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Defense of my doctoral dissertation "On the Midnight Train to Georgia: Afro-Caribbeans and the New Great Migration to Atlanta"

Toya's Thoughts: Reaching the End of My Grad School Journey

Toya's Thoughts: The day I became Dr. Toya T

THE NEW GREAT MIGRATION TO THE NEW ATLANTA

The influx of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, and a large, diverse group of other non-white newcomers from across the United States and abroad, to Atlanta has triggered an unprecedented series of changes in the social, cultural, economic, political, and racial landscapes of the southern metro, ushering in a new era in its history---the era of the New Atlanta. The composition and diversity of this great migration to Atlanta, along with its existing large African American population, have transformed Atlanta from a biracial (mainly black and white) society into an international, multi-ethnic metropolis, unlike other major metropolises in the US, such as New York City, Miami, Boston, and Los Angeles. It is a unique metropolis because of the great influence, large size, and relatively high socioeconomic status of its African American population and their role in shaping the city.

Its distinct southern culture has become increasingly popular in the media. A great example is the rise of reality television shows focused on different aspects of life in Atlanta in the past decade, including Real Housewives of Atlanta, Big Rich Atlanta, Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta, R&B Divas, and Married to Medicine. The success of these shows has pushed Atlanta and its culture, realities, and distinct sound into the public eye and helped to spread the South’s distinct culture and image worldwide. This has helped Atlanta develop in recent years an image as an attractive place to live in the US, especially for black people.

For Afro-Caribbean immigrants, they are several benefits to moving to and settling in Atlanta. Unlike Asian and Latino immigrant newcomers, Afro-Caribbeans’ incorporation into Atlanta has been shaped by the their relationship with the African Americans. Though southern attitudes and policies towards immigrants have become more and more hostile in recent years, especially towards Mexican immigrants (and those who “look” Mexican), Afro-Caribbean immigrants have been for the most part insulated from the hostile anti-immigrant attitudes and policies brewing in the region because they are black and can “blend” into the large African American community in Atlanta. This is important to note since research on the recent wave of immigration to the South do not touch on the benefits of having or forming a relationship, whether real or superficial, with the large African American in the region. The literature tends to focus on the tensions brewing between immigrant newcomers, particularly Latinos, and the existing African American community or the immigrant newcomers’ efforts to distance themselves from African Americans. But I found for Afro-Caribbean immigrants, being racially black, can reap several benefits, regarding their reception and incorporation into the Atlanta area, which other non-white immigrants cannot or may not be able to access. The pushes for making English the official state language, development of policies to restrict undocumented students’ access to public universities, and the passing of laws to deny undocumented people public services were all created with a Latino (specifically Mexican) immigrant’s face in mind and not a black Caribbean immigrant’s face. In the southern debates about immigration, Afro-Caribbeans (and other black immigrants) are invisible, just another black face in an ocean of black faces in Atlanta. Thus, there are benefits to being a black immigrant in a black city.

The recent trend of immigrant settlement in the region are challenging and changing long-held southern attitudes and conceptions of race and immigration. The increasing diversification of the city’s black community is transforming black culture and spaces in Atlanta from predominantly African American to a more diverse one. The new great migration of Afro-Caribbeans and other black migrants offer future research opportunities to analyze black culture in a uniquely innovative and fertile context. What is developing there reflects and enhances the diversity of both Atlanta and the South at large.

AFRO-CARIBBEAN RELATIONS IN ATLANTA

Afro-Caribbeans are a distinct social group in the United States because they are black and they are immigrants–-“which influences their adaptation [and incorporation] into the social and economic fabric of their new country" (Mederios Kent 2007: 3). For Afro-Caribbeans in Atlanta, their blackness played a major role in their decision to migrate to the city. As discussed in the preceding chapters, many of the Afro-Caribbean migrants that I interviewed for this study were attracted to Atlanta because it was a black city. What does that mean for Afro-Caribbeans’ relationship with African Americans in Atlanta?

Before I arrived in Atlanta, I wondered what kind of relationship Afro-Caribbeans had with African Americans there. Having lived in Boston and New York, two places with large black Caribbean populations, I had experienced first-hand tensions between the Caribbean and African American community. I heard African Americans accuse Afro-Caribbeans of coming to the US and stealing their jobs. I also heard Afro-Caribbeans (including members of my own Caribbean immigrant family) describe African Americans as lazy and believe them to squander the many opportunities available to them in the US.

I found that in Atlanta socioeconomic class has shaped Afro-Caribbeans’ relations with African Americans. The special attraction that Atlanta holds for Afro-Caribbean migrants is the existence of a large black middle and professional class population that provides opportunities for networking and upward mobility. Percy Hintzen (2001) found that Afro-Caribbeans in northern California formed relationships with African Americans based along class lines and preferred to associate mostly with professional and middle class African Americans. Associations with middle class African Americans were seen as way to gain access to political, professional, and social networks of professional and middle class African Americans, particularly in an area where African Americans have political power. In Atlanta, there are many African Americans in positions to make decisions that impact the city and its local neighborhoods. The city’s “black community has played a role in making it one of the most popular destinations for elite blacks in search of a city where they are in control” (Graham 1999: 321). As discussed in Chapter Two, Afro-Caribbean migrants in Atlanta are largely middle class, college-educated, and step or “twice” migrants, who had previously lived in other US cities for several years before moving to Atlanta. Because they lived in other US cities before coming to Atlanta, these Afro-Caribbean migrants see the importance of living in a city where African Americans are doing well. They are aware of the advantages of working and forming strong connections with African Americans in Atlanta in order to achieve their own socioeconomic mobility. For example, several of the Afro-Caribbean migrants interviewed for this study reported being members of black Greek-lettered sororities and fraternities and using these networks of fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, in their former communities and in their new home, to help them get jobs, find places to live, and find friends after they moved to Atlanta.

