Belonging and Boundaries in Little Guyana: Ethnic Enclave Interactions Among Middle Class Second-generation Indo-Guyanese Americans

• In Event: 392 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Interrogating Race

Abstract

Ethnic enclaves offer cultural, religious and political amenities that enable first and second-generation Americans to develop a sense of belonging as they integrate into the American mainstream. Most studies approach ethnic urban neighborhoods from a working class perspective with limited reference to how middle class immigrants use ethnic enclaves to assert their identities and advance their structural incorporation into American society. In contrast to the first wave of European migration in the late 1800s, today’s newcomers are more heterogeneous—especially in educational attainment, English-speaking ability and economic status. In this article, I address the socioeconomic, religious, cultural and political conditions that bond middle class immigrants and their adult offspring to the ethnic neighborhood by discussing how second-generation Indo-Guyanese Americans, Indian Caribbeans of Asian Indian Ancestry, use the ethnic enclave to mark ethnic boundaries and reconfigure their ethnic identities in New York. Middle class second-generation Indo-Guyanese Americans are particularly significant to this analysis in that they are residentially, culturally and politically re-developing the ethnic enclave to reflect their assimilation needs through familial and co-ethnic interactions, ethno-religious performances and political involvement in community based organizations. It is important to consider how contemporary immigrants with high educational attainment and/ or earnings are utilizing the urban enclave landscape and how structural conditions and cultural traditions are shaping the dynamic relationship between ethnic identification, boundary formation and assimilation.

Author

• Nazreen Sameena Bacchus, City University of New York-Graduate Center