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.