West Indian in America

For us football is actually played with your feet, and many of us would rather watch Manchester United on television than the Dallas Cowboys. We don't quite get baseball, but fully get that a cricket match can go for days. We are more likely to serve cornmeal pudding or rum cake, than apple pie for dessert. We know tea is not necessarily from a bag, but could be cocoa, chocolate or anything hot and in a mug. Our recollections and longings are peppered with references to 'back home, and around countrymen our speech takes on a distinct cadence as we relax into the rhythmic hybrid of homeland dialect and broken English. We are West Indians in America.

According the Census Bureau's 2000 report on the foreign born population, approximately 2.8 million people from the Caribbean live in the United States. That number does not include U.S.-born children of Caribbean immigrants who consider themselves West Indians, or those the Census Bureau did not reach due to some missing immigration paperwork. It is also not hard to believe that many more people from the islands have emigrated to the United States over the last 10 years.

We come to the States in pursuit of prosperity, education, and sometimes love. While we predominantly live in big metropolitan areas, there is a West Indian to be found in every corner of the United States. We are lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, accountants, chefs, administrators, engineers, and politicians. You name a job, a West Indian is doing it - and maybe on double shifts.

While most of us are happy abroad, we know a truth that many people living back home are reluctant to believe. Life in the United States is not all bliss and Kellogg's corn flakes. Those of us who grew up in the islands often miss aspects of our life back home - regardless of how difficult that life may have been. It is not unusal to hear West Indians pine for the more relaxed pace of the Caribbean.

For many West Indians, living in America also presents moral, political and spiritual considerations that were untested in our usually conservative communities back home. Creation vs evolution, gay marriage vs domestic partnership, affirmative action, and race relations are most often items for the overseas, rather than local section of our home country's newspapers. We have not established ourselves as a voting bloc, like Hispanics for example, quite likely because our views are splintered. Those who migrated in the 70s, and 80s are likely to be conservative, particularly about fiscal issues, gay rights, religious liberty, and abortion. Younger immigrants and the children of earlier immigrants are likely to have more liberal views.

Though we sometimes experience racism, without the historical prospective of the periods of the Jim Crow South, and the Civil Rights Movement, West Indians often have a more optimistic view of race relations. For example, affirmative action and reparations are issues on which African-Americans and West Indians don't always agree. In fact, West Indian emigrants often experience prejudices from African-Americans, largely due to differing points of view on social and political issues.

Over many decades West Indians emigrants have become part of the fabric of this country. With Haiti's desperate situation in the news, concerns about an influx of Haitians seeking refuge in the United States are being raised. Discussions about border security, immigration policy, and illegal immigrants are constant, but now with the attention focused on Haiti I am increasinly uncomfortable. I am one of the outsiders many born-Americans want to keep out. The discussions of illegal entry intermingle with proposals for putting limits on people emigrating to the United States and the resentment of some is not difficult to see.

Despite all the challenges and sacrifices, we make our lives here. Our tax dollars and our hard work help to build this country. Our children are born here. We leave our lives behind in the countries of our birth, and most of us will never go back. We are naturalized citizens, resident aliens, out of status permanent visitors. We are West Indians in the U.S.A.

Citizens of the world

I have missed living in South Florida more over the past week than I have at any other moment in the 18 months since my family moved to New Jersey. The contrast between life in South Florida and life here in these Northeast suburbs has been amplified by the earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday, January 12.

In the days immediately following the quake I went about expecting to hear discussions about the disaster in Haiti, about local relief efforts, about the need for volunteers to do something...anything. The silence was deafening. I looked around for signs at the local library, fire department, high school, and churches showing prayer and support for Haiti. There was a glaring absence of any. A whole community, it seemed, was some how collectively unaware, or collectively choosing to ignore the plight of a neighbor. I know things were different in Miami.

A week after the earthquake, some e-mailers and callers into the National Public Radio show Talk of the Nation made the apparent detachment of my neighborhood seem generous by comparison. One writer lamented everyone's political correctness, arguing that with more than a million Haitians already living in the United States we should not be letting in anymore. Others questioned how much aid should be given to a country which cannot seem to get its act together. Even people who seemed to want to say the right thing sounded patronizing: "I live near Little Haiti (in South Florida) and they are quiet, and smart, and creative."


Today the concept of a global economy is apparent from the moment we put on our underwear in the morning. Social networking websites make it possible to connect with people everywhere and anywhere around the globe. Travel, migration and the Travel Channel give everyone opportunities to expand their cultural references. Despite all that, ignorance, hatred, irrational fears and indifference are still evident in the idiotic spoutings of the likes of Pat Robertson, in the apathy of entire communities towards the distress of others, and in our unwillingness to let go of racial and cultural stereotypes.

Thankfully, as the world continues to shrink it will become increasingly difficult for those who see the world in terms of 'us and them', or who prefer to turn a blind eye, to maintain their view.

Are you supportive or destructive?

It is still early January and the ink is still wet on those New Years' resolutions. What did you do when your friends and family shared their resolutions with you? Did you roll your eyes when your overweight girlfriend said she's resolving to lose 50 lbs.? Did you chuckle when your chain-smoking brother said he would quit smoking in 2010? Did you remind your sister that she said the same thing last year when she mentioned she would be going back to school this year?

You can play a supporting or destructive role in helping others achieve their goals. Every snicker or unsupportive word has the potential to kill somebody's dream. Several studies have shown that social support can be key in weight loss. I'm willing to bet that theory applies to other goals as well. We all do better if we feel supported by those we love.

If you think a goal or resolution is unreasonable, then offer guidance - not criticism. Say to your friend, "Weight loss is often difficult to plan, why not resolve instead to see a nutritionist to learn about healthy eating, and to do some form of exercise for at least 30 minutes every day."

If you are tired of hearing your sister talk about going back to school to get her Master's, help her make tangible plans. Ask her if she has already decided on a course of study and a school; and for a specific date by which she will complete the application process.

If you have no faith that someone can or even intends to accomplish a goal or keep a resolution, then don't say anything.

Your words can carry so much weight for those who love you and value your opinion. You can be responsible for encouraging someone to achieve, or be responsible for stepping on and shattering their goals. Which one are you resolving to be?