scholarly journals Ethnic and Racial Identities of Second-Generation Black Immigrants in New York City

1994 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 795-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary C. Waters

This article explores the types of racial and ethnic identities adopted by a sample of 83 adolescent second-generation West Indian and Haitian Americans in New York City. The subjective understandings these youngsters have of being American, of being black American, and of their ethnic identities are described and contrasted with the identities and reactions of first-generation immigrants from the same countries. Three types of identities are evident among the second generation – a black American identity, an ethnic or hyphenated national origin identity, and an immigrant identity. These different identities are related to different perceptions and understandings of race relations and of opportunities in the United States. Those youngsters who identify as black Americans tend to see more racial discrimination and limits to opportunities for blacks in the United States. Those who identify as ethnic West Indians tend to see more opportunities and rewards for individual effort and initiative. I suggest that assimilation to America for the second-generation black immigrant is complicated by race and class and their interaction, with upwardly mobile second-generation youngsters maintaining ethnic ties to their parents’ national origins and with poor inner city youngsters assimilating to the black American peer culture that surrounds them.

English Today ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renée Blake ◽  
Cara Shousterman

Within American sociolinguistics there is a substantial body of research on race as a social variable that conditions language behavior, particularly with regard to black speakers of African American English (AAE) in contact with their white neighbors (e.g., Wolfram, 1971; Rickford, 1985; Myhill, 1986; Bailey, 2001; Cukor-Avila, 2001). Today, the communities that sociolinguists study are more multi-layered than ever, particularly in a metropolis like New York City, thus warranting more complex analyses of the interaction between race and language. Along these lines, Spears (1988) notes the sorely underestimated social and linguistic heterogeneity of the black population in the U.S., which needs to be considered in studies of the language of black speakers. This critique is addressed in work of Winer and Jack (1997), as well as Nero (2001), for example, on the use of Caribbean English in New York City. These two studies broaden our notions of the Englishes spoken in the United States by black people, particularly first generation immigrants. The current research goes one step further with an examination of the English spoken by children of black immigrants to New York City.We focus on second generation Caribbean populations whose parents migrated from the English-speaking Caribbean to the United States, and who commonly refer to themselves as West Indians.


1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-223
Author(s):  
Lillian Taiz

Forty-eight hours after they landed in New York City in 1880, a small contingent of the Salvation Army held their first public meeting at the infamous Harry Hill's Variety Theater. The enterprising Hill, alerted to the group's arrival from Britain by newspaper reports, contacted their leader, Commissioner George Scott Railton, and offered to pay the group to “do a turn” for “an hour or two on … Sunday evening.” In nineteenth-century New York City, Harry Hill's was one of the best known concert saloons, and reformers considered him “among the disreputable classes” of that city. His saloon, they said, was “nothing more than one of the many gates to hell.”


1984 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avraham Shama ◽  
Joseph Wisenblit

This paper describes the relation between values and behavior of a new life style, that of voluntary simplicity which is characterized by low consumption, self-sufficiency, and ecological responsibility. Also, specific hypotheses regarding the motivation for voluntary simplicity and adoption in two areas of the United States were tested. Analysis shows (a) values of voluntary simplicity and behaviors are consistent, (b) the motivation for voluntary simplicity includes personal preference and economic hardship, and (c) adoption of voluntary simplicity is different in the Denver and New York City metropolitan areas.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003335492110075
Author(s):  
Claudia Chernov ◽  
Lisa Wang ◽  
Lorna E. Thorpe ◽  
Nadia Islam ◽  
Amy Freeman ◽  
...  

Objectives Immigrant adults tend to have better health than native-born adults despite lower incomes, but the health advantage decreases with length of residence. To determine whether immigrant adults have a health advantage over US-born adults in New York City, we compared cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors among both groups. Methods Using data from the New York City Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2013-2014, we assessed health insurance coverage, health behaviors, and health conditions, comparing adults ages ≥20 born in the 50 states or the District of Columbia (US-born) with adults born in a US territory or outside the United States (immigrants, following the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) and comparing US-born adults with (1) adults who immigrated recently (≤10 years) and (2) adults who immigrated earlier (>10 years). Results For immigrant adults, the mean time since arrival in the United States was 21.8 years. Immigrant adults were significantly more likely than US-born adults to lack health insurance (22% vs 12%), report fair or poor health (26% vs 17%), have hypertension (30% vs 23%), and have diabetes (20% vs 11%) but significantly less likely to smoke (18% vs 27%) (all P < .05). Comparable proportions of immigrant adults and US-born adults were overweight or obese (67% vs 63%) and reported CVD (both 7%). Immigrant adults who arrived recently were less likely than immigrant adults who arrived earlier to have diabetes or high cholesterol but did not differ overall from US-born adults. Conclusions Our findings may help guide prevention programs and policy efforts to ensure that immigrant adults remain healthy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Nycz