Afro-Caribbean migrants are building relationships with African American professionals in Atlanta and are working with them to create a space within the city that highlights their culture and history and most importantly their presence in the southern city. Though they have been creating their own cultural organizations and events, they need the support of African American community, particularly the African American politicians that represent Stone Mountain and other areas with a high concentration of Afro-Caribbean residents, to get their community’s objectives accomplished in Atlanta.

A few of the Afro-Caribbean leaders in Atlanta that I spoke to mentioned working extensively with the African American politician State Representative Billy Mitchell, who represents Stone Mountain, the center of the Caribbean community in Atlanta, helping them in organize certain large Caribbean community events. Valrie Sanders, the founding president of the Georgia Caribbean American Heritage Coalition, which organizes the CAHM events, explained to me how Caribbean organizations in Atlanta have to work with the local African American politicians due the size of the community and its lack of political clout in the southern metropolis: “We really have to depend on other people like State Representative Billy Mitchell and Hank Johnson (Congressman representing the 4th Congressional District of Georgia-DeKalb County with parts of Rockdale and Gwinnett) and people with large Caribbean constituencies. If we want to get anything done, we have to work with them or through them because they are the African American elected officials that represent our areas.” One of the major collaborations between the community and Representative Mitchell is the initiative for the recognition of June as Caribbean American Heritage Month in Georgia. They helped write the legislation and worked with him to get the resolution adopted by the Georgia General Assembly. With Rep. Billy Mitchell’s help, Georgia was the third state to write the legislation to get June recognized as Caribbean American Heritage Month. Thus, Afro-Caribbean migrants’ relationship with African American political leaders, like Rep. Billy Mitchell, has been a major factor in the Afro-Caribbean community development in Atlanta, since they have had to work with them to get organize major Caribbean events such as Caribbean American Heritage Month, and to address their community interests.

However, being “black” in a black mecca, does not mean that all African Americans in Atlanta have accepted Afro-Caribbeans. In Chapter Three, I talked about tensions between the two groups caused by some African Americans in Atlanta feeling threatened by the new immigrants. When Ashley, a transplant of Jamaican descent, first arrived in Atlanta in 2007 from Boston, she thought that with the large number of African Americans in positions of power in the city, local companies would be more open than companies in other cities to giving black applicants a chance. But, she found that opportunities did not come as easily as she expected, and thought African Americans in power saw black migrant newcomers as competition for positions. Though a few Caribbean migrants reported experiencing tensions with African Americans in Atlanta, in truth, the tensions between the two communities have been subtle and minor, not involving violence or major hostility.

Scholars have shown Afro-Caribbeans' relationship with African Americans to be complex and contradictory—an amalgam of conflict and cooperation, distancing and identification, tension and accommodation (Foner 2005; Hintzen 2001; Green and Wilson 1992; Kasinitz 1992; Waters 1999; Vickerman 1999). In the early 1900s, when they first began to settle in the New York, Afro-Caribbean immigrants tended to distance themselves from African Americans by forming their own clubs, living together in Caribbean ethnic enclaves within larger black neighborhoods, such as Harlem, and focused on cultural markers such as listening to Caribbean music, dressing in tropical clothing, playing cricket, and celebrating British holidays to distinguish themselves from African Americans (Watkins-Owens 1996). Afro-Caribbeans attempt to distance themselves from African Americans to avoid stereotypes and discrimination and experienced benefits from identifying ethnically and distinguishing themselves from African Americans in forms of job opportunities and positive receptions from white employers (Waters 1999). However, the longer immigrants stay in America, the more likely they are to experience discrimination and to identify with African Americans (Vickerman 1999).

The lack of major hostility between the two groups is likely due to that the fact that the Caribbean community is significantly smaller than the African American community in Atlanta and do not pose a significant threat politically or numerically to the African American community—which fought long and hard to gain political power and control of the local government. Though Atlanta has become more ethnically diverse with the influx of Asian and Latino immigrants to the area, the political landscape is still divided along the black-white binary, particularly in the city government. When I moved to Atlanta in 2009, the big talk around town was over the mayoral election between black candidate Kasim Reed and white candidate Mary Norwood and the possibility of a white candidate winning the election and breaking the succession of black mayors since the election of the first black mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson, in 1974. So, being black facilitates Afro-Caribbeans’ relationship with African Americans, since they add to the numbers of black voters in Atlanta, giving African American politicians more potential voters and political power.

Green and Wilson (1992) argue that inter-group relations between African Americans and Afro-Caribbean immigrants are inextricably linked to larger issues of black politics and empowerment. In the next two decades, tensions in Atlanta’s increasingly ethnically diverse black community are likely to surface as the Afro-Caribbean population grows larger and larger, reaches a critical mass, and becomes a significant part of the electorate in the Atlanta area. Afro-Caribbeans are likely to mobilize as an ethnic group to gain their own share of political influence to speak for own (Caribbean immigrant) interests, as their counterparts in New York have done (Kasinitz 1992; Rogers 2006). Thus far, a few Afro-Caribbeans have been elected to political offices in the Atlanta area, but it has been in the outer suburbs and not in the city of Atlanta. In Clayton County, Jewel C. Scott, a Jamaican immigrant, served as the first female and Caribbean American district attorney of Clayton County from 2005 to 2008. Also in Clayton County, Wole Ralph, who is of Guyanese heritage, was, at the time I was in Atlanta in 2010, the Vice Chairman of Clayton County Board of Commissioners. Cyril Mungal, who is Trinidadian, sits on the City Council of Stone Mountain (his term as councilmember expires in 2015). According to one of my respondents, these candidates downplayed their ethnicity and did not use the “ethnic card” to gain votes from the growing Caribbean community. In the case of the black-controlled city government, where they will face the most political competition with African Americans (in comparison to the whiter outer suburbs, with the exception of Stone Mountain), this may eventually lead to conflict between Afro-Caribbeans and African Americans in Atlanta over representation and political ground, especially if an Afro-Caribbean migrants defeats an African American incumbent. In his study of the political incorporation of Afro-Caribbeans in New York, Reuel Rogers (2006: 248) observes that “when Afro-Caribbeans pursue their own ethnic political representation in New York, for example, African Americans sometimes complain the immigrants are pursuing divisive strategies and undermining the larger struggle for black empowerment”.

