What Makes Atlanta a Unique Caribbean Destination? - pt 1

Though the vast majority of Afro-Caribbeans in the US live in New York City, their experiences and characteristics (e.g., education, job, income, class do not apply to Afro-Caribbeans who live elsewhere (Foner 2005). “Each urban destination is distinct in important ways, reflecting, among other things, the types of West Indian migrants who move there and the particular social and political context that greets them on arrival” (Foner 2005: 147). Washington D.C., provides a distinct Caribbean migrant experience, for example, due its high share of Afro-Caribbean professionals and college graduates and large, ethnically diverse black population, including a flourishing black middle class and black suburban community. San Francisco, on the other hand, provides a different experience for Caribbean migrants due the origin of its small but mostly middle class Afro-Caribbean community—the majority having moved to the area from another US city rather than from the Caribbean directly—and its large Asian and Latino immigrant communities. The experiences of Afro-Caribbeans in other cities underscore the important ways that “place matters,” as Nancy Foner (2005) argues, in the Caribbean migrant experience and sets the stage for a discussion of the distinctiveness of Atlanta as a destination for Caribbean migration. What makes Atlanta different from other Caribbean immigrant destinations—i.e., New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami?

What Makes Atlanta a Unique Caribbean Immigrant Destination?

A host of features make Atlanta unique as a Caribbean immigrant destination. Atlanta experienced the largest growth in Afro-Caribbean population in the US. Between 1990 and 2000, the Afro-Caribbean population in Atlanta grew 323.3 percent—eight times the growth of the Afro-Caribbean population in New York City (at 40.6 percent) (See Table 1). Although they only make up 1.8% of the population in metro Atlanta, their growth is immense (US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2010). Jamaicans (at 36,703) and Haitians (15,595) have been driving most of the growth in the area, according to the 2005-2009 American Community Survey. Jamaicans alone were the fourth largest immigrant group in Atlanta in 2005 (Odem 2008).[1] By 2010, according to the American Community Survey estimates, about 7% of the Atlanta area’s black population was foreign-born, and roughly 5% of the southern metropolis’ black residents were of West Indian ancestry. If their numbers continue to grow as quickly as they have in the past two decades (from 2.9% to 5% of the Atlanta black population in 1990 and 2010, respectively), Afro-Caribbeans may become a numerically significant part of the city’s black population in the next two decades. The dense concentration of Afro-Caribbeans in certain areas of Atlanta has created neighborhoods with a distinct Caribbean mark. A few Afro-Caribbeans have gained office in some of these Caribbean-dense areas, which are mostly in the surrounding Atlanta suburbs, but they have not gained any major political power in the city of Atlanta and still depend on African American political representation to address the interests of the growing Caribbean community. How the presence of a growing Afro-Caribbean population affects black politics in Atlanta in the next two decades is not yet known and requires future study.

Besides experiencing an influx of Afro-Caribbean migrants, Atlanta has experienced significant demographic changes since the 1990s. Atlanta is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country (Frey 2005; Frey 2010b). Metro Atlanta’s population grew 38.4 percent between 1990 and 2000, making it the eighth fastest growing metropolitan area in the US (Frey 2010b). During the past few decades, many migrants from within the US and from abroad flocked to Atlanta as the metropolis' economy rapidly expanded with the acquisition of major national and multinational corporations. Domestic migration from other US cities drove the population growth in the Atlanta between 1995 and 2000, with the southern city gaining 246,444 domestic migrants (the highest gains from domestic migration among US metros) (Frey 2005). International migration also contributed significantly to the southern metropolis’ growth since the 1990s, with the arrival of 162,972 immigrants between 1995 and 2000 (Frey 2003).

