West Indian in the West: Self Representations in a Migrant Community

by Percy Hintzen

Overview

As new immigrant communities continue to flourish in U.S. cities, their members continually face challenges of assimilation in the organization of their ethnic identities. West Indians provide a vibrant example.
In West Indian in the West, Percy Hintzen draws on extensive ethnographic work with the West Indian community in the San Francisco Bay area to illuminate the ways in which social context affects ethnic identity formation. The memories, symbols, and images with which West Indians identify in order to differentiate themselves from the culture which surrounds them are distinct depending on what part of the U.S. they live in. West Indian identity comes to take on different meanings within different locations in the United States.
In the San Francisco Bay area, West Indians negotiate their identity within a system of race relations that is shaped by the social and political power of African Americans. By asserting their racial identity as black, West Indians make legal and official claims to resources reserved exclusively for African Americans. At the same time, the West Indian community insulates itself from the problems of the black/white dichotomy in the U.S. by setting itself apart.
Hintzen examines how West Indians publicly assert their identity by making use of the stereotypic understandings of West Indians which exist in the larger culture. He shows how ethnic communities negotiate spaces for themselves within the broader contexts in which they live.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814735992
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2001
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.11(d)

About the Author

Percy C. Hintzen is Associate Professor and Chair of African American Studies and former Director of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of California at Berkeley He is the author of The Costs of Regime Survival: Racial Mobilization, Elite Domination, and Control of the State in Guyana and Trinidad.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction	1
1	Identity, Arena, and Performance: West Indians in San Francisco Bay	9
2	Performance and Meaning in West Indian Immigrant Identity: Public Displays of Self-Representation	34
3	Promoters of Popular Culture	55
4	Negotiating the Black-White Dichotomy: Marrying an African American	88
5	Negotiating the Black-White Dichotomy: Images of African Americans	111
6	Constructing an Immigrant Identity: Notions of a Permanent Foreigner	163
	Epilogue: The Construction of Identity	188
	References	191
	Index	197
	About the Author	201

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"An extremely interesting work, addressing an important area—the constructed nature of ethnicity. Ethnicity is, in part, a performance—something one does as well as something one is. The West Indians' unique and complex relationship with other African Americans . . . and the question of how and under what circumstances ethnic distinctiveness is emphasized and under what circumstances it is minimized is fascinating. The Bay area context, in which West Indians are vastly outnumbered by African Americans, makes for a new and different take on these issues."

-Philip Kasinitz,author of Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and the Politics of Race

"Hintzen's detailed anaylsis of West Indians in the western United States opens the door to new understandings of race class boundaries and their role in maintaining social hierarchies and imbalanced social relationships among racial and ethnic groups. This richly textured ethnography will be required reading for scholars on race and immigration for years to come."

-Pedro Noguera,Harvard University Graduate School of Education

"Percy Hintzen has given us an intimate and richly textured portrait of West Indian community and identity in northern California. An important scholar of both global politics and American ethnic studies, Hintzen . . . deftly demonstrates how West Indians navigate the precarious terrain of race and racialization in U.S. society by negotiating their distance from African America."

-Elaine Kim,University of California, Berkeley

"Percy Hintzen's book has made me see so many things afresh. After reading West Indian in West, I see not only life in San Francisco differently, but also life in Brooklyn and in Silicon Valley differently. With subtlety and sensitivity, Hintzen makes us smarter about diasporas, racisms, class aspirations, marriages and public performances in contemporary America. This is an important book."

-Cynthia Enloe,author of Bananas, Beaches, and Bases

"An important contribution to discussions of identity construction in a globalized world and will be enjoyed and debated by students of ethnic studies."

-Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

"Hintzen's detailed anaylsis of West Indians in the western United States opens the door to new understandings of race class boundaries and their role in maintaining social hierarchies and imbalanced social relationships among racial and ethnic groups. This richly textured ethnography will be required reading for scholars on race and immigration for years to come."

