Afro-Caribbean Social Networks in Atlanta-Pt 3

While a number of Afro-Caribbean migrants in this study used some form of social network--either an ethnic or race network-- to move to and settle in Atlanta, there were others who migrated without social networks. These migrants tended to have jobs waiting for them upon arrival in Atlanta. Their company either transferred them to an office in Atlanta or they applied for and got a new job in Atlanta prior to their move. A small number of Afro-Caribbean migrants in this study were able to move to Atlanta without networks because they came to the city to attend college or graduate school. The colleges and universities provided, or helped these Afro-Caribbean migrants to find, housing and also provided financial support to help the migration process. Atlanta is home to several top universities, such as Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Georgia State University, and to the world’s largest consortium of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), the Atlanta University Center, which includes Morehouse College, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and Morehouse School of Medicine. A few Afro-Caribbean migrants informed me that many young Caribbean-born migrants directly came to Atlanta specifically to attend one of its colleges and universities and generally stayed in the city after they graduated, instead of returning home to the Caribbean. Atlanta’s HBCUs have played an especially significant role in drawing college-aged Afro-Caribbeans to the city. Of all the schools in Atlanta, Morehouse College (an all-male institution) attracted most of the education-driven Afro-Caribbean migrants in this study. Notably, almost all of these migrants were Trinidadian males and had moved directly to Atlanta from the Caribbean island. Simon, a Trinidadian migrant in his late thirties, explained to me how an athletic scholarship brought him from his island home to Georgia in 1992. He told me that he always dreamed of playing college basketball and was fortunate that after he finished playing in a tournament in Jamaica in 1991, as part of Trinidad’s national basketball team in Jamaica, he started getting calls from colleges and coaches who saw him play. He had several options but decided to attend Georgia Military College, a junior college located in Milledgeville, Georgia (two hours outside of Atlanta), because they offered him a full scholarship. After a year, Simon then transferred to Morehouse College, which offered to accept him and the other Trinidadian basketball players who had emigrated with him to attend Georgia Military College.

I consider Afro-Caribbeans who moved to Atlanta without networks “pioneers” because they were among the first (of their family and friends) to settle in the region, and contributed, by their presence in region, to the creation of new Caribbean networks/communities in Atlanta for other Caribbean migrants whom arrive after them to utilize during their migration process. For these pioneers, their new jobs or schools, and not an established Caribbean community, provided them with spaces to meet people in their new home and to build new Caribbean social networks. “Networks can become self-perpetuating to migration because ‘each act of migration itself creates the social structure needed to sustain it,’ ” (Olwig 2007: 10, quoting Brettell 2000). These migrant pioneers play a key role in the drawing more and more Afro-Caribbeans, from other US cities, the Caribbean, and abroad, to Atlanta.

Atlanta-bound Afro-Caribbean migrants in this study used Caribbean (e.g., family, friends, and/or co-ethnics) and non-Caribbean (e.g., fraternities/sororities) networks in Atlanta to help them find jobs, find places to live, learn about events and businesses in their new home city, meet other co-ethnics in the area, and obtain whatever else they needed to adapt to their new lives in the southern metropolis. While some Afro-Caribbean migrants used networks to facilitate their migration process to Atlanta, there were others that moved to Atlanta without the aid of networks. This was particularly useful for those who did not have ethnic networks in Atlanta prior to their move like Alana. It shows that just because they are Caribbean they can only use immigrant or ethnic networks. It has been very beneficial for those who were able to use both of them at the same time. They are able to use different networks to get things accomplished.