Second Generartion

Origin conditions

People migrate for a variety of reasons, including job opportunities, the desire to escape a violent conflict, environmental concerns, educational chances, and the desire to reunite with family. Immigrating to the United States is a difficult process that is frequently guided by a few fundamental goals, such as unifying families, improving the economy with talented professionals, fostering diversity, and assisting refugees.

America is often referred as "the land of the free" but it isn't always the most welcoming. This proved to be a huge obstacle for migrants and is an integral part of the origin conditions of the first-generation.

Origin Conditions

Melissa

Jobs

Jobs

• after their migration to the U.S. in the late 1960s, first generation immigrants were predominantly offered low-paying jobs, namely service and domestic work

ex. restaurants, garment industry, factories, etc.

• both native born African Americans and Caribbean immigrants faced intense racism that restricted their access to job opportunities regardless of their level of expertise, education, etc.

Tolu

Mentality (Olivia )

Mentality

When looking into the first generation immigrants that come to America they either fall into two categories. One, is that they are still connected to their homes regardless of distance. While the other hand is that many have dismissed their connection to their islands as a result of trauma or the effect of the struggling they have faced back home.Often times when met with questions of race they choose the identity that best suited them depending on status. This idea of the model minority comes into play here we the idea of being Caribbean makes you better or different than their african american peers.

However often times the assimilation into african american culture allowed them be seen as the same and be able to obtain the same treatment and rewards that they received. This can be seen in the readings reviewed throughout the course such as Brown girl Brownstone and Dew Breaker. Through this we see a sense of identity being interchangeable , yet at their core of each 1st generation immigrant is the acknowledgment of where they came from, their past. Identity doesn‘t change this but works together to further shape who they are as a person and how they choose to navigate their lives moving forward including how they treat their families.

First Generation: racial and Ethnic identity

Identity

First-generation Caribbeans felt a strong connection to their ethnic background and did not want to be considered an American black person, so they tried to separate themselves from that identity as much as possible. They would often speak of American black people in a negative way and actively voiced that their status was higher than the black American community. These are views that they would openly express to second generation Caribbeans which greatly influenced how they felt about their racial and ethnic identities. (Waters, 797)

Second Gen & FIrst Gen conversations (Olivia)

video

Pre-migration Education Status

Their parent's social class may, quite literally, dictate their proximity to helpful resources that allow them to succeed:

Class & Geography

Excerpt from “The Economic Lives of Black Immigrants: An Analysis of Wages, Homeownership, and Locational Attachment in the United States”

“Africans' ability to live in areas with more college graduations and higher average income provides residents with more or better public services and better quality public schools, all of which can have a substantial effect on the assimilation patterns of the second generation. Second generation Africans, therefore, may not only be advantaged by their parents' high levels of education, but also advantaged relative to both U.S.-born and second-generation Caribbean immigrants because of the quality of their neighborhoods.”

Cont. Pt 1

Alongside this we see social media has played a role in the second generation discovering their identity. With the help of apps of Instagram,Tik tok, Youtube, and many, more second generation immigrants are able to indulge themselves into their culture that maybe might not be so easily talked about at home or accessible . Social media also allows the second generation immigrants to see that being Caribbean is something to be proud of and is just as cool as being African American. In she’s mad real we see that the second generation immigrants girls are into pop culture and look up to girls that are popular and fit the box of someone they can see themselves in. With social media they are able to discover,follow, and support people that are exactly or more closely related to who they are and what they experience in their own day to day lives. As seen in the tik tok video and youtube video.Social Media allows these kids to see themselves as the ones being desired and different and also provides them with the ability to indulge themselves in said culture without the need for parent’s input .They can discover their culture and who they are for themselves.We also see the affect technology has on the second generations connection to their parents home and their family members.

Cont. pt2

We see this in the ability technology allows communication to connect generations regardless of distance. With apps such as Whatsapp, Facebook messenger, no longer is buying a calling card the only way to contact your grandma you might have only spoken to once a month due to costs or writing a letter (Plaza, and Below).These apps are free and only require a device which many family members are willing to help out to provide in order to be able to feel more connected.Through the internet and social media immigrants and their families are provided with a sense of community in everywhere , especially in places that are lacking (Plaza, and Below).In establishing these connections across generations , they also allow the second generation to grow an emotional connection to their family members and that connection is able to fuel their desire to remain connected to them outside of just conversation.

Examples of Second generation and Their Culture being available easily through social media

examples in media

Social media and technology has changed the way how the second generation absorbs the information and expresses themselves . They are able to connect and discover culture across oceans and routers. In viewing this difference between the first and second generation that grew up majority with out technology we also see a larger call to their parent's homeland as their own, wither it is in the form of culture day or a creole less on tik tok this generation that is grow up with this open access to technology is making their identity their own because it is at the tip of their fingers, literally and metaphorically.

conclusion

Ethnic Identity

Ethnic identity

“Q: When a form or a survey asks for your race what do you put down?

A: “they have Afro-American, but they never have like Caribbean. [...] To tell the truth, I would like to be called Caribbean, West Indian. Black West Indian.” (Waters, 806)

This is a quote from an interview with a participant who identifies with their ethnic background. Given the role race plays in our society, ethnic identified second-generation Caribbeans face a struggle when it comes to how the world perceives them versus how they perceive themselves. The world sees them as African Americans, but they want to be perceived as the Caribbean.

American Identity

American Identity

“In a living room, he barely recognized, with people he had met once or twice, if at all, and a handful of relatives” (Alexis, 48).

“Canadians didn’t do that kind of thing, did they?” (Alexis, 62)

These are quotes from Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa by Andre Alexis. This is a book of short stories that describe his childhood as a second-generation Caribbean in Canada and how he wanted to be seen as Canadian instead of Caribbean. These quotes are from a story called Kuala Lumpur which details a wake after the character, Michael’s, father’s death. Michael spends a lot of the story trying to distance himself from his Caribbean relatives by saying how he doesn’t recognize them or he doesn’t really know them. He wants to try and express that he is Canadian as much as possible by doing this along with speaking negatively about the wake since it wasn’t something that Canadians did. The story of Michael closely resembles what Waters describes as an American identity; however, with Michael, it is a Canadian identity. Michael does his best to distance himself from his ethnic background and actively embraces his black Canadian identity.

Immigrant identity

Immigrant identity

“But I will not correct someone if they assume I identify as African American, since “African American” means “black” today. Because I am black in the U.S., I experience similar prejudice [that] other blacks do regardless of their ethnic background. But I will tell you this, when I travel back to Jamaica or Panama or anywhere else in the world, no one under- stands this “label” African American; I am American, black, and have Caribbean parentage.” (Lorick-Wilmot, 86)

This is a quote from an interview with Lisa who is a second-generation Caribbean who was interviewed for an article with Northeastern University. Lisa’s explanation of her identity with regard to race and ethnicity reminds me a lot of what Water’ description of an immigrant identity. Lisa feels a strong connection to her ethnic background, but also does not mind if someone refers to her as a black American because she faces a lot of the same issues that black Americans do. She doesn’t actively try to separate herself from black Americans, but also doesn’t reject her ethnic background, so Lisa falls into what Waters would describe as an immigrant identity.

Outlook on society

outlook on society

Melissa

How 2nd Generation Caribbeans compare to other races

• the second generation has greater social mobility than the first generation, but the improvement isn’t relatively massive
• as members of the Black community, first and second generation Caribbean immigrants are still doing respectively worse than other races, despite improvements over the last decades

Relativity

Excerpt from “The Second Generation in the United States”

“Among those born in Asia, Europe or Canada, more than one in three worked at a high ranking job, but few of those born in the Spanish Caribbean, Central America or Mexico did so. The distinctive concentration of Mexican immigrants in unskilled occupations is clearly shown by the bar to the left and by their low occupational index score…In every comparison of the second to the first generation, there is evidence of a rise in occupational prestige. Second generations from Asia, Europe and South America had very favorable occupational achievements. While their achievements are not nearly as great, second-generation individuals with Puerto Rican or Mexican-born parents were much more likely to work at white-collar jobs than their parents. The exodus across the generations of Mexicans from low-skill jobs is striking. Among the older first generation, 42 percent of Mexicans held jobs as laborers or farm workers. For the adult second generation, this fell to 21 percent.”

