Newest Imports! Teachers: Neoliberalism's Demand on Afro-Caribbean Women Teachers

• In Event: The Transnational Self: Experiences of African and Caribbean Students and Teachers in U.S. Educational Contexts

Abstract

Between 2001 and 2003, 1500 teachers were recruited from the Caribbean to work in the New York City public school system. Most of them were women and most of them were of Afro-decent. This paper seeks to understand how the neoliberal market economy affects and affected these women’s lives. Through document analysis, using feminist theories, I analyze the context within which these teachers’ subjectivities became a part of a neoliberal agenda in education. This paper has five sections that work together to provide the context for why the Caribbean Recruitment Initiative (CRI) was "successful" for the board of education in New York City and a complicated web of deception, disappointment and activism for Afro-Caribbean women teachers.

Author

• Kimberly Natalia Williams Brown, Vassar College