Another potential source of tension in the new Atlanta black community is the growing African population. Black African migrants pose a threat politically and economically to the African American in Atlanta. Like the Afro-Caribbean population, Atlanta’s African migrant population quadrupled (from 8,919 to 34,302) between 1990 and 2000, and constituted 2.9 percent of the black population in metro Atlanta in 2000 (Logan 2007). They are mostly middle class and with high education rates. While I was in Atlanta, I did not speak to any African migrants and so I do not know their stance on black solidarity and empowerment among the black ethnic groups in Atlanta. But from what I heard from some of my Afro-Caribbean respondents, there was little interaction or collaboration between the African migrants and the rest of the black Atlanta community. Afro-Caribbean migrants tended to keep within their ethnic social circles, that is their Caribbean network of friends and family. The presence of Africans in the area, however, offers Afro-Caribbeans an opportunity to mobilize under a black immigrant identity and to compete with the African American community for political power over the city. The area in Atlanta that this black immigrant political collaboration is likely to happen is in the Stone Mountain area, since they is a significant concentration of both groups there. A black immigrant coalition among Afro-Caribbeans and Africans could have a major impact not only on the political landscape but also on the cultural landscape of the Atlanta area. The increasing diversification of the city’s black community may lead to the dominant black culture morphing from African American culture to a foreign (or Caribbean/African fusion) one. This potential change is very likely to cause tension and hostility to rise between African Americans and the black immigrant groups in Atlanta.

Southern Responses to Immigration

Southern attitudes and policies toward immigration have become increasingly hostile in recent years, heightened by national pre-occupation with “illegal” immigration (Odem and Lacy 2009). Heated debates over undocumented immigrants and immigration reform have polarized southerners’ attitudes toward immigrants, especially Latino immigrants, in the South. For example, all southeastern states have made English their “official language.” “The surge of Latino immigrants to the region also has become fodder for a growing number of hate groups in the South, including a revitalized Ku Klux Klan” (Odem and Lacy 2009: 144). A number of states, most notably Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, have passed sweeping legislation targeting undocumented immigrants. In 2006, Georgia passed the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act that requires two things: first, contractors that do business with the state use the federal E-Verify program must verify the legal status of all workers and second, police must check the documentation of all those arrested for a DUI or a felony and report them to federal authorities (Odem and Lacy 2009). In 2011, lawmakers passed the Georgia bill that authorized local and state police to ask for proof of residency and detain those who they suspected were in the country illegally. The law also makes it illegal to intentionally house or transport undocumented persons. The law has been the subject of several protests in the state and federal courts blocked most of the controversial parts of the law. Similarly, educational officials in Georgia enacted a policy to ban undocumented immigrants from attending five of the state’s public colleges, including the highly selective University of Georgia and Georgia Institute of Technology. The new immigration policies represent the hardening attitudes and southerners have regarding the recent influx of immigrants to the region.

How do these anti-immigrant laws and sentiments in Atlanta affect Afro-Caribbean immigrants? When I asked the Afro-Caribbeans in this study about how they as immigrants were treated in Atlanta, all told me that they had not experienced anti-immigrant prejudice or discrimination in the southern metropolis. They felt this was so because the focus in the city was mainly on the Latino immigrants, since they are more visible as immigrants and/or newcomers than black immigrants. The overwhelming dominance of Mexican immigrants in metro Atlanta–who make up about 27 percent of the foreign-born population in metro Atlanta in 2009—has created a profile of “immigrants” in the region, characterized as a low skill and undocumented population who are likely to put extra pressure on social services and local resources. The result has been the development of anti-immigrant behaviors and policies, such as the Georgia Bill, the ban against undocumented immigrants at five of Georgia’s public colleges, and the prayer for help with the “immigration problem” that I witnessed in the Buckhead Catholic church.

The Georgia anti-immigrant laws have not affected Afro-Caribbeans, since the majority of those who migrate to Atlanta have proper documentation—that is, US citizenship, work or student visas, and resident alien status (according to the 2006-2010 American Community Survey, 60.6 percent of Afro-Caribbeans in metro Atlanta were naturalized US citizens). It is important to note that undocumented Afro-Caribbeans, unlike Latino immigrants, tend to have entered the country legally on travel or student visas and became undocumented from overstaying their visas, opposed to entering the country unauthorized (Foner 2005). According to Nancy Foner (2005: 197),"opposition to immigrants and high levels of immigration is generally greater when newcomers are seen as being largely undocumented." This may explain why Afro-Caribbeans have not experienced anti-immigrant prejudice or discrimination in Atlanta.