Excerpt from “The New Second Generation in the United States”

“…Overall, there is some indication of intergenerational mobility from the cohort of immigrant parents in 1980 to their children’s cohort in 2003-2009. Though many of the results for the second generation were not significant, some modest improvements were still shown. The lack of significance may be due to the great improvements experienced by the mainstream population…A key finding is that native-born mainstream blacks have experienced substantial socioeconomic mobility over the past few decades…. These great improvements may have eroded the modest gains experienced by the second generation.”

Race, Ethnicity, and Outlook

The racial vs. ethnic self-identification of the second generation may influence their relationship with their education

Identity & Projections

Excerpts from “Islands in the City: West Indian Migration to New York”

“In turn, identities can also influence economic outcomes. Being ethnic-identified and involved in the ethnic community can reinforce attitudes and behavior that contribute to success in school and protect the second generation from the negative features of American—and black American—youth culture (cf. Zhou and Bankston 1998). By the same token, the American-identified teens in Waters’s study came from poorer families and attended dangerous, substandard, and virtually all-black schools. Their experiences with racial discrimination and their perceptions of blocked social mobility led many to reject their parents’ immigrant dream—and to be receptive to the black American peer culture of their neighborhoods and schools that emphasizes racial solidarity and opposition to school rules and authorities, and sees doing well academically as “acting white.” Such an adversarial stance is often a recipe for academic failure” (15).

“The second generation constantly experiences racism and discrimination and develops perceptions of the overwhelming influence of race on their lives and life chances, perceptions that differ from their parents’ views. These teens experience being hassled by police and store owners, being denied jobs, and even being attacked if they venture into white neighborhoods” (206).

poor, racially identified Caribbeans may be more pessimistic about the future, have less access to resources, and may have less faith in authority figures due to racial violence.

COMPLICATED REALITY

sHIFT IN JOB PROJECTION

When it comes to education, Caribbean parents are demanding. They have ample cause to be harsh with their children. Many parents do not want their children to experience what they did as immigrants. They don't want their children to experience what it's like to be impoverished. Parents believe that their children would be unable to obtain decent employment if they did not receive an education.

The complicated part to this is that not everyone from the second-generation wants to follow in this path. What are children to do, on the other hand, if they don't want to be a doctor or an engineer? Nevertheless, the second-generation continues to work hard in order to please their parents.

Melissa

Example:

Some Caribbean parents want their children to be exposed to art, but they don't want them to pursue it as a career. Art as a Hobby, But it Better Not Be Your Career. Art is just one example of any jobs that immigrant parents strongly discourage.

The second generation is fighting against these traditional expectations. Ka in the Dew Breaker is an artist, a huge contrast to what is expected from second-generation immigrants.

ex

Melissa

Tolu

Second generation Caribbeans had significantly greater economic achievements than the first generation and data accounts this social mobility as a result of a nuanced relationship with their background culture, education, identity, and social class.

Melissa

It is through the history of the first-generation and what they endured not only in their home country but in the United States that knowledge and networks developed. This ensured a shift and upward mobility for the second-generation.

Olivia

With the help of technological affiances including social media the second generation is not restraint to the knowledge produced around them but able to discover and search for their own sense of self in the vast waters of knowledge allowing for the ability to have a deeper connection to communities that fit them.

Many Second-Generation Caribbeans living in other countries like America and England face a struggle with the role their ethnicity plays in their identity. Living in a country where race is the first thing people see, and racism is so deeply rooted, second-gen Caribbeans might feel like their ethnicity is being erased since all people see is the color of their skin. This has a major influence on how connected they feel to their ethnic background since the people around them don’t see their ethnicity. This on top of them constantly hearing the opinions of first-generation immigrants on black Americans all cause race and ethnicity to play a confusing role in their identity. Mary C Waters helps to understand these influences by grouping the different types of identities that are seen in second-generation Caribbeans. While identity is something that is continuously evolving and is often hard to define, the grouping that Waters presents helps us to understand the role race and ethnicity play in the identities of second-generation Caribbeans.

