Becoming Black American: Haitians and American institutions in Evanston, Illinois

Woldemikael, Tekle Mariam

Book

Becoming Black American: Haitians and American institutions in Evanston, Illinois

AMS Press • (54) • Published In 1989 • Pages: xiii, 191

By: Woldemikael, Tekle Mariam.

Abstract
This study describes a Haitian immigrant community and its integration into the existing social structure of an American suburban city (Evanston, Illinois). The book focuses on how the immigrants and their children deal with the contradiction between their own self-definition of cultural identity based on Haitian history, culture and nationality, and the racial identity imposed on them by most American institutions (p. 2). This work contains data on the nature of race relations in Evanston, Illinois, Haitian migrations, the social structure of the Haitian community, the relationship between American churches and Haitian immigrants, the impact of American schools on the Haitian population, intra-generational relations, the attempt of Haitian and American advocates and mediators to transform Haitian immigrants into an organized pressure group to further group goals, and, in the final chapter, a summary of the major findings of this book with implications for the study of assimilation of Black immigrants and race relations in the United States.

External migration

Labor supply and employment

Ethnic stratification

Classes

Sodalities

Inter-ethnic relations

Congregations

Haitian Americans

HRAF PubDate

1998

Region

North America