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Caribbean Americans

In May 2006, U.S. president George W. Bush signed a law, effective immediately, proclaiming that June would be nationally recognized as Caribbean American Heritage Month. Such a declaration is as much political as symbolic, indicating the changing political status and spheres of influence of Caribbean Americans in the United States. This entry discusses the emergence of the category Caribbean American, the histories of migration, and social characteristics of the contemporary (post-1965) immigrant population (first generation and beyond).

Definition

Far from being a geographic descriptor, the term Caribbean American is a recent one, emerging in the late 1990s as a more popular term to characterize immigrant populations from Caribbean commonwealth countries (i.e., those formerly referred to as “West Indian”), which were colonized by Britain from the 17th to the early 20th century: Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, and Guyana. The term is also used to describe immigrants from Central American countries (e.g., Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama) who originate from the Caribbean coastal areas and are descendants of labor migrations of West Indians of the late 19th century.

As a category of analysis, Caribbean American does not typically include immigrants from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, who also constitute a large and visible presence in cities in the United States. As such, the category reflects the emergence of a salient racial-ethnic group and identity that is distinct from categories such as Latino and African American.

The ethnic makeup of immigrants' home societies reflects their multiple histories of forced and voluntary emigration from Africa, China, Syria, Portugal, and India. Some of these societies are of predominantly African origin (e.g., Jamaica, Barbados, and Haiti), whereas others are multiracial/multiethnic (e.g. Belize, Guyana, Dominica, and Trinidad and Tobago). However, the category Caribbean American is socially constructed as a subset of the larger group racialized as “Black” in the United States, reflecting both historical patterns of immigration—the majority of immigrants are of African descent—and the distinct racial structure of the United States.

Migration Histories

The earliest movement of Caribbean persons to the United States is registered in the 18th century in the southern slaveholding states of South Carolina, Louisiana, and Georgia. In the early 20th century, the first wave of Caribbean immigrants—approximately 40,000 between 1900 and 1930—arrived by steamship to ports in New York City and Baltimore, seeking life-improving opportunities. The majority settled in northern neighborhoods, such as Harlem, located in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. Immigrants were primarily young, had some education or skill, and were highly ambitious. Nonetheless, they faced significant discrimination based on gender, skin color, national origin, and cultural attributes (i.e., language, interpersonal styles, and accents).

In the first half of the 20th century, access to job opportunities came through formal state-sponsored programs, such as the British West Indies Temporary Alien Program, which recruited agricultural workers, primarily men, to work in orchards and cane fields in the United States, and the more informal programs like the Bronx Slave Markets, where immigrant women vied with each other to be hired as domestic workers. Overall, immigrants relied primarily on social networks (i.e., family and ethnic) for social and economic support, for child care, and for help finding jobs as seamstresses and pressers in the garment industry, porters, and waiters and positions in the skilled trades (e.g., printers, cabinetmakers, etc.).

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