AbstractThis paper examines stylistic variation in the (oh), (o), (aw), and (ay) classes among native speakers of Canadian English living in or just outside either New York City or Washington, DC. Speakers show evidence of change toward US norms for all four vowels, though only (aw) shows consistent style shifting: prevoiceless (aw) is realized with higher nuclei when speakers express ambivalence about or distance from the United States, and lower nuclei when closeness to or positive affect about the United States is being conveyed. Canadians in New York also show topic- and stance-based shift in (oh): (oh)s are higher when expressing positive affect or closeness to New York City and lower when expressing negative affect or distance. These results suggest that mobile speakers continue to exploit the socioindexical links in their native dialect while learning and using new links in their adopted dialect—but only if those links are socially salient.


2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-105
Author(s):  
Peter G. Vellon

“For Heart, Patriotism, and National Dignity”: The Italian Language Press in New York City and Constructions of Africa, Race, and Civilization” examines how mainstream and radical newspapers employed Africa as a trope for savage behavior by analyzing their discussion of wage slavery, imperialism, lynching, and colonialism, in particular Italian imperialist ventures into northern Africa in the 1890s and Libya in 1911-1912. The Italian language press constructed Africa as a sinister, dark, continent, representing the lowest rung of the racial hierarchy. In expressing moral outrage over American violence and discrimination against Italians, the press utilized this image of Africa to emphatically convey its shock and disgust. In particular, Italian prominenti newspapers capitalized on this racial imagery to construct a narrative of Italianness and Italian superiority in order to combat unflattering depictions of Italian immigrants arriving in the United States.


1931 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-251
Author(s):  
Blewett Lee

On September 15, 1930, the State Board of Commerce and Navigation of New Jersey made a ruling that aircraft would not be permitted to land on any New Jersey waters above tidewater within the jurisdiction of the state. The application had been made for permission to operate a five passenger flying boat between Nolan's Point, Lake Hopatcong, a vacation resort, and New York City, and to set off a portion of the lake to make a landing place for the hydroairplane. It was stated that other inland waters in New Jersey were being used for a similar purpose, and the ground of the refusal was that aircraft flying from water constituted a menace to surface navigation. This ruling created considerable newspaper comment and aroused vigorous protest from persons interested in aviation, and by order of October 20, 1930, the ruling was limited to Lake Hopatcong.


Author(s):  
Llana Barber

Chapter Seven traces Lawrence's transition to a Latino-majority city with the 2000 census, including the tremendous increase in immigration during the 1980s that led Lawrence to become home to the largest concentration of Dominicans in the United States outside of New York City. The city's Latino population came to define Lawrence's public culture in this period, and the long push for Latino political power in the city was ultimately successful in many ways. This chapter discusses the transnational activities that brought new vitality to Lawrence's economy and its public spaces, yet larger structural forces continued to create obstacles to Latinos finding in Lawrence the better life they pursued.


Mahjong ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 162-186
Author(s):  
Annelise Heinz

During the years of depression, war, and postwar expansion, mahjong evolved in the United States and abroad, creating discrete national, regional, and community forms. In the 1940s, the wives of Air Force officers created their own version, which continued to spread across postwar bases. The most influential community adaptation by far was driven by the National Mah Jongg League. Over the ensuing decades, eventually hundreds of thousands of players, mostly but not exclusively Jewish American women, played their “National” version of the international Chinese game. The changes to the game that the League initiated were enabled by their proximity to the small factories making the tiles. The locus of mahjong manufacturing for the American market moved from China to plastic fabricating shops in New York City. As factories developed in concert with distinctive regional and community-based forms of the game, American mahjong grew into a domestic industry.


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