Immigration during the 1990s has also transformed Atlanta from a mostly bi-racial society consisting of whites and African Americans to one of the most diverse metros in the South (Hansen 2005). Both the black and white populations of Atlanta increased between 1990 and 2000 from 742,678 to 1,999,428 and 2,101, 441 to 2,460,740, respectively (See Table 3). But, the largest increases were of the Asian and Hispanic populations in the Atlanta area with 51,289 to 155,117 and 58, 215 to 268,541 between 1990 and 2000, respectively (See Table 3). The diversity of the population acts as an unspoken challenge to the black-white binary that typically frames how people see the South. The composition, and extraordinary diversity, of immigrant streams to Atlanta have created a racial and ethnic order that is unlike traditional immigrant gateway cities (i.e., Los Angeles, New York, Miami, or Chicago). The movement of immigrant newcomers from Latin America, Asia, and Africa to Atlanta—a place that had little previous history of immigration prior to 1990 —has had a significant impact on the southern city. Like most of the South, Atlanta did not attract large numbers of immigrants during the mass immigration era between 1880 and 1920. At the turn of the 20^th century, Atlanta had a small immigrant community of Jews, Greeks, and Chinese that comprised less than 4 percent of its population (Adelman and Jaret 2010). Atlanta emerged as a major immigrant destination in the 1990s, long after major immigrant destinations such as New York, Chicago, and Boston. “In contrast to more established central-city destinations and patterns of settlement, trends in 21st-century gateways constitute a new context for the social, economic, and political incorporation of immigrants. All of these places are confronting fast-paced change that has wide-reaching effects on neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and local public coffers” (Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008: 1). Atlanta has received one of the highest percentages of immigrants during the past few decades (Bump, Lowell, and Petterson 2005; Hansen 2005; Odem 2008; Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008). The migration to Atlanta is characterized by its suburban settlement Atlanta is distinguished from other new destinations, such as Phoenix or Charlotte, by the size and diverse backgrounds of its immigrant population and its predominantly suburban settlement (Singer, Hardrick, and Brettell 2008b). The city of Atlanta is relatively small jurisdiction at the core of a sprawling metropolis where most of Atlanta’s population resides. Migration to the area has mostly been suburban. In 2005, 96 percent of metropolitan Atlanta's immigrant newcomers lived outside the city, in the surrounding suburban areas (Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008).

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[1] Jamaicans were the largest Caribbean group in Atlanta (at 36,073), according to the 2005-2009 American Community Survey.

Place Matters: Afro-Caribbeans in New York and Other Cities- Pt 2

For a number of migrants, New York is a first stop before they move to other parts of the US. Step migration—a migration process that typically involves a migrant entering through a traditional gateway city (e.g., New York) and then moving to other cities—appears to be the dominant migration pattern for Afro-Caribbeans living outside New York.

The Miami/Ft. Lauderdale metro area has the second largest concentration of Afro-Caribbeans. Many Afro-Caribbeans, largely led by those who moved there after retiring, have settled in southern Florida, with its warm weather and proximity to the Caribbean region. It makes Miami a very Caribbean-dominated cultural landscape. It is home to second largest Caribbean Carnivals in the US that attracts many Afro-Caribbeans from other US cities and the Caribbean. Miami’s large Cuban population provides a very different context than New York, where not one immigrant group dominates (Foner 2001; Kasinitz, Battle, and Miyares 2001). Because of their large population size, great political power, and impressive economic success, southern Florida’s Cubans play a significant role in the incorporation of Miami’s Afro-Caribbeans and other ethnic groups (Foner 2005). In 2000, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area was home to 303,731 Afro-Caribbeans, who made up 34.4% and 43.4% of the black populations in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, respectively (See Table 1). Studies of southern Florida show that Afro-Caribbeans have higher median household incomes than other southern Florida residents and a higher level of homeownership than their New York counterparts (Kasinitz, Battle, and Miyares 2001; Logan 2007). Having lower housing costs and a lower cost of living than New York, southern Florida offers Afro-Caribbeans more opportunities for homeownership than New York. There is not a dominant Caribbean neighborhood like Central Brooklyn in New York but there are some residential clusters north of downtown Miami (Kasinitz, Battle, and Miyares 2001).

Afro-Caribbeans outside New York offer yet more variations on the Caribbean immigrant experience in the US (Hintzen 2001; Palmer 1995; Bashi 2007; Olwig 2007; Foner 2005; Johnson 2006; Logan 2007). This can be seen in the Afro-Caribbean community in California. Percy Hintzen’s West Indian in the West (2001) provides one of the few detailed accounts of Afro-Caribbeans outside of New York. The Afro-Caribbean community in the San Francisco Bay Area is relatively small, with only about 9,000 in 1990 (when he did his study). Afro-Caribbeans are residentially dispersed throughout the Bay Area, with no distinct Caribbean ethnic neighborhood enclaves. Many of the Afro-Caribbeans in the Bay Area moved there to attend school, to join family, or because they were transferred by their employers or relocated for a job opportunity, or because they stayed after being assigned to one of California’s many military bases. Afro-Caribbeans in the Bay Area were mostly middle to upper-middle class, unlike their counterparts in New York. According to Hintzen, the large number of low-skilled Latino and Asian immigrants in the area has diminished the job opportunities for low-skilled or unskilled Afro-Caribbeans and likely discouraged their migration to the region. Hintzen (2001) found that Afro-Caribbeans in the Bay Area have constructed an ethnic identity that revolves around the notion of success and foreignness, exploiting exotic images of the Caribbean and the myth of them as a model minority, in order to distinguish themselves from the region’s African American population and large Hispanic and Asian populations. Due to the small size and residential dispersion of the Caribbean immigrant community, Afro-Caribbeans’ relations with African Americans are largely class-based, with them distancing themselves from poor African Americans and associating with middle class and professional African Americans in order to access “the social, political, and occupational networks of the African American middle and professional classes” (Hintzen 2001: 92). Another detailed account of an Afro-Caribbean community in California is Christine Ho (1991)’s study of Afro-Trinidadian migration to Los Angeles. Like their counterparts in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Afro-Trinidadians in Los Angeles moved to the region from other US cities, mostly New York. Their experiences in their former communities greatly influenced their experiences, decisions, and community formations in Los Angeles. For example, many of the Afro-Trinidadians in her study reported being attracted to Los Angeles because they viewed it as a better place to raise kids than New York.

