A stronger objection to the idea that Caribbean people can from a diaspora (deterritorialized or not) is that they may be thought of as part of other diaspora – notably the African victim diaspora, the Indian labour diaspora, various European imperial diasporas and the Lebanese trade diaspora’.
Arriving in the United States of America Selena’s parents was met by racism and hostility. Even though slavery had been abolished since 1865, after the 13th Amendment had been passed it was still visible that some people could not adjust to living with black people having the same rights as them. Although Selena’s parents could not understand why it was seen so hard to for said ‘white people’ to accept them even though they spoke the same languages as the Americans and in some sense had the same cultural beliefs they could not be accepted. The dream land that Selena’s parents had expected was not there. It was more a case of segregation, because yet again black people were living in the “ghettos” although there were a few white people living there also it did not feel like a better or higher standard of life that Selena’s parents has expected. As referred to by Cohen (2008, p.127)
The Caribbean community monopolizes the laundries, travel agents and hairdressing shops in several New York districts.
The job market was doing really well but Selena’s parents found it really difficult to find decent jobs. The only jobs that they could find were minimum wage jobs which were not enough to keep their family in the kind of lifestyle which they had in Guyana. Selena and her parents found themselves living in an area that was mostly populated Caribbean people who like themselves came to the United States of America for an ‘improved’ life. As stated in the Narrative of Migration Selena had such a ‘beautiful’ idea of what being in Guyana was like for her as a child, though this may have also been an idea of Selena’s parent just like them the Caribbean was changing too. At this point is where I believe the concept of ‘homeland’ and ‘hostland’ began to play a major real in Selena and her parent’s life. Even thought they wanted to be accepted and feel as if they were apart of this new country, their ‘hostland’ it was still apparent that they had these views of being back home in Guyana their ‘homeland’ would be so much better. In turn this places another issue as Cohen (2008, p.130) reference Paul Gilroy in saying that
‘On the idea of a nationalism without a nation – state (or a territory), and on the idea of a ‘double consciousness’
With this notion in mind Selena’s parents believed that the only other ‘motherland’ or ‘homeland’ that they could connect with is that of the British, so they decided to move to the United Kingdom.
In the narrative Selena's parents had already started their migration journey to the UK via the United States of America without her with the same prospects expectations that had been experienced by their generation before as stated by Spencer (1997, p.38)
‘in the late 1940's with emigration running at two and a half times that of immigration, there was good cause for the government to look towards the empire/commonwealth as a potential source of labour supply’.
Even though Selena’s parents knew that the call for migrate workers time had past they still felt as if they would be able to get a improved standard of life than what they had received in the United States of America and in Guyana. The function and influence of Diaspora communities in contemporary British society has a lot to do with the attitudes, one from and Diaspora community brings to Britain when they arrived. As stated by Cohen (2008, p7)
‘ A bond of loyalty to the country of refuge/settlement competes with co-responsibility, while those who have achieved national social mobility are often reluctant to accept too close a link with a despised or low-status ethnic group abroad, even if it happens to be their own’.
Looking back onto Selena’s Migration from Guyana to American where she did not feel at home, to that of the United Kingdom which felt like a motherland.
Many Caribbean migrants saw coming to the UK as a second home, after being colonised by the UK they also felt as if it was their ‘motherland’. In many cases this was not what happened as described by Cohen (2008, p127)
‘Despite finding unskilled jobs, and the early experiences of Caribbean people in the UK were often negative one. They felt that their wartime loyalty has been unacknowledged and that they were treated as an unwelcome problem rather than as valued citizens of the empire coming to help the motherland.
As a result of so many of the British Commonwealth Caribbean islands in the 1950s saw a law come into place that stop so many of them who were looking for a higher standard of live in their ‘motherland’ being pass. As stated by Cohen (2008, p.127)
‘A rapid halt in the early 1960s with the implementation of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act forbidding further unregulated migration. With the exception of the ‘rush to beat the ban’, the movement of migrants to the UK closely shadowed the ebbs and flow of the job vacancies’.
