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.