The Afro-Caribbean community in Washington, D.C. offers yet another variation in the Caribbean immigrant experience in the US. Ransford Palmer’s (1995) book Pilgrims From the Sun is one of the few scholarly attempts to document the experiences of Afro-Caribbeans in Washington, D.C. With a relatively small Afro-Caribbean population (about 49,000 according to the 2000 US Census)[1], the D.C. area is home to a large population of Afro-Caribbean college graduates and professionals. Howard University, one of America’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), is largely responsible for the district’s large population of Afro-Caribbean professionals, as many of those who graduated from the university remained in the area (includes parts of Virginia and Maryland). They are no distinct Caribbean ethnic neighborhoods. Afro-Caribbeans are dispersed geographically throughout the DC area and live mostly in African American neighborhoods (Palmer 1995). “In moving to Washington, West Indians come to a city with a majority black population (and black political leaders) and nearby suburbs that are home to a flourishing African American middle class ” (Foner 2005: 150). The Washington D.C. area has a large and diverse black population, having substantial African American, African, and Afro-Caribbean communities. Washington D.C. is also home to a large African immigrant population, who along with Afro-Caribbeans create a significant black immigrant presence in the area—making up 9.8% of the DC metro area’s total black population in 2000 (Logan 2007).

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[1] See Logan 2007.

PLACE MATTERS: AFRO-CARIBBEANS IN NEW YORK AND OTHER US CITIES Pt. 1

New York City has been the most popular and significant destination for Afro-Caribbean immigrants in the United States, since the first wave of numerically substantial Caribbean migration to the US began in 1900 (Foner 2001). Movement to the city began with the development of the Caribbean’s banana and tourism industries, as steamships that originated in New York regularly transported tourists and bananas between the islands and the city (Foner 2001: 4). Since 1965, more than half a million Afro-Caribbean immigrants have settled in the New York metropolitan area (Foner 2001). The influx has had an enormous impact on the city, and on the lives of the Afro-Caribbeans living there (and to some extent on those living elsewhere).

No other American city has such a large concentration of Afro-Caribbeans. In 2009, Afro-Caribbean immigrants constituted about 7 percent of New York’s population, making it the largest immigrant group in the city (US Census Bureau, 2009 American Community Survey). Continued migration to New York has resulted in the Caribbeanization of the city’s black population, and some of its neighborhoods (Waters 1999; Foner 2001; Rogers 2006; Henke 2001). In 2000, Afro-Caribbeans made up 25.7% of New York City’s black population (See Table 1). Afro-Caribbean immigrants have developed vibrant and distinctive neighborhoods in sections of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Throughout the New York City area, Caribbean stores, restaurants, and bakeries, Caribbean-oriented newspapers and radio programs, Caribbean nightclubs featuring reggae, soca, calypso, and other music from the region, and yearly cultural festivals and celebrations, such as the New York Caribbean Carnival (that takes place on Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway and attracts over a million people annually on Labor Day), mark the group’s presence and create a “safe haven” or a “Caribbean outside of the Caribbean” for the Caribbean immigrants living there (Henke 2001). For many Afro-Caribbeans, New York has become the symbol of America and a center of Caribbean immigration, culture, and history (Foner 2001).