Before the ban was passed it seem that many white British people were annoyed with the idea that their government was letting in all of these Commonwealth countries people in Britain to do worker. These white people saw the Commonwealth workers as beneath them, and also unable to do their jobs. It did not matter that these Commonwealth workers were helping the economy group by coming to the United Kingdom to work. The white British people did not feel as though the United Kingdom was a representation of them anymore, they felt as if their identity had started to become lost. In some aspects they did not feel as if the had a ‘homeland’ to call their own or an identity. It had seemed to be lost all together with arrival of these migrates from Commonwealth countries. This is displayed very accurately Cohen (2008, p.76)
‘the attempt to cling to a unified British home and diasporic identity defined primarily by descent and racial phenotype was, however, to be severely challenged on a number of fronts. First, it proved difficult to be too racially specific – the wider Commonwealth included a brown and black empire as well as the zones of whit settlement. Second, with the post war movement of Commonwealth citizens from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean to Britain, it became increasingly difficult to uphold the idea that a British identity was exclusively a white identity’.
The United Kingdom was hardly anything like the United States of America to Selena and her parents. Selena had finally felt that she was at home, even though the United Kingdom had a contrast effect to the United States of America when labour workers from their commonwealth countries came, over the past 50 years this had changed. Works such as ‘community cohesion’ helped towards making Britain feel like a place that Selena and her family could call home. Now ethic minority communities were not left to feel as if the were not apart of the nation, they had an identity a sense of belonging. In some sense this could be called multiculturalism as explained by Cantle (2008, p.11)
‘Most advanced industrialised nations are now ‘multicultural’ – if only in the sense that they have significant black and minority ethnic populations who have established themselves over several decades, with second and third generation descendants’.
In conclusion Diaspora Communities play and important role in how the rest of the worlds view of Britain is seen. It also shows how many Caribbean and African – Caribbean people were not of a single Diaspora but from several. When charged with the task of theoretically analysing a narrative piece of writing on Diaspora I realised that, there were various methods that could be undertaken to deliver a sound and very meticulous examination. Above all, however, it was vital to assume some relevant wider reading on the subject. To effectively theoretically analyse a narrative on Diaspora, it was paramount for me to, at the very least, understand and appreciate the key issues within Diasporas. In order to do this I felt it extremely useful to refer to some sources that involved similar experiences to that of the subject Selena. In this case, that was the migration from the West Indies to the United Kingdom. In the course of my wider reading, the most obvious parallels could be drawn from the late 1940’s West Indian migration, which was generically, attributed the name “Windrush” after the colossal ship, HMS “Windrush”. Ironically this shipment were no longer called cargo, as it was in slavery, but these individuals were proud and not forced to be making this journey, this time. They were completely invited and much awaited and very much citizens of the Commonwealth. (Phillips, 1998). Selena’s family had the same ideas and prospects as their generations 40 years earlier. However society had, by then, changed. The ‘natives ‘did not expect so many ’non-returners’, on the contrary, the invitees “dug their heals in and carved” out lives for themselves without the thoughts of returning. In-fact more often than not they would send for additional family members to partake in the ‘spoils’. Selena’s family and she alike, would experience a less hospitable reception at their endeavour or so they felt. I realised by my further reading that whilst an issue within Diaspora is the eventuality of returning to their ‘homeland’ another, ‘quite paradoxically’, is staying in the ‘hostland’. This hostland for the next generations is by now also considered to be home. So yes, an obvious consequence of Diaspora is the ‘Homeland’ versus ‘Hostland’ scenario or more fittingly ‘dilemma’. So what were the key interests, established? Well, we can talk about economic driving forces behind the emergence of Diaspora, we can also talk of social motivations such as disease and war for this dispersion, but it was very important to differentiate between ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ Diasporas as distinctly as the difference between a ‘slave’ and a ‘freeman’. Before my wider reading I did not grasp the significance of the difference, but this is very importance because it is the measure of this that determines the degree to which one would want to return to their ‘homeland’ and therefore crucially this question of returning home forms the central concern to the issue of Diaspora to those of whom migrated themselves and moreover, arguably and more significantly the host land natives too.
References
- Cantle, Ted. (2008) Community Cohesion A New Framework for Race and Diversity. UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
- Cohen, Robin. (2008) Global Diasporas An Introduction. Oxon: Routledge.
- Phillips, Mike and Phillips Trevor. (1998) Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain. London: Harpercollins.
- Spencer, Ian R.G. (1997) British Immigration policy since 1939: The making of Multi-racial Britain. London: Routledge
Theoretical Analysis
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