Breaching the walls of academe: the case of five Afro-Caribbean immigrant women within United States institutions of higher education
Keywords:
Downloads
Abstract
While a growing tendency among researchers has been for the examination of diverse forms of discrimination against Afro-Caribbean immigrants within the United States (US), the types of ambiguities that these create for framing the personal and professional identities of Afro-Caribbean women academics who operate within that space remain relatively absent. The literature is also devoid of substantive explorations that delve into the ways and extent to which the cultural scripts of Afro-Caribbean women both constrain and enable their professional success in academe. The call therefore is for critical examinations that deepen, while extending existing examinations of the lived realities for Afro-Caribbean immigrants within the US, and, the specific trepidations that they both confront and overcome in the quest for academic success while in their host societies. Using intersectionality as the overarching framework for this work, we demonstrate, through the use of narrative inquiry, the extent to which cultural constructions of difference nuance the social axes of power, the politics of space and identity, and professional outcomes of Afro-Caribbean immigrant women who operate within a given context. These are captured within our interrogation of the structures of power that they confront and their use of culture to fight against and to break through institutional politics.
Downloads
References
Alfred, V. M. (2001). Reconceptualising marginality from the margins: Perspectives of African American tenured female faculty at a White research university. The Western Journal of Black Studies, 25(1), 1-11.
Google Scholar CrossrefAlfred, M. V. (2003). Sociocultural contexts and learning: Anglophone Caribbean immigrant women in U.S. postsecondary education. Adult Education Quarterly, 53(4), 242-260.
Google Scholar CrossrefAlfred, V. M. (2011). Poised to shatter the glass ceiling in the ivory tower. In J. M. Gaetane & L-J. Brenda (Eds.), Women of color in higher education: Changing directions and new perspectives (Diversity in Higher Education, Vol. 10, (pp. 303-324). Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Group.
Google Scholar CrossrefAllen, W. R., Epps, E., Guillory, E. A., Suh, S. A., & Bonous-Hammarth, M. (2000). The Black academic: Faculty status among African Americans in U.S. higher education. Journal of Negro Education, 69(1), 112-127.
Google Scholar CrossrefArchibald, C. (2011). Cultural tailoring for an Afro-Caribbean community: A naturalistic approach. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 18(4), 114-119.
Google Scholar CrossrefBass, R. L., & Faircloth, C. S. (2011). Female faculty of color: Successful strategies in academia. In J. M. Gaetane & L-J. Brenda (Eds.), Women of color in higher education: Changing directions and new perspectives (Diversity in Higher Education, Vol. 10, pp. 219-239). Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Group.
Google Scholar CrossrefBeauboeuf-Lafontant, T. (2009). Behind the mask of the strong Black woman: Voice and the embodiment of a costly performance. Temple University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefBenet-Martínez, V., & Haritatos, J. (2005). Bicultural identity integration (BII): Components and socio-personality antecedents. Journal of Personality, 73, 1015–1049.
Google Scholar CrossrefBenson, J. E. (2006). Exploring the racial identities of Black immigrants in the United States. Sociological Forum, 21(2), 219-247.
Google Scholar CrossrefBertrand Jones, T., & Osborne-Lampkin, L. (2013). Early career professional development: Enhancing Black female faculty success. Negro Educational Review 64(1-4), 59-75.
Google Scholar CrossrefBoyce Davies, C., & M'Bow, B. (2007). Towards African diaspora citizenship: Politicizing and existing global geography. In K. McKittrick & C. Woods (Eds.), Black geographies and the politics of place (pp. 14-45). Cambridge, MA: South End Press
Google Scholar CrossrefButterfield, S. P. (2004). Challenging American concepts of race and ethnicity: Second generation West Indian Immigrants. The International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 24, 75-102.
Google Scholar CrossrefCho, S., Crenshaw, K. W., & McCall, L. (2013). Toward a field of intersectionality studies: Theory, applications and praxis. Signs, 38(4), 785-810.