Pedro Noguera

"Percy Hintzen has given us an intimate and richly textured portrait of West Indian community and identity in northern California. An important scholar of both global politics and American ethnic studies, Hintzen . . . deftly demonstrates how West Indians navigate the precarious terrain of race and racialization in U.S. society by negotiating their distance from African America."

Elaine Kim

"An extremely interesting work, addressing an important areathe constructed nature of ethnicity. Ethnicity is, in part, a performancesomething one does as well as something one is. The West Indians' unique and complex relationship with other African Americans . . . and the question of how and under what circumstances ethnic distinctiveness is emphasized and under what circumstances it is minimized is fascinating. The Bay area context, in which West Indians are vastly outnumbered by African Americans, makes for a new and different take on these issues."

Philip Kasinitz

"Percy Hintzen's book has made me see so many things afresh. After reading West Indian in West, I see not only life in San Francisco differently, but also life in Brooklyn and in Silicon Valley differently. With subtlety and sensitivity, Hintzen makes us smarter about diasporas, racisms, class aspirations, marriages and public performances in contemporary America. This is an important book."

Cynthia Enloe

"Hintzen's detailed anaylsis of West Indians in the western United States opens the door to new understandings of race class boundaries and their role in maintaining social hierarchies and imbalanced social relationships among racial and ethnic groups. This richly textured ethnography will be required reading for scholars on race and immigration for years to come."

-Pedro Noguera,Harvard University Graduate School of Education

"An extremely interesting work, addressing an important area—the constructed nature of ethnicity. Ethnicity is, in part, a performance—something one does as well as something one is. The West Indians' unique and complex relationship with other African Americans . . . and the question of how and under what circumstances ethnic distinctiveness is emphasized and under what circumstances it is minimized is fascinating. The Bay area context, in which West Indians are vastly outnumbered by African Americans, makes for a new and different take on these issues."

-Philip Kasinitz,author of Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and the Politics of Race

"An important contribution to discussions of identity construction in a globalized world and will be enjoyed and debated by students of ethnic studies."

-Library Journal

"Percy Hintzen has given us an intimate and richly textured portrait of West Indian community and identity in northern California. An important scholar of both global politics and American ethnic studies, Hintzen . . . deftly demonstrates how West Indians navigate the precarious terrain of race and racialization in U.S. society by negotiating their distance from African America."

-Elaine Kim,University of California, Berkeley

"Percy Hintzen's book has made me see so many things afresh. After reading West Indian in West, I see not only life in San Francisco differently, but also life in Brooklyn and in Silicon Valley differently. With subtlety and sensitivity, Hintzen makes us smarter about diasporas, racisms, class aspirations, marriages and public performances in contemporary America. This is an important book."

-Cynthia Enloe,author of Bananas, Beaches, and Bases

From the Publisher

Hintzen (Berkeley; Costs of Regime Survival) explores the attitudes and opinions of West Indians living in the San Francisco Bay Area through interviews about race, nationality, and ethnicity. Focusing on West Indians' uncomfortable relationship with African Americans, he reveals the West Indian perception that foreigners are accepted as legitimate by "white America" while African Americans are treated unfavorably. Thus, West Indians exempt themselves from race problems by maintaining their status as non-Americanized immigrants with an exotic culture. But as Hintzen explains, this attitude conflicts with their accepting the benefits of African American status or overlooking their own experiences in idealizing the West Indian homeland and their immigration narratives. Unfortunately, Hintzen ignores the broader implications of his study concerning other ethnic immigrant communities or scholarly debates. He also uses excessive jargon without defining his terms, and his undifferentiated portrayal of "white America" is simplistic. Nonetheless, he substantiates his views on the strategic uses of ethnic identity, and his book is an important contribution to discussions of identity construction in a globalized world and will be enjoyed and debated by students of ethnic studies. For most libraries. Jay H. Bernstein, Fordham Univ. Lib., Bronx, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal