Among thistles and thorns: West Indian diaspora immigrants in New York City and Toronto.
Item
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Title
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Among thistles and thorns: West Indian diaspora immigrants in New York City and Toronto.
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Identifier
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AAI3159212
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identifier
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3159212
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Creator
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Gilkes, Alwyn D.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Anderson J. Franklin, Jr
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Social | Psychology, Personality | Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
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Abstract
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The research investigated the relationships between resilience and immigration, and the social-psychological processes involved in the acculturation of immigrants from the English-speaking West Indies living in New York City and Toronto. The sample consisted of 21 adults, 11 women 10 men, with a wide range of immigration experiences. Seven had been in the respective cities 1--10 years, five 11--20 years, and nine 21+ years. These voluntary immigrants recruited by posters and snowball techniques were interviewed about their experiences negotiating and acculturating to the socio-cultural changes associated with living in the United States and Canada. Materialism and self-development were critical motivation factors for immigration, although the groups differed on the relative importance of each. Race-related stressors were the major risk factor for this sample. Individuals were constrained by group characteristics---race and ethnicity, from fully integrating into the respective societies. However, this appeared to be more problematic for the Toronto group where multiculturalism, as an aid to integration, was not supported. Instead, the multiculturalism policy is seen as contributing to separatism, cultural intolerance, and marginalized status. Underemployment was persistent in both cities, as was family-related stress, which was most often associated with parent-child interaction. Protective mechanisms centered on personal agency or self-reliance, ethnic identity, cognitive ability, and an ideology of return. But most important to the resilience process were ethnic identity and intra-cultural socialization, and cognitive ability. Previous acculturation models identified integration as the optimal acculturation strategy because it minimized acculturative stress. Maintenance of native culture to the exclusion of the host country culture was seen as a separation strategy, one likely to increase stress. There was little evidence that this was true, in fact contrary findings were supported. The research shows that the integrative process for this sample of immigrants halts at the ethnic group level, or the wider community level, and rarely progresses to the broader societal level. Although the study is limited by its sample size, as an exploratory study it was not designed to generalize the results to the population of adult voluntary immigrants from the West Indies.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