Google Scholar CrossrefClandinin, D. (2013) Engaging in narrative inquiry. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press Inc.
Google Scholar CrossrefClandinin, D., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Google Scholar CrossrefCobb-Roberts, D., Esnard, T., Unterreiner, A., Agosto, V., Karanxha, Z., Beck, M., & Wu, K. (2017). Race, gender and mentoring in higher education. In D. A. Clutterbuck, F. K. Kochan, L. Lunsford, N. Dominquez & J. Haddock-Millar (Eds.), Sage Handbook of Mentoring (pp. 374-388). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefCollins, A. C. (2000). Black women in the academy: An historical overview. In R. Mabokela & A. L. Green (Eds.), Sisters of the academy: Emergent Black scholars in higher education (pp. 29-41). Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Google Scholar CrossrefCrenshaw, K. (1995). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller & K. Thomas (Eds.), Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement (pp. 357-383). New York, NY: The New Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefDavis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as a buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist theory, 9(1), 67-85.
Google Scholar CrossrefDavis, D. J., Reynolds, R., & Bertrand Jones, T. (2011). Promoting the inclusion of tenure earning Black women in academe: Lessons for leaders in education. Florida Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 5(1), 28-41.
Google Scholar CrossrefDavis-Maye, D., Davis, D. J., & Bertrand Jones, T. (2013). Who’s got next: SOTA’s KEMET Academy as a model to improve the community college to PhD pipeline. The Journal of Negro Education, 82(3), 243-254.
Google Scholar CrossrefDeaux, K., Bikmen, N., Gilkes, A., Ventuneac, A., Joseph, A. Y., & Steele, M. C. (2007). Becoming American: Stereotype threat effects in Afro-Caribbean immigrant groups. Social Psychology Quarterly, 70(4), 384-404.
Google Scholar CrossrefDill, B. T. & Zambrana, R. E. (2009). Critical thinking about inequality: An emerging lens. In B. T. Dill & R. E. Zambrana (Eds.). Emerging intersections: Race, class, and gender in theory, policy, and practice (pp. 1-21). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press
Google Scholar CrossrefEsnard, T. & Cobb-Roberts, D. (2018). Black women, academe, and the tenure in the United States and the Caribbean. NY: Palgrave McMillan.
Google Scholar CrossrefEsnard, T., Cobb-Roberts, D., Agosto, V., Karanxha, Z., Beck, M., Unterriener, A., & Wu, K. (2015). Productive tensions in a cross-cultural peer mentoring women’s network: A social capital perspective. Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Education, 25(1), 19-36.
Google Scholar CrossrefFoner, N. (2000). From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Tivo Great Waves of Immigration. New York: Russell Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefFournillier, B. J. (2010). Plus c’est la même chose: An Afro-Caribbean scholar on the higher education plantation. Creative Approaches to Research, 3(2), 52-62.
Google Scholar CrossrefFournillier, B. J., & Lewis, T. (2010). Finding voice: Two Afro Caribbean immigrant members of the academy ‘writing’ home. Studies in Continuing Education, 32(2), 147-162.
Google Scholar CrossrefFournillier, B. J., McLean, C., & George, M. J. (2013). Funds of knowledge and possibilities for successful academic performance. In E. L. Brown & A. Krasteva (Eds.), Migrants and refugees: Equitable education for displaced populations (pp. 257-277). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Google Scholar CrossrefFries-Britt S., George Mwangi, C. A., & Peralta, A. M. (2014). Learning race in a U.S. context: An emergent framework on the perceptions of race among foreign-born students of color. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 7(1), 1–13.
Google Scholar CrossrefGrant, C. M. (2012). Advancing our legacy: A Black feminist perspective on the significance of mentoring for African American women in educational leadership. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 25(1), 101-117.
Google Scholar CrossrefGreer, C. (2013). Black ethnics: Race, immigration, and the pursuit of the American dream. NY: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefGregory, S. T. (1999). Black women in the academy: The secrets to success and achievement. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Google Scholar CrossrefGregory, S. T. (2006). The cultural constructs of race, gender and class: A study of how Afro-Caribbean women academics negotiate their careers. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19(3), 347-366.
Google Scholar CrossrefGriffin, K. A., Bennett, J. C., & Harris, J. (2013). Marginalizing merit?: Gender differences in Black faculty D/discourses on tenure, advancement, and professional Success. The Review of Higher Education, 36(4), 489–512.
Google Scholar CrossrefGuy, T.C. (2003). Black immigrants of the Caribbean: an invisible and forgotten community. Adult Learning, 2003(12), 18–25.
Google Scholar CrossrefHanna, F. J., Talley, W. B., & Guindon, M. H. (2000). The power of perception: Toward a model of cultural oppression and liberation. Journal of Counseling & Development, 78(4), 430-441.
Google Scholar CrossrefHine-St. Hilaire, D. (2008). Immigrant West Indian families and their struggles with racism in America. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 6(2-3), 47-60.
Google Scholar CrossrefHintzen, P. C. (2001). West Indian in the west: Self-representations in an immigrant community. New York: New York University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefJean-Marie, G. (2009). Fire in the belly: Igniting a social justice discourse in learning environments of leadership. In A. K. Tooms & C. Boske (Eds.), Bridge Leadership: Connecting educational leadership and social justice to improve schools (pp. 97-119). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Google Scholar CrossrefJean-Marie, G. (2014). Living on the margin as an outsider-within in the academy: An auto-ethnography study of a Caribbean immigrant scholar. In J. L. Santamaria, G. Jean-Marie, & C. M. Grant (Eds.), Cross-cultural women scholars in academe: Intergenerational voices (pp. 76-92). New York, NY: Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefJohnson, V. S. (2016). When blackness stings: African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants, race, and racism in late twentieth-century America. Journal of American Ethnic History, 36(1), 31–62.
Google Scholar CrossrefKent, M. M. (2007). Immigration and America’s Black population. Population Bulletin, 62(4), 1-16.
Google Scholar CrossrefKing, D. (2005). Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefKnapp, G-A. (2005). Race, class, gender: Reclaiming baggage in fast travelling. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 12(3), 249-265.
Google Scholar CrossrefLee, M. (2004). Negotiating my space in academe. In V. M. Alfred & R. Swinanthan (Eds.). Immigrant women of the academy: Negotiating boundaries, crossing borders in Higher Education (pp. 21-35). NY: Nova Scotia Publishers.
Google Scholar CrossrefLee, J. J., & Rice C. (2007). Welcome to America? International student perceptions of discrimination. Higher Education, 53, 381–409.
Google Scholar CrossrefLouis, D., Thompson, K., Smith, P., Williams, M.A.H., & Watson, J. (2017). Afro-Caribbean immigrant faculty experiences in the American Academy: Voices of an invisible black population. The Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education 1-24.
Google Scholar CrossrefLykke, N. (2011). Intersectional analysis: Black box or useful critical feminist thinking technology? In H. Lutz, M.T. Herrera Vivar & L. Supik (Eds.), Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies (pp. 207-220). Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing.
Google Scholar CrossrefMalcolm, Z. T., & Mendoza, P. (2014). Afro-Caribbean international students’ ethnic identity development: Fluidity, intersectionality, agency, and performativity. Journal of College Student Development, 55(6), 595–614.
Google Scholar CrossrefMcCall, L. (2005). The Complexity of Intersectionality. Women, Culture and Society. 30(3), 1771-1800.
Google Scholar CrossrefMcClean, C. (2010). A space called home: An immigrant adolescent’s digital literacy practices. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(1), 13-22.
Google Scholar CrossrefMerriam, S. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Google Scholar CrossrefMiles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook of new methods (2nd ed.). CA: SAGE.
Google Scholar CrossrefNelson, T., Cardemil, E. V., & Adeoye, C. T. (2016). Rethinking strength: Black women’s perceptions of the “Strong Black Woman” role. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40(4), 551-563.
Google Scholar CrossrefPerlow, O.N., Bethea, S. L., & Wheeler, D.I. (2014). Dismantling the Master’s House: Black women faculty challenging white privilege and supremacy in the college classroom, Understanding & Dismantling Privilege, (IC92), 242-259.
Google Scholar CrossrefPortes, A., & Rumbaut, R. G. (2001). Legacies: The story of the immigrant second generation. New York: Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefRichardson, T. Q., Bethea, A. R., Hayling, C. C., & Williamson-Taylor, C. (2010). African and Afro-Caribbean American identity development: Theory and practice implications. In J. G. Ponterotto, J. M. Casas, L. A. Suzuki, & C. M. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural counseling (pp. 227-239). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefRogers, R. (2001). “Black Like Who?” Afro-Caribbean immigrants, African Americans, and the politics of group identity. In N. Foner (Ed.), Islands in the City: West Indian Migration to New York (pp. 168-92). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefRogers, R. R. (2004). Race-based coalitions among minority groups: Afro-Caribbean immigrants and African–Americans in New York City. Urban Affairs Review, 39(3), 283–317.
Google Scholar CrossrefRogers R. (2006). Afro-Caribbean immigrants and the politics of incorporation: Ethnicity, exception, or exit. NY: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefSchiele, J. H. (2000). Human services and the Afrocentric paradigm. Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefSchmitt, M. T., Branscombe, N. R., Postmes, T., & Garcia, A. (2014). The consequences of perceived discrimination for psychological wellbeing: A meta-analytical review. Psychological Bulletin, 140(4), 921-48.
Google Scholar CrossrefStanley, C. A. (2006). Coloring the academic landscape: Faculty of color breaking the silence in predominantly White colleges and universities. American Educational Research Journal, 43(4), 701-736.
Google Scholar CrossrefStanley, C. A. (2010). Conceptualizing, designing, and implementing multicultural faculty development activities. In K. J. Gillespie, D.L. Robertson, & Associates (Eds.), A guide to faculty development (2nd ed., pp. 203-224). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Google Scholar CrossrefSutton, C., & Chaney, E. (Eds.). (1992). Caribbean life in New York City: Sociocultural dimensions. New York: Center for Migration Studies of New York.
Google Scholar CrossrefThomas, G. D., & Hollenshead, C. (2001). Resisting from the margins: The coping strategies of black women and other women of color faculty members at a research university. The Journal of Negro Education, 70(3), 166–175.
Google Scholar CrossrefThornton, M. Taylor, R. J. & Chatters, L. M. (2013). African Americans and Black Caribbean mutual feelings of closeness: Findings from a national probability survey. Journal of Black Studies 44(8):798–828.
Google Scholar CrossrefVickerman, M. (2001). Tweaking the monolith: The West Indian immigrant encounter with Blackness. In N. Foner (Ed.), Islands in the city: West Indian migration to New York (pp. 237-256). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefWarner, O. (2012). Black in America too: Afro-Caribbean immigrants. Social and Economic Studies 61(4), 69-103.
Google Scholar CrossrefWaters, M. C., Kasinitz, P., & Asad, A. L. (2014). Immigrants and African–Americans. Annual Review of Sociology, 40, 369–390.
Google Scholar CrossrefWilliams, C. T., & Johnson, L. R. (2011). Why can’t we be friends? Multicultural attitudes and friendships with international students. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 35, 41–48.
Google Scholar CrossrefYuval-Davis, N. (2006). Intersectionality and feminist politics. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13(3), 193-209.
Google Scholar CrossrefZellers, D. F., Howard, V. M., & Barcic, M. A. (2008). Faculty mentoring programs: Re-envisioning rather than reinventing the wheel. Review of Educational Research, 78(3), 552-588.
Google Scholar CrossrefDownloads
Published
Almetric
Dimensions
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
All articles are published under Creative Commons copyright (CC BY). Authors hold the copyright and retain publishing rights without restrictions, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles as the original source is cited.