Where Afro-Caribbeans move to and settle plays an important role in shaping their migrant experiences (Foner 2005; Bashi 2007; Olwig 2007). Not surprisingly, as home of the oldest and largest Caribbean population in the United States, New York is where a great deal of research on Afro-Caribbean immigrants has been conducted (Kasinitz 1992; Foner 2001; Waters 1999; Watkins-Owens 1996; Vickerman 1999). However, studies of Afro-Caribbeans in different cities show that their experiences differ, in varying degrees, from those of their compatriots in New York City (Olwig 2007; Hintzen 2001; Kasinitz, Battle, and Miyares 2001; Johnson 2006; Foner 2005; Bashi 2007). A combination of factors and contexts specific to a place interact to shape Afro-Caribbeans’ community formations, settlement patterns, identity choices, reception, and incorporation, creating a distinctive Caribbean migrant experience (Foner 2005). These factors include the culture, geographic location, racial/ethnic makeup, and history of the place, the group’s history and relationship with the place, among other things. Each city Afro-Caribbeans move to and settle in reveals something different about the Caribbean diaspora, as it spreads out across cities, countries, and continents.

Afro-Caribbean Migration History

Migration has long been an important part of Caribbean culture and history. Since the abolition of racial slavery, movement within and away from the Caribbean has become a way of life for those seeking better job opportunities and financial stability for themselves and their families, due to the economic underdevelopment of the region (Kasinitz 1992; Vickerman 1999; Foner 2001; Bashi 2007). Initially, Afro-Caribbean migration was predominantly within the Caribbean region. Between 1835 and 1885, workers from the smaller islands were recruited to work in the larger Caribbean territories that had a labor shortage, particularly Trinidad and Guyana (then known as British Guiana) (Vickerman 1999; Model 2008). The 1850s saw Caribbean emigration extend beyond the region into Central America. Some 50,000 Afro-Caribbean workers migrated to Panama to construct railroads in the 1850s, and then thousands more poured into the Central American country to work on the Panama Canal (the first attempt by the French), beginning in the 1880s (Palmer 1995; Vickerman 1999; Model 2008). From 1885 to 1920, Afro-Caribbean migrants went to Cuba and the Dominican Republic to work on sugar cane plantations, Bermuda to work on the dry docks, Costa Rica to construct railroads and to work on banana plantations, Mexico to construct railroads, Venezuela to work in the oil fields, and Panama to resume and finish the construction of the Panama Canal (under American leadership) (Henke 2001; Kasinitz 1992; Vickerman 1999).

During this period, the first of three distinct waves of Caribbean immigration to the United States began (Kasinitz 1992; Owens-Watkins 1996; Henke 2001; Foner 2001). The first wave lasted from 1900 to 1920 and was a large group of between 19,000 and 73,000 people. The second wave of Caribbean immigration to the US lasted from the late 1930s to 1965 and drew the smallest group of Afro-Caribbean immigrants. The exact number of Afro-Caribbeans to enter during this period is unclear, due to the frequent use of British passports, but Kasinitz (1992) puts the total at less than 3000 a year. Between 1930 and 1940 emigration from the Caribbean slowed down significantly, and many migrants returned back to their Caribbean island homelands, due to the lack of economic opportunities caused by World War I and the Great Depression (Vickerman 1999: 61). In fact, more Afro-Caribbean immigrants returned to the Caribbean than those who moved out of it (Reid 1939; Vickerman 1999). Legislation that restricted the numbers of immigrants from the Caribbean that could enter the US reduced the size of the second wave. The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States, by creating a national quota system that assigned each sending country a quota. The quota provided immigration visas for each country at 2 percent of that nation’s total population in the United States according to the 1890 US Census (Bashi 2007). A small number of mostly middle-class Afro-Caribbeans was able to enter using the underused British quota (Kasinitz 1992). In 1952, the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 separated the Caribbean territories from their mother countries and gave each island an annual quota of one hundred (Bashi 2007; Model 2008). The law decreased to a trickle the flow of Caribbean immigration to the US and redirected it towards Britain (Bashi 2008).

Emigration from the Caribbean to Britain began with post-World War II labor shortages. In 1948, the British government passed the Nationality Act, which allowed all subjects of the Commonwealth to enter Britain freely. By 1951, more than 17,000 Afro-Caribbeans had moved to Britain, and the numbers continued to grow after that (Model 2008). “Between 1955 and 1959, 20, 000 to 33, 000 migrants per year moved to the United Kingdom” (Bashi 2008: 61). But, this period of unrestricted movement from the Caribbean to Britain was short-lived. Afro-Caribbean immigration to Britain slowed down in 1962, after the Commonwealth Immigration Act restricted immigration from Britain’s former colonies and “made the United States once again the target destination for black migration” (Bashi 2007: 61).