But, just because they have not been experienced anti-immigrant discrimination now does not mean that Afro-Caribbean immigrants may not be affected later. If the state continues to pass restrictive laws aimed at immigrants, the impact of the laws on the Caribbean immigrant community would likely be the migration of a higher number of middle class Afro-Caribbeans, who are more likely to be naturalized citizens or resident aliens, and a lower number of working class or poor Afro-Caribbeans, who are more likely to be undocumented.

Because they are black, Afro-Caribbeans are, in many ways, an invisible immigrant minority (Bryce-Laporte 1972). Several of the Afro-Caribbean immigrants that I interviewed for this study echoed this sentiment of feeling invisible. They felt that they were often seen as part of the larger African American population and that Afro-Caribbeans were not recognized as a distinct ethnic group in Atlanta, despite their efforts to create a distinct Caribbean identity and cultural presence in the city (e.g., the annual Atlanta Caribbean Carnival in the downtown area and other Caribbean events across the Atlanta area). For many Afro-Caribbean migrants coming from New York and other cities with large Caribbean immigrant communities, they experienced a bit of culture shock when they encountered people in Atlanta who were not familiar with Afro-Caribbean peoples and culture1C. Karen, a New York-born migrant of Kittian descent who moved to Atlanta from Los Angeles in 2002, explained how the “invisibility” of the Caribbean community in Atlanta impacted Afro-Caribbeans’ experiences of incorporation. She stated:

I don’t think the Caribbean presence is noticed here. In New York, Caribbean people and culture is just part of what makes New York so fun. It is such an experience to live in. It is just normal. Here it is like Caribbean people don’t exist and when they find out someone is from the Caribbean they don’t get what that means. And I guess that is why carnival or anything people try to do here doesn’t come off so well because people just don’t understand the difference. Get back to race, people who are not—even black people—some people just don’t see what the difference is. Aren’t all black people just black? What do you mean some are Caribbean and some are not? I think that some people just don’t get the difference. I think it is all-- black, white, and Asian. If you don’t have an accent, they just look at you like you are regular black person. They don’t understand anything about being a Caribbean person versus being a black American. To a lot of people it is just the same. I think that people of all races just look at people at face value and can care less on what makes you who you are. They don’t get the Caribbean culture or why they should you acknowledge it. They don’t get that there is a huge difference.

Afro-Caribbean immigrants’ shared racial phenotype with the city’s large native African American population, along with their ability to speak English, obscure their ethnic distinctiveness, allowing them to blend into Atlanta society with little issue or media attention. By contrast, the arrival of Latino and Asian immigrants received significant media and public attention. Art Hansen (2005) asserts that the visibility of the immigrant population varies in Atlanta, depending on language, population size, culture, socioeconomic status, and race. An example of this is the documentary film “Displaced in the New South,” directed by David Zeiger and Eric Mofford (1995), which explores the cultural collision between Asian and Latino immigrants and the suburban communities near Atlanta where they settled. The film makes no mention of black immigrants, neither Afro-Caribbean nor African immigrants, arriving to the area at the same time.

For Afro-Caribbeans, invisibility has benefits. Unlike visible immigrants in the area, especially Latinos immigrants in Atlanta, Afro-Caribbeans have not experienced anti-immigrant restrictions or discrimination. Because they easily blend in with the African American community, Afro-Caribbean immigrants are not identified by southern nativists as “threatening” immigrants or outsiders.

Southern Distinctiveness

Atlanta is unmistakably in the South. The South has long been a distinct region of the United States, with its own culture, history, politics, and religious traditions. Its distinctiveness, many believe, has been shaped by its history of slavery, secession, and defeat in the Civil War. “After the war the South continued to follow a separate historical path marked by uneven economic development, rural poverty, and an entrenched system of white supremacy and racial segregation” (Odem and Lacy 2009, ix-x). Though the region has experienced dramatic changes since the 1960s, with growing job markets and an improved racial climate, brought on by the passing of the civil rights bills and significant economic development and investment, the South remains distinct.

The South holds a definitive place in the history and collective memory of many African Americans, as a place where their roots run deep. Anthropologist Carol Stack (1996) argues that African Americans are drawn to the South by a “call to home.” African Americans have long dominated the South’s black population, and have affected the definition and perception of blackness in the region. In the southern United States, (with the exception of southern Florida), “black” means African American. African Americans have shaped the South’s development and made it distinct from other regions of the country. The South has a distinct black culture characterized by soul food, bass-driven music, and mega churches. The large part of American slavery occurred in the South, resulting in a large proportion of African Americans being located in the South during and after slavery. The region was the center of the Civil Rights Movement, with many of its leaders and activities being based in the region.

The region’s long history of violence and racial discrimination against all people of African descent, however, caused more than 6 million African Americans to move from the South to the North, Midwest, and the West, looking for better quality of living, job opportunities, and freedom. The passage of the Civil Rights bills in the 1960s triggered a new era in the region—a New South that is more tolerant towards African Americans and “outsiders.” The New South has been drawing African Americans, and other migrant newcomers, from all over the world to the region. The influx of non-white newcomers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean into the South has triggered a number of changes to the social landscape of the region and has ushered in a new “New South” era in the 21^st century—that is culturally and racially diverse (Odem and Lacy 2009).

"Lord, please bless our political leaders as they deal with the pressing issue of immigration:" Responses to Immigrants in Atlanta

“Lord, please bless our political leaders as they deal with the pressing issue of immigration. We pray to the Lord.” I heard this statement during a May 2010 Sunday mass in a Catholic church (with a predominantly white middle-class congregation) in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, and my attention was roused. At first, I wasn’t sure what I had heard. I thought the speaker was going to ask God for help regarding the recession or the war, but instead – I heard correctly! - The prayer was for help with immigration. Although I don’t attend church as much as my mother (or my grandmother) would want or like me to, I don’t recall ever hearing any prayers that identified immigration as a problem in need of God’s guidance and help. Normally, prayers are made for those who are sick, homeless, unemployed, troubled, or recently deceased, or for issues that the church deems as “sins,” or against what is said in the Bible, such as abortion and homosexuality. The prayer was a telling statement about the public opinion of the influx of immigrants into the southern metropolis.

