Black immigrants and the quest for American community

COURTESY JAYMA ANNE MONTGOMERY

Jayma Anne Montgomery grew up viewing the world "through an ill-fitting pair of Anglo-Saxon glasses – uncomfortable but familiar and palatable" growing up the child of Jamaican immigrants.

“You talk like a white girl.”

If I had a penny for every time someone said this to me as a kid, I could’ve attended college tuition-free. I immigrated to the suburbs of south Jersey at 6 years old. Brutal teasing and a fierce determination to end my oddball status erased my accent within six months.

I lived in a Caucasian and Hispanic dominant neighborhood. My school and church were of a similar demographic makeup. When I was placed in honors classes, this further isolated me from the handful of other children of color in my school. 

 
My world was viewed through an ill-fitting pair of Anglo-Saxon glasses—uncomfortable but familiar and palatable. My Caucasian peers, who I spent most of my time with, never accused me of “acting white.” It was the people I barely knew, who happened to look more like me, who drew this conclusion repeatedly. But which of them turned out to be right?

Jamaica is by many orders of magnitude smaller than most African and Latin American countries, and yet, is the largest contributor of Black immigrants to the United States. English is the national language, although thick patois spoken rapidly could easily fool anyone unfamiliar with it.  

One of our most popular sayings “everyting irie” means everything is alright.  But everything isn’t alright for all of us.  

Last fall, The Charlotte Post published an article titled “In evolving Charlotte, Black immigrants across diaspora are often overlooked.” True statement.  In addition, the experiences of African descendant immigrants like me who hail from individualist rather than collectivist cultures are not only overlooked but misunderstood.   

Jamaicans identify well with rugged American individualism. After all, we consider ourselves a nation of rebels and overcomers. We immigrate expecting to contend with the Anglo-Saxon racial normative. We don’t expect to also have to contend with a narrow view of Blackness imposed on us by many of our African-American compatriots.

Skin color and facial features alone are not enough of a designator. Other factors like socioeconomic status, social conduct, and political ideology are involved. I wasn’t truly Black unless my Black peers said so. This is the double tax that comes with being a Black immigrant in America. My response was to reject the “African-American” label altogether.  

My strict upbringing differed from the Black children I barely knew. I was forbidden from listening to rap and hip-hop. BET and the Martin Lawrence show were never on at our house. Slang of any kind was prohibited. I didn’t know such things that were beyond my control would become the very things that would call my Blackness into question.  I was raised on Jamaican food, its musical subgenres, island folklore, herbal remedies, and stern lectures in the patois dialect.  

I spent my summers in New York attending basement parties.  But I was only Jamaican at home and around my New York family.  To everyone else, I was an overbaked white kid.

Despite the distinct otherness I felt among Caucasians, my place among them was, at least, clearly defined and, therefore, a lot less confusing. The message tightly swaddled into slumbering immigrant children is the same: get a good education, aim for the highest-paying careers, achieve more than your parents did. It’s both a wish and a command. And so, many of us follow the blueprints for success laid out for us.  

My mom became a nurse so I naturally became a doctor.  But this did nothing to affirm my ethnic identity.

In college, I met African and Afro-Hispanic immigrants who seemed unperturbed by the double tax.  I also met other Caribbeans whose immigrant experience differed from mine.  They grew up in highly populated urban districts where it was easy to coalesce with immigrants of similar background.  

The impetus to fit neatly into an American category simply wasn't there.  Accusations of not being Black enough carried little weight.

They were already part of a rich community that affirmed their immigrant identity resolutely.

It seems to me that most Africans, Asians, and Hispanics manifest immigration life differently than even the most patriotic Caribbeans. Their collectivist cultures seem to have a larger purpose in mind than establishing themselves and their immediate families. They don’t settle for being cultural potted plants. Instead, they bury their roots deeply into the American soil.

They forge impenetrable communities submerged in their traditions, relics, and history.  For better or for worse, this deeply rooted system keeps people loyal to their American way of life even if they never learn a word of English. This network provides jobs, housing, and loans among themselves. They carpool and baby-sit at no expense. It’s possible to thrive in such communities with very little need to stray outside of its borders.   

I think you would be hard-pressed to find a Caribbean enclave anywhere in America on the level of Chinatown in Philadelphia or the Hasidic Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn.  

Imagine growing up in a sustainable cultural ecosystem that