The third and largest wave of Caribbean immigration to the US began in the late 1960s and continues to the present. The Hart-Cellar Immigration Reform Act of 1965 partially removed the quota system of the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, which gave preference to northern European immigrants (Kasinitz 1992; Waters 1999). The reform lifted country quotas and replaced them with a system that emphasized family reunification and employment. “Under Hart-Cellar, 20 percent (later 30 percent) of quota visas were reserved for persons with particular skills; those entering under these preferences had to be certified by the U.S. Department of Labor. The remaining 80 percent (later 70 percent) of quota visas were reserved for relatives of American citizens or relatives of permanent residents of the United States” (Ngai 2004 as cited in Model 2008). This drastically changed the face of American immigration, opening the way for a surge in “non-white” immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Since the start of the third wave, emigration from the Caribbean has increased exponentially, and Afro-Caribbean migrants have formed large, culturally distinct neighborhoods in several major US cities, along the East Coast (Foner 2001; Kasinitz 1992). Meanwhile, intra-Caribbean migration continues to this day but on a smaller scale. Most migrants move back and forth between their home islands and working abroad as a way to improve their status at home (Kasinitz 1992).

30 Things Before 30: #21 Take a Cruise

Jefferson's Migration Story--An Afro-Caribbean migrant in Atlanta

Jefferson’s migration story is typical of many Caribbean immigrants in the United States. By 2010, Jefferson had lived in the United States for 32 years. When he was 24 years old, he left his home on the small Eastern Caribbean island of Dominica and immigrated to New York City in 1978. He lived there for about for two months and moved to Boston, where he attended college for four years. In 1982, after he received his bachelor’s degree, he moved again to Connecticut to attend law school. Jefferson lived in Connecticut with his wife and children for seven years before he moved out of the Northeast to a new destination in the US. In 1989, a year after his wife went down to visit friends and fell in love with the city, Jefferson did some research, found a job with the Social Security Administration as a staff attorney, and moved his family to Atlanta, Georgia. In many ways, Jefferson’s story is typical of an Afro-Caribbean immigrant in the US. He emigrated from his small Caribbean island homeland to a major city along the American East coast, with a large concentration of Caribbean immigrants, looking for better socioeconomic opportunities and standard of living. He lived in a traditional Caribbean immigrant destination for a number of years (i.e., over a decade) before moving to a new city. What’s atypical about his migration story is its ending in Atlanta.

At the turn of the 21^st century, new trends in Caribbean immigrant settlement patterns have emerged, transforming communities across the United States. Prior to the 1990s, Caribbean immigrant settlement had a predictable pattern and was limited to a select few cities along the East coast, including metro New York, Miami, and Boston. By the century's end, immigrants were increasingly settling outside well-established immigrant gateways in a new group of cities and suburbs. Unlike their previous destinations, Atlanta has little history or identity with immigration prior to 1990. As Afro-Caribbean immigrants spread out from traditional immigrant destinations to new destinations across the United States, the importance of place in the immigrant experience has increasingly come to the fore.

How unique is Atlanta as a Caribbean immigrant destination? How—and in what ways—is the new migration to Atlanta distinctive in the Caribbean migration experience and history?

Black Return Migration to the South

In recent years sociologists and demographers have noted increased internal migration of native-born black Americans who relocate from northern to southern destinations; and increased black migration to Atlanta is part of this trend. Black migration to the South has increased each decade since the early 1970s, when the economic boom that attracted African Americans from the South to the cities of North, Midwest, and West ended (Dodson and Diouf 2004; Population Reference Bureau 2000).[1] By 1970, the number of African Americans moving to the South surpassed the number migrating out. A report by the Population Reference Bureau (2000) stated that “by the 1990s, the South was experiencing a net increase in black migrants from all other regions.” New black communities have been emerging all over the South due to the mass migration of African Americans to the region (Morehouse 2009). Researchers have referred to the migration as “return migration” or the “New Great Migration,” since in some cases, migrants were returning to the hometowns of their parents or grandparents who left the South during the Great Migration of the early 1900s and the Second Great Migration of the World War II-era (Dodson and Diouf 2004; Frey 2004; Morehouse 2009). However, this flow may be misnamed, for many of these internal migrants have no roots in the communities where they settle (Dodson and Diouf 2004; Falk, Hunt, and Hunt 2004).

Studies of the return migration offer a variety of reasons for the movement of African Americans to the South. Howard Dodson and Sylviane A. Diouf (2004) report that return migration was initially generated by familial reasons, such as having to care for a sick or elderly relative or wanting to be closer to family, but as the migration grew, it became largely influenced by economic and nonfamily-related social reasons. The deindustrialization of northern cities in the 1970s, coupled with the South’s growing job market and its improved racial climate, has attracted hundreds of thousands of African Americans to the region. Dodson and Diouf (2004) assert that some migrants were also moving to the South to escape the crime and the worsening conditions of the urban North, and that some were moving to the region to retire in a place with a better quality of life than they had experienced in the North[2]. Anthropologist Carol Stack (1996) argues that the migrants are drawn by a “call to home” from the South, which holds a definitive place in the history and collective memory of African Americans, as a place where their roots run deep. Atlanta, in particular, has received a significant portion of the return migrants.

