Guyanese Americans

Guyanese American Culture

Guyanese Americans have a variety of beliefs that originate in Guyana, and these inform their day-to-day actions. For example, it is a Guyanese American custom to turn and enter a house backward when it is late at night. Guyanese Americans also enjoy an embarrassment of riches vis-à-vis proverbs. This colorful language helps maintain a notable Guyanese American character.

Guyanese Americans enjoy a cuisine that is flavorful and pungent; a typical Guyanese American dish and the national dish of Guyana is pepper-pot, a sort of stew eaten with rice or bread. Most Guyanese American food is based on economizing and stretching food as far as it will go, so all parts of animals are used and spices add panache to what might otherwise be bland entrees.

Creole, a blend of English and African dialects, is the spoken language of Guyana. English is used for formal matters. After the first generation of Guyanese American immigrants, few spoke Creole in their day-to-day lives, although colorful idioms remain a strong component of the speech of Guyanese Americans.

Family, Religion, and Community Dynamics

First-generation Guyanese Americans were likely to see extended families as their social center. Endogamy was a strong preference, although like most Caribbean ethnic groups, Guyanese Americans did see themselves as having an overall English-speaking Caribbean ethnicity. This would therefore make intermarriage with other Caribbean immigrants fairly common. Ceremonies for weddings, funerals, and baptisms were shared community experiences and served to preserve the community's cultural identity.

As in Guyana, most Guyanese Americans were Episcopalian, and Guyanese American churches have always served as hubs for social networking. Churches also provided much of the community's educational opportunities for the children, and Guyanese Americans typically preferred that their children receive private schooling designed to preserve cultural identity rather than favoring complete assimilation.

Early Guyanese Americans settled in northeastern urban environments in order to access work, which was commonly low paying; later generations were more educated and more likely to hold more lucrative jobs. Entrepreneurship was valued by the community, and therefore many Guyanese Americans ran their own family businesses. This allowed for more preservation of Guyanese traditions as well as more secure economic status for Guyanese Americans.

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