Immediately I felt uncomfortable. Right there in this place of worship, my family (which includes people at various stages of the immigration process, from resident alien to naturalized citizen) and the Afro-Caribbeans in my study were being labeled as a problem that required divine intervention. The large increase in the foreign-born population in Atlanta over the past three decades has stimulated a mixture of reactions and feelings from the city’s native/long-term residents, and the local government. The city has made strides to incorporate their immigrant newcomers, for example, by legally recognizing June as Caribbean American Heritage Month and allowing the CAHM planning committee to use city hall (for free) for the opening reception. However, the message I received in this one church in the Buckhead section of Atlanta was that immigrants were not welcome.

A Little NYC in Atlanta

For transplanted Afro-Caribbeans in Atlanta, their experiences in living in another city complicate and influence their community development. In the case of those who moved from New York, it is possible to migrate to Atlanta and to live around and socialize mainly with other Afro-Caribbean New Yorkers. When I moved to Atlanta, nearly all of the people I knew or met in the city were New York transplants. I met very few native residents of Atlanta during the year I lived in the southern city. New York-origin Afro-Caribbean migrants have seemingly transplanted their Caribbean New York social circles and lifestyles to Atlanta. They continue to attend parties and events with mostly other Caribbean New Yorkers and live in areas with others from their old New York neighborhoods. For Afro-Caribbean newcomers from New York, Atlanta can seem like a suburb of the New York tri-state area because of the large number of people who have migrated to the city from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In fact, several migrants described Atlanta as “Little New York.” Because of the active nightlife and the many opportunities to socialize with New Yorkers in the city, Atlanta has become like, as one migrant described it, “a New York away from New York.” It is quite possible to attend parties, clubs, and events in Atlanta hosted by an Afro-Caribbean migrant and find the majority of the partygoers are Caribbean New Yorkers.

The idea of Atlanta being “New York away from New York” or a Little New York influenced several of my New York-origin respondents’ decisions to move to the southern city. Karen, a New York-born transplant of Kittian descent in her early thirties who moved to the southern city from Los Angeles in 2002, told me: “I knew Atlanta would be a smarter choice for me because of all of the African Americans or Caribbean people who have migrated down here, it makes it sort of like a mini-New York.” For some of the New York-origin Afro-Caribbean migrants in this study, Atlanta being a Little New York helped with their resettlement process. When I interviewed Kerry, a migrant of Trinidadian descent in her late thirties, in the fall of 2009 in a Borders Bookstore near her home in Cobb County, she explained how Atlanta being a Little New York eased the transition to her new life in the southern city:

I actually moved to Atlanta in 1994 and I used to visit a lot before I moved here. So when I came, I liked it and a lot of my friends went to school at the AUC. So I would visit them and I thought that I could do this because it’s like New York away from New York. They were from New York too. I came down here to visit a lot and I ended up getting a promotion at my job in 1994 which is why I moved then. I was planning to move in 1996 but ended up moving two years early because it was easy. I just had to pack my bags and head here. I already had the job waiting since I was already with the company. So it was a seamless transition for me to make the move.

Whether or not other Afro-Caribbean migrants (not from New York) view Atlanta as a Little New York or recognize that there is a growing Caribbean New York community in Atlanta is unclear. The only migrants in this study to refer to Atlanta as a Little New York were migrants from New York. What is clear, however, is the importance of New York as a place and social and cultural center of the Caribbean diaspora (Olwig 2001). A large number of the Afro-Caribbean migrants that I interviewed for this study (13 out of 33) were connected to New York in some way—they either were born there or lived there for a significant amount of time (at least a decade) before they moved to Atlanta. Even after they move out and away from the city, New York continues to be central point for these Afro-Caribbean migrants in Atlanta. It makes it seem like New Yorker is an ethnicity that Afro-Caribbeans migrants are bringing with them to Atlanta and interchanging with their racial and ethnic identities. This point is significant, because it highlights a major difference between New York-origin Afro-Caribbean migrants and those from other places. As I discussed in the previous section, most of Afro-Caribbean migrants from New York who live in Atlanta still maintain their social and cultural ties to New York by not only socializing mostly with other Afro-Caribbean New Yorkers in Atlanta, but also traveling back to the city several times a year to maintain their family and friends still living there, to shop, and attend social events (e.g., birthdays, baptisms, funerals, and holidays) and cultural events (e.g., carnival). Interestingly, despite the length of time they have lived in Atlanta, and their claims of being happy with their life in Atlanta and having no plans to move back to New York (or anywhere in the future), Afro-Caribbean migrants from New York who live in Atlanta still maintain an identity as Caribbean New Yorkers.

Though sticking to their old communities may create a barrier in between the black immigrant community and those in the larger African American community, it has been helpful for developing a community among the Afro-Caribbeans in Atlanta, since so many have moved to the area from New York. Being among other Caribbean New Yorkers in Atlanta creates a feeling of home and familiarity for migrants, making the transition to life in Atlanta easier.

30 Things Before 30: #29 Don't be afraid to GET HELP

I made this video a month ago. With the recent death of Robin Williams (after struggling for years with severe depression), I felt I had to repost. Mental health is as important physical health. Please don't be afraid to ask for help.