Nadia

Benetsky , Megan, and Julie Park. The Socioeconomic Intergenerational Mobility of Post-1965 Black Immigrants and Second Generation. 2011, https://paa2011.princeton.edu/papers/111875.

Farley, Reynolds, and Richard Alba. “The New Second Generation in the United States.” International Migration Review, vol. 36, no. 3, 2002, p. 669. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A94775571/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=b20d7131. Accessed 24 Apr. 2022.

Feliciano, Cynthia. “Another Way to Assess the Second Generation: Look at the Parents.” Migrationpolicy.org, 1 May 2006, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/another-way-assess-second-generation-look-parents.

Foner, Nancy. Islands in the City: West Indian Migration to New York. University of California Press, 2001.

Kalmijn, Matthijs. “The Socioeconomic Assimilation of Caribbean American Blacks.” Social Forces, vol. 74, no. 3, 1 Mar. 1996, pp. 911–930., https://doi.org/10.2307/2580386.

Kasinitz, Philip, et al. One out of Three: Immigrants in New York in the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Nancy Foner, Columbia University Press, 2013.

Lorick-Wilmot, Yndia. "Between Two Worlds: Stories of the Second-Generation Black Caribbean Immigrant." Trotter Review, vol. 22, no. 1, 2014, pp. 72-98,172. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/between-two-worlds-stories-second-generation/docview/1609561856/se-2?accountid=9967.

Mollenkopf, John. “Trajectories for the Immigrant Second Generation in New York City.” Economic Policy Review (Federal Reserve Bank of New York), vol. 11, no. 2, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2005.

“Second-Generation Americans.” Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project, Pew Research Center, 7 Feb. 2013, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/02/07/second-generation-americans/.

Tesfai, Rebbeca. “The Economic Lives of Black Immigrants: An Analysis of Wages, Homeownership, and Locational Attainment in the United States.” Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations, 2013, https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1966&context=edissertations.

Walters, Nathan, et al. “Characteristics of the U.S. Population by Generational Status: 2013.” Census.gov, Nov. 2016, https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/P23-214.pdf.

Tolu

Alexis, André. Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa. Henry Holt, 1999.

Lorick-Wilmot, Yndia S. “Between Two Worlds: Stories of the Second- Generation Black Caribbean Immigrant.” Trotter Review , vol. 22, no. 1, 21 July 2014, pp. 72–98.

Waters, Mary C. “Ethnic and Racial Identities of Second-Generation Black Immigrants in New York City.” International Migration Review, vol. 28, no. 4, 1994, pp. 795–820., https://doi.org/10.2307/2547158.

Nadia

• Danticat, E. (2006). The dew breaker. Alfred A. Knopf.

• LaBennett, O. (2011). She's mad real: Popular culture and West Indian girls in Brooklyn. New York Uuniv. Press.

• Marshall, P. (1972). Brown Girl, brownstones. Chatham Bookseller.

• Waters, M. C. (2008). Black identities: West indian immigrant dreams and American realities. Harvard University Press.

• Watkins-Owens, I. (1996). Blood relations: Caribbean immigrants and the Harlem Community, 1900-1930. Indiana University Press.

Melissa

Danticat, E. (2006). The dew breaker. Alfred A. Knopf.

Lundy, Garvey. "Transnationalism In The Aftermath Of The Haiti Earthquake: Reinforcing Ties And Second-Generation Identity". Journal Of Black Studies, vol 42, no. 2, 2011, pp. 203-224. SAGE Publications, https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934710394444.

Marshall, Paule. Brown Girl, Brownstones. 1st ed., 1959.

Plaza, Dwaine, and Amy Below. “Social Media as a Tool for Transnational Caregiving within the Caribbean Diaspora.” Social and Economic Studies, vol. 63, no. 1, 2014, pp. 25–56. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24384098. Accessed 20 May 2022.

"Social Media Fact Sheet". Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/?menuItem=2fc5fff9-9899-4317-b786-9e0b60934bcf.

Olivia