Living to Love, Learning to Live: Love, Sexuality and Belonging in the Lives of Immigrant Girls from the Caribbean

• In Event: Sexuality and Reproduction in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

The narratives governing the sexuality(ies) of adolescent immigrant girls from the Caribbean are pervasive with messages reminding them that they are objects to be desired and not girl/women deserving of love. In a year-long study with these girls I found that they dared to redefine what it meant to be a Black girl on their own terms. Much of what was captured in my data centered on the ways in which they used literacies to challenge these dominant conceptions and the consequences. My participants used their literacies as a strategy for liberation and a tool for resistance.

Presenter

• Donna-Marie Cole-Malott, Pennsylvania State University