Caribbean Connections

Afro-Caribbean’s migration experience is not a simple story of leaving one country for good and settling in another, abandoning their former lives. Most Afro-Caribbean immigrants engage in various kinds of transnational activities that connect them to their countries of origin (Olwig 2007; Basch 2001; Vickerman 2002; Sutton 1992). Developments in communication and cheap flights have greatly facilitated their ability to sustain strong relationships with families and friends who live thousands of miles away. Even as they become incorporated into the local society, they stay closely connected to families and friends in the Caribbean through telephone communication, regular remittances to family members, and involvement in events in their former communities. Such connections help them to deal with emotional and material challenges of living in a new place and remain embedded in their former communities at the same time that they develop new networks in their new home. As a result, migrants are able to form a sense of belonging to multiple communities. Through their ties to the cities that they migrated from, they do not have to rely completely on the services, events, and goods available in Atlanta to maintain their Caribbean identity and cultural practices and traditions.

Fairly cheap airfares and Atlanta's major international airport--the busiest airport in the country—makes it easier for Afro-Caribbean migrants to visit “home” (i.e., the Caribbean and/or the cities that they left) with great frequency and to go back for family emergency, special celebrations, leisure, or to get things they need, such as food, music, or clothes that they can’t find easily in Atlanta. As a hub for Air Tran and Delta, airlines that offer daily flights to New York at rates around $200, Atlanta’s airport  makes it easy for migrants to travel between the two cities. Many migrants told me that they would visit the Caribbean a few times a year and get the Caribbean-style products they desired for themselves and bring them back to Atlanta; and if they could not go, they would have family members ship the products to them. (Although the population and the availability of Caribbean products in Atlanta have grown, there are some products that are easier and cheaper to get from their former communities, especially traditional Caribbean immigrant destinations like New York and Miami.) Being able to easily go back to their former communities shapes their experience of living in Atlanta. Many Afro-Caribbeans I interviewed told me that connections to their “old” lives greatly influenced their feelings of satisfaction with their new lives in Atlanta. As they travel between Atlanta and their former communities, Afro-Caribbean migrants are forming connections between Atlanta and other major cities, including New York, Miami, Boston, and other places they migrated from.

Caribbean Organizations in Atlanta, part 2

In addition to the reception, there are a number of staple CAHM events. There is a film festival at the Central Library, which each Wednesday for the month of June shows films from different Caribbean countries. The month also includes a Caribbean day at an Atlanta Braves baseball game and a Caribbean Variety Show. Very few of my Afro-Caribbeans respondents knew of GCAHC or the Caribbean American Heritage Month events. Those who did were involved in cultural organizations, such as the Atlanta Jamaican Association or the Dominica Atlanta Cultural Association. Even the Afro-Caribbeans that I interviewed did not know about the organization or its events, GCAHC is making great strides to celebrate Atlanta’s diverse Caribbean community and to educate the greater Atlanta community on the Caribbean culture, history, and identity.

In early 2010, the Georgia Caribbean American Heritage Coalition undertook a major advocacy project:the Georgia Caribbean American Complete Count initiative for the 2010 US Census. Following a directive from Dr. Nelson of the Institute of Caribbean Studies, GCAHC created a committee under the umbrella of Caribbean American Heritage Month and worked with local Caribbean organizations and churches with large Caribbean congregations to spread the word about the initiative to get Afro-Caribbeans to write in Caribbean or West Indian as their ethnicity on the US Census. The committee also worked closely with the Census Bureau and its local representatives to put on events in the Atlanta area. Using Census funds, the Georgia Caribbean American Complete Count Committee organized a large Caribbean Count event at the DeKalb Technical College Center in March 2010 in the heart of the Decatur/Stone Mountain area, where large number of Afro-Caribbeans in Atlanta lived. The committee made great efforts to cater to the community’s needs by providing different services, along with information about the Census. They invited the Caribbean consulate and local elected officials. They also got a representative of the US Census Southeast region to take part in a Q&A session. The event also featured a Caribbean real estate broker, two Caribbean lawyers who gave legal advice about getting US citizenship, some preventive medicine representatives, including Dr. Edward Layne who is the honorary consul of Barbados in Georgia, and a CPA, the treasury of the group, giving tax advice. I had not heard about the event, when it occurred. But, according to Valrie, the event was successful and attracted about 900 people.

The Caribbean Count event was featured in the city’s major newspaper Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) on the cover of the Metro section of the Sunday issue on March 14, 2010. There was a large picture of the Caribbean Count event on the front cover of the section and several other pictures from the event with short taglines about the Georgia Caribbean American Complete Count Committee. However, the accompanying article focused on the work of the Asian and Latino Census Complete Count groups and didn’t discuss the work of the Georgia Caribbean American Complete Count Committee. The Caribbean Count group was only featured in the article’s pictures. This unequal treatment raises questions on how Afro-Caribbean immigrants are viewed and treated by the larger Atlanta community in relation to more racially visible immigrant newcomers, such as Latinos and Asians. Even with their efforts to build a distinct community identity and counted as a distinct ethnic group in Atlanta, many Afro-Caribbeans feel their presence is not being recognized by the larger community. Few of my respondents knew about the Caribbean Census efforts in the Atlanta. None told me that they attended any of the events, with the exception of Margaret. But one of my respondents explained to me why the Caribbean Complete Count initiative was important for the Caribbean community in Atlanta. Andrew stated, “We are trying our best [to make the Caribbean presence known in Atlanta] through the Census to motivate people to make that identity as Caribbean so we can be one to be reckoned with, politically and economically.”