Atlanta has long been known as a center of black wealth, higher education, political power, culture, and entrepreneurship in the US (Dodson and Diouf 2004; Leung 2003; Whitaker 2002). The Atlanta University Center, consisting of four highly accredited schools (Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University), is the largest consortium of African American higher education in the world. The 1973 election of the city’s first black mayor, Maynard H. Jackson Jr., ushered in a new era in city politics; since then, African Americans have had significant power over the city’s government, shifting power from Atlanta’s white elite to its growing black middle class. Nearly 160,000 black Americans moved to Atlanta between 1990 and 1999, leading some to refer to the city as “the Harlem of the 1990s” (Dodson and Diouf 2004) or the “New Black Mecca” (Leung 2003; Whitaker 2002).

Research on black migration to the South has mostly followed a “return home” model that assumes the migrants have southern roots, solidifying the perception that this migration is a “return migration” (Dodson and Diouf 2004; Frey 2004; Morehouse 2009; Stack 1996). However, this model ignores that many of the “return” migrants have never lived in the South before they moved there, or have no familial ties to the region. By using the return home model, scholars overlook the intra-racial ethnic diversity of black migration to the South. Afro-Caribbeans are among the southern-bound black migrants that do not fit the return home model; yet, they are most likely included in the research data of “return” migrants to the South. It is a mistaken assumption rooted in methodology, since the census numbers most researchers look at for “race,” not ancestry, makes it hard to distinguish southern-origin African Americans from others.

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[1] World War II and the availability of jobs in factories and plants in the cities of the Midwest, the North, and the West heavily generated the economic boom (Dodson and Diouf 2004).

[2] Frey (1999) finds that states that received a large number of migrants during the Great Migrations to the North are among the top donor states in the return migration to the South. 

New Immigrant Destinations

Since the 1990s, a growing number of immigrant newcomers have settled in non-traditional immigrant gateway cities, or “new destinations,” such as Phoenix, Charlotte, Portland, and Atlanta, which have little or no previous history of immigration. Over the past two decades, these new destinations have seen their foreign-born populations more than double. Atlanta is a prime example of a new immigrant destination. For most of its history, it, like most of the South, experienced very little immigration. Today the southern metropolis has over a half million foreign-born residents, more than 30 percent of whom arrived after 2000 (Singer 2008). Several researchers have begun to examine the increasing gravitation of immigrants to new destinations and the impact of new immigrant settlement on the destinations and on the immigrants (Gozdziak and Martin 2005; Massey 2008; Odem and Lacy 2009). Though Afro-Caribbean, Asian, and African immigrants are settling in various new destinations across the US, studies of new immigrant settlements have focused heavily on Latino immigrants, specifically Mexican immigrants. This imbalance perpetuates an ongoing trend in immigration studies that overlooks the migration and experience of Afro-Caribbeans and other black immigrants.

Over the past two decades, Atlanta has emerged as a major destination for a diverse group of domestic and international migrants. Between 1980 and 2010, the foreign-born population in the Atlanta metro area more than doubled, from around 47,000 to over 700,000 (1980 Decennial US Census; American Community Survey 2010). The recent arrival of these immigrant newcomers has significantly changed the ethnic-racial landscape of Atlanta, which, like rest of the South, was a biracial society that consisted of mostly whites and African Americans for most of its history (Odem 2008).

Afro-Caribbean Migration Within the US

Since they began migrating to the United States in the early 1900s, Afro-Caribbean immigrants have been heavily concentrated in a few cities along the Eastern coast of the United States. The largest concentrations have settled in and around New York City, Miami, Boston, and Washington, D.C.—collectively home to more than half of the 2.5 million Caribbean-born migrants in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008-2010 American Community Survey).[1] In the 1990s, a growing number started moving to areas outside these traditional concentrations (Vickerman 1999; Logan 2007; Foner 2005; Hintzen 2001; Palmer 1995). Unlike their prior migrations, this new (post-1990) migration has developed a southeastern U.S. pattern.

