prove it is possible to achieve upward mobility though education without a complete loss of identity in America. To me, it seems like an excuse to pair “whiteness” with academics in the case of the “Chicanos” as they are called in Field HS. My parents act in the same way the Punjabi parents do: they emphasize education because they are subjected to less well-paying jobs because of their lack of college degrees (which was a point made in the article, the huge gap between first immigrants and their offspring’s employment possibilities) but they still don’t want me to lose sight of the past, of the history of the family, and the culture and traditions that are only capable of being threatened if ignored in vigorous pursuit of an American dream.