Their development of Caribbean organizations could create tension with the broader black community in Atlanta. These organizations are important sites for the formation of a Caribbean community because they are generally based on the existence of a Caribbean population and reinforce Caribbean identities—both their specific national/island-based identities and their pan-ethnic identities as Afro-Caribeans/West Indians/Caribbean people. Their cultural activities—dinners, dances, outings, pageants, sporting events--emphasize a distinct Caribbean culture and identity and differentiate Afro-Caribbeans from African Americans (Basch 1987). The existence of these cultural organizations can be misread by African Americans in Atlanta as a sign that Afro-Caribbean migrants do not want to be incorporated into the larger black community. However, I never got the sense from the Afro-Caribbeans that I interviewed for this study that they sought to be apart from African Americans or the African American community. Indeed, many of the migrants sought out Atlanta precisely to be a part of the larger black community, i.e., because Atlanta was a black mecca. Though they identified ethnically as Caribbean or West Indian, which Afro-Caribbeans have been shown to use as a form of distancing, they also identified as black people and saw themselves as part of the larger black community in Atlanta.

Caribbean Organizations pt 1

Outside of those that plan and carry out the carnival celebrations, there are a variety of other Caribbean organizations in Atlanta, including cricket and soccer clubs, a Caribbean theater group, and many cultural associations, such as Atlanta Jamaican Association and Dominica Atlanta Cultural Association. These organizations play a major part in developing a pan-ethnic Caribbean social network in Atlanta. They connected the earliest migrants, who arrived around the early 1990s when the population was beginning to grow, and helped them navigate the social landscapes of their new environment. Several respondents that migrated to Atlanta prior to the mid-1990s explained how finding out about the group from others and newspaper ads helped them connect with other Caribbean people in the area. The Atlanta Caribbean Association (ACA) has the longest history. ACA serves as an umbrella organization for the Caribbean groups and events in the Atlanta area. In the early 1990s, when the migration to the city began to surge, ACA was flourishing and at its peak, but has faded since then. In 2009, when I started my research in Atlanta, ACA membership had dwindled down to a handful of people.[1] The growth of the Caribbean community in Atlanta has been both a good and bad thing for ACA. The late 1990s saw a proliferation of island-specific groups, with Afro-Caribbean immigrants gravitating towards their island-specific organizations. With the influx of new Caribbean immigrants in the Atlanta area, each organization has accumulated a sizeable enough population to sustain an active membership.

The Georgia Caribbean American Heritage Coalition, Incorporated (GCAHC) is a recently created nonprofit organization that is making efforts to bring together Atlanta’s Caribbean community and to incorporate the community and its culture into the region. GCAHC was founded in 2006 in response to efforts to establish June as Caribbean American Heritage Month (CAHM). Under the leadership of Dr. Claire Nelson, the Institute for Caribbean Studies (ICS) in Washington, D.C. initiated the campaign to designate June as National Caribbean American Heritage Month recognizing the significance of Caribbean people and their descendants in the history and culture of the United States. ICS began their efforts to establish a National Caribbean American Heritage Month in 1999 with a letter to President Bill Clinton asking to recognize August as National Caribbean American Month. June officially became National Caribbean American Heritage Month when President Bush signed the proclamation on June 5, 2006.[2] One year later, GCAHC worked with State Representative Billy Mitchell of Stone Mountain to get the resolution adopted by the Georgia General Assembly. The Georgia General Assembly adopted the CAHM Resolution designating June as Caribbean American Heritage Month.[3]

The main objective of the GCAHC is to organize events in the Atlanta area in observation of CAHM. The founding president of the organization, Valrie Sanders, told me about the events that they organize in Atlanta for Caribbean American Heritage Month. Every year, since its inception, GCAHC has partnered with different Caribbean organizations and the libraries in the metropolitan area to put together events for CAHM.[4] The Atlanta Central Library and Auburn Avenue Library on African American Culture and History together host a Caribbean film festival. Throughout the month of June, GCAHC puts on a number of other activities including educational events, dinners, cultural shows, plays, advocacy events—such as getting a representative from the Carter Center to discuss their involvement in the Caribbean—and a small business seminar sponsored by the Small Business Association.

The month is kicked off in Atlanta City Hall with an opening reception that each year highlights a country or region of the Caribbean. When I attended the reception in 2010, they spotlighted the sister islands of Antigua and Barbuda. When I entered City Hall, it had a feel of a Caribbean market. Around the large room, Caribbean organizations had set up table exhibit, displaying their national culture, food, national costumes, and art. After taking a moment of silence for the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the proclamation of President Obama recognizing June as Caribbean American Heritage Month was read. As the program progressed, which included musical performances, an awards ceremony, and fashion show, I noticed that the Mayor of Atlanta Kasim Reed, who took office in 2010, was absent, though the reception was held in City Hall. I was surprised because I had seen the mayors of Boston and New York on floats at each city’s Caribbean carnival, showing their support for the event to hopefully garner new supporters and voters among the community. Nancy Foner (2005: 148) states: "Attendance at the West Indian American Day Parade on Eastern Parkway has become a requirement for politicians seeking city and state office and those representing districts with large concentrations of West Indians." Mayor Reed instead sent one of his aides of Jamaican descent to read a letter. In it, he acknowledges the Caribbean community in metro Atlanta and states that Caribbean Americans are aiding to the culture and makeup of Atlanta. However, I saw his absence as a clear sign that the Caribbean community is not fully acknowledged or valued in Atlanta. It is possible that major African American political figures in Atlanta do not view Afro-Caribbean community as potential political assets because of its relatively small size (in comparison to the city’s large African American population) and of its residential dispersion across the metro area. For city politicians, Afro-Caribbeans are not big part of their potential voting pool since they have settled mostly in the suburbs rather than in the city. The event had many other leaders in attendance, including the consul of Barbados Edward Lane and State Representative Billy Mitchell, who was recognized for his work with the Caribbean community in Atlanta.