For the majority of the 20^th century, Afro-Caribbean immigrants largely bypassed the South due to its struggling job markets and long history of violence and discrimination against people of African descent. Florida’s proximity to the Caribbean seems as if it would have encouraged Afro-Caribbean migration, yet Afro-Caribbean transplants only became significant in number in the 1980s. The number of Afro-Caribbeans in the South has greatly increased since 1990. Demographer John Logan (2007) finds that six of the top ten US metropolitan areas with the largest Afro-Caribbean populations in 2000 were located in the South.[2] Among these metropolitan areas, Atlanta experienced the greatest increase in its Afro-Caribbean population, quadrupling from 8,342 to 35,308 between 1990 and 2000. According to the 2010 US Census, Atlanta’s Afro-Caribbean population has more than doubled in the last ten years, now numbering over 93,000.

In my scholarly readings I found that researchers had only tangentially discussed the movement of Afro-Caribbean immigrants to the southern city of Atlanta. Sociologist Milton Vickerman (1999) states briefly in his book Crosscurrents that Afro-Caribbeans were starting to move out from New York City in the 1990s to new destinations such as Atlanta, Georgia, Silver Springs, Maryland, Richmond, Virginia, and Houston, Texas, because they viewed them as offering a better quality of life and better opportunities for blacks. However, he neither elaborates upon which Afro-Caribbeans were moving to these new areas, nor why they moved, nor does he explain what they experienced in the communities that they entered. In a study comparing Afro-Caribbeans, African Americans, and Africans in the US, demographer John Logan (2007) takes note of a rapidly growing Afro-Caribbean population in Atlanta and provides some demographic information about the group. He found that Afro-Caribbeans in Atlanta in 2000 were faring better than their counterparts in New York City for they had a higher median household income, a higher rate of homeownership, and a higher proportion of college-educated individuals compared to those in New York. In 2000, Afro-Caribbeans had a median household income of $50,911, compared to $35,758 in New York City, a rate of homeownership of 61.9%, compared to 35.1% in New York City, and a percentage of college graduates of 29.9%, compared to 18.2% in New York City (Logan 2007). These studies by Vickerman and Logan suggest that Afro-Caribbeans participating in the migration to Atlanta are predominantly middle-class, and that the migration is heavily driven by economic factors. The search for a better life (e.g., employment, education, homeownership, etc.) has been a driving factor in Caribbean migration. However, economic factors do not fully explain why they are gravitating specifically to Atlanta, rather than other cities with similar opportunities. I argue here that there are a number of other factors—social, cultural, and political—that has shaped this migration to Atlanta. The rapid increase of Atlanta’s Afro-Caribbean population, the city’s immigration history, and the presence of a large African American population provides a context that is wholly different from other destinations (like New York, historically the most popular destination for Caribbean immigrants in the US), and this difference is of great social and political difference to black migrants’ racial and sociopolitical incorporation in the US. We know little about this new context of incorporation because the information published on Afro-Caribbean immigrants’ US-internal migration to Atlanta (and other cities outside of traditional destinations) remains scarce.

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[1] In 2000, the ten metropolitan areas with the largest Afro-Caribbean populations were (in descending order): New York, NY; Miami, FL; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Boston, MA-NH; Nassau-Suffolk, NY; Newark, NJ; West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, FL; Washington, D.C.-MD-VA-WV; Orlando, FL; Atlanta, GA.

[2] In 2000, the ten metropolitan areas with the largest Afro-Caribbean populations were (in descending order): New York, NY; Miami, FL; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Boston, MA-NH; Nassau-Suffolk, NY; Newark, NJ; West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, FL; Washington, D.C.-MD-VA-WV; Orlando, FL; Atlanta, GA.

the beginning

On May 20, 2009, after months of planning, gathering funds, making housing arrangements, and packing as many clothes, books, and personal items as possible into three suitcases, I stepped off a plane at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and embarked on a journey to study the new migration of Afro-Caribbean immigrants to Atlanta, Georgia. Although my move “down South” was greatly motivated by my research project, I also moved for personal reasons. After living in New York City, for eight years (four years each for college and graduate school), it had become emotionally, spiritually, and financially draining. I was ready to leave the city and experience something different.

I loved Atlanta, since my first visit in 2003: its mansion-style homes and gated communities that looked like they belonged on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous;” the delicious southern cuisine that caused me to lick my fingers after eating; the bass-thumping music rhythms that called me to bounce my head, stomp my feet, and shake my booty; and the many black faces I saw in and around the city that made me feel like I belonged there. Atlanta was one of my favorite places to visit. Yet, when it came time for me to leave my brownstone apartment in Brooklyn and move to Atlanta, I wasn’t sure what I would find. Three of my friends of Caribbean-descent had moved to Atlanta from New York and Boston in the first 10 years of the 2000s; when my friends moved I had no idea they were part of a movement of Afro-Caribbean people relocating to Atlanta en masse.” I later learned that my father had friends who preceded mine in moving to Atlanta in the 1990s.

Before embarking on my dissertation research, even on visits to Atlanta I failed to see anything that indicated to me that there was a rapidly growing Afro-Caribbean community in Atlanta. I saw no Caribbean restaurants or businesses, no flyers announcing fetes or juves or other dance parties, nor the flags of Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Grenada, or any other island nation—these things had clearly marked the Caribbean communities and spaces that I knew intimately in New York and Boston. I had regularly heard the complaints made by one of my Atlanta-based Afro-Caribbean friends; she had lived in the city between 2005 and 2008 and regularly complained about her inability to find Caribbean foods, events, and people in the area. All these things assured me that I was right to assume that Atlanta had little Afro-Caribbean community to speak of, and certainly there could not have been one large enough to point to Atlanta as a major Afro-Caribbean destination.

But in 2008, I taught a course I titled “West Indians in America,” and while preparing the syllabus I read the works of several scholars who mentioned that Afro-Caribbeans had begun to move to Atlanta (Green and Wilson 1992; Logan 2007; Vickerman 1999). My surprise at learning this led me to read everything that I could find that referenced “Afro-Caribbeans” and “Atlanta.” I looked at data from the US Census Bureau, conducted Internet searches, and spoke with as many informed people as I could (whether they academic scholars or experienced family members or friends. I found that the Afro-Caribbean population in Atlanta grew 323.3 percent between 1990 and 2000—making Atlanta the decade’s fastest growing Caribbean destination. I wondered how this happened. What was drawing Afro-Caribbeans to Atlanta? From where were they migrating? Were they moving to Atlanta from other US cities, as my friends had, or, were they emigrating directly from their Caribbean islands of origin to the southern city? Where were they settling in the Atlanta area? Were they developing distinct Caribbean neighborhoods like those in New York, or intermingling with American-born black people? And why did they choose Atlanta? Did Atlanta offer to Afro-Caribbeans something that other cities did not have? How are Afro-Caribbeans, as black immigrants, being received in Atlanta? As I asked myself more and more questions, I knew that I had to find the answers.

Been gone too long...but Caribbean Atlanta is always with me

I started this blog in 2009 to help me write down my experiences and observations while living and doing research in Atlanta on its growing Afro-Caribbean community. It definitely helped me capture some of the great moments that I had in Atlanta exploring Caribbean Atlanta. I came to the black mecca to understand what was causing so many Afro-Caribbeans to migrate to Atlanta. Were they enticed by the city's opportunities? Its rich black history? Were they following the large number of African Americans migrating back (or for the first time) to Atlanta and other places in the South? Or were they being attracted to it because of its emerging status as immigrant destination? I also wanted to know how they were being incorporated into a city with a rich African American history that includes being the home of the Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and the hbcus Morehouse, Spelman, and Clark Atlanta, the pillars of black higher education in the US. Were they seen and treated like another black resident or seen and treated as immigrants/foreigners/outsiders?

I spent a year between 2009 and 2010 trying to answer these questions. I interviewed people, attended events, shopped at Caribbean businesses, ate at Caribbean restaurants, and danced at Caribbean clubs. I had a great time getting to know the city. I learned a lot about the community, the city, and myself. After the year was over, I ended up moving to Santa Barbara, CA and had a completely different experience as a Afro-Caribbean American. I experienced culture shock (see my earlier blog post). I had never lived in an area where there were few to no Caribbean people. No place to buy some curry goat, rice & peas, and fried plantains. No club to whine it up on a stranger. No carnival to attend to celebrate my Caribbean culture and heritage. At the same time, I was also in the middle of figuring out what were the big findings of my research--and of my Caribbean Atlanta experience.

I spent the past few years trying to get out my experience and please my dissertation committee members who had their own ideas on what the important details of my project and experience were or should have been. And I will admit that it threw me off. I loved my project and my experience in Caribbean Atlanta. But the criticism and feedback I was receiving started to make me view my work and my experience as a burden--something that I have to carry with me and work through until someone else tells me it is good. I stopped writing and tried to distance myself from all things that reminded me of my project, my experience, and Caribbean Atlanta.

After this long hiatus, I have decided to use this forum as a place to share my work and my experience. Let the world see parts of me through my work that is based on my views, research, and experience. So I hope you will join me weekly on this journey and be engaged by my scholarship chronicling the Afro-Caribbean migration to Atlanta.