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[1] In 2012, when I tried to access the website for ACA, it was shut down.

[2] Since 2006, the White House has issued an annual proclamation, signed by the president, recognizing June as Caribbean American Heritage Month.

[3] Georgia was the third state to adopt the CAHM Resolution.

[4] Margaret informed me that they are required to work with the local libraries, based on guidelines set up by ICS.

Two Carnivals, One City

I was surprised to learn that there was more than one Caribbean carnival in Atlanta. I only found out about one carnival during a Google search and saw nothing in that search about a second carnival. I learned of the second carnival when several respondents informed me that tensions within the community led to two separate carnivals.

From what I learned from my respondents, the two carnivals occur on the same day (or during the same weekend, generally) in different parts of the metro area, with the original/older one taking place in the downtown area and the second/newer one taking place in a different location year after year (generally an area with a large Caribbean population, such as Lithonia or Stone Mountain). One of the respondents in this study, Andrew, a Trinidadian-born migrant who moved to Atlanta from New York in the 1994 and was one of the original carnival’s organizers during the 1990s, told me that the older and younger generations of migrants in the Atlanta Caribbean community divided their affiliations and the carnival too. The older generation organizes theirs in downtown Atlanta and the younger generation organizes a separate one that takes place outside of the city, in the surrounding suburbs (e.g., Stone Mountain). However, I suspect that the tensions that led to the split of the carnival are more complicated than a generational divide between the younger and older members of the Afro-Caribbean community in Atlanta.

At the core of the split of the carnivals, there seems to be an issue over who should be organizing, or which Caribbean island group should be organizing, Atlanta’s Caribbean Carnival—that is, the Trinidadians rather than the Jamaicans or the Caribbean-born rather than the American-born of Caribbean parentage have should be in control of the carnival’s organization. I learned from one of the co-founders of the original carnival, Alicia, a American-born migrant of St. Thomas-descent, that though at its inception the carnival steering committee was cross-cultural, with some whites, some African Americans, and representatives from each Caribbean group in Atlanta, eventually tensions arose concerning who should be involved in the carnival’s organization. She explained to me some of the tensions with other carnival organizers that she experienced due to her national background: “I was very involved for many years and I enjoyed it tremendously, although a lot of people felt that I should not have been involved because I am not a “Trini.” And the Trinis have a mark on carnival. I had a lot of tension and stress in that regard. A lot of them were involved but they wanted me nowhere around.” According to Alicia, she was eventually pushed her out of the carnival organization because of this issue with her background. So, I suspect over continued tensions over who should be organizing the city’s carnival likely led to the younger generation, and others who felt excluded from the carnival organization, to split from the group and create their own carnival.

Kevin, a New York-born migrant who moved to Atlanta in 1995 and whose father was a longtime leader of several Caribbean organizations in the Atlanta area, told me what he thought the two carnivals. He said:

The other carnival is in Decatur and younger people run it. They were college students when they broke off to start their own carnival. The first year their carnival was good because it was new and fresh. The next year they started getting greedy with the money and then it wasn’t good. They flip flopped but Peachtree Carnival is the official carnival and their carnival is not. 

Those who knew about the two carnivals told me that it was better when it was just one because they felt the community was too small for two. Very few mentioned the other carnival and of those who knew about it, most admitted to mainly attending the one downtown. The presence of more than one carnival has decreased the attendance for both carnivals by creating confusion on where or when they are taking place. Margaret, the leader of the Georgia Caribbean American Heritage Coalition, described how the division has had an effect on carnival attendance. She stated, “We have this major division during carnival. Last year there were three carnivals. But what happened was for two of them most people went downtown where it is supposed to be. There was one in midtown, which had a beautiful program but no people because everyone stayed downtown. The Stone Mountain group is mostly from Trinidad and had no one see their road march.”

The division has also created misinformation about the carnival and has shaped migrants’ views of the event. After my first experience at the carnival in downtown, one of my respondents, Alana, a New York-born migrant of Barbadian-descent in her mid thirties who moved to Atlanta in 1995 after college, informed me that the carnival used to be downtown but currently took place in Conyers, a city located 24 miles east of Atlanta. After I told her that there was one downtown that year, she replied, “I didn’t know there was one downtown. I have two Guyanese coworkers who went to the one in Conyers at the Horse Park and they said it was not well put together.” I was also told that the second carnival was in different places with significant Caribbean populations, including Decatur, Conyers, Lithonia, and Stone Mountain. Regardless of the knowledge about the carnivals or their locations, the consensus among the Afro-Caribbean migrants that I interviewed was that the Caribbean community in Atlanta was not big enough to have more than one carnival.

The fact that there are dueling carnivals at all shows the growing influence and presence of the Afro-Caribbean in Atlanta. Whether or not Afro-Caribbeans in Atlanta attend the carnival(s), the important thing is that Atlanta has a thriving Caribbean community that can support an annual carnival. The Afro-Caribbeans in this study reported moving to Atlanta for its black population and that the existence of Caribbean community there did not play a part in their decision to move. Many of them described a Caribbean community in Atlanta as an added bonus of moving there. The existence of a sizeable Caribbean community, Caribbean events, neighborhoods, and businesses adds to the migration experience for Afro-Caribbean migrants in Atlanta and allows them to build and foster a new Caribbean community and identity that incorporates their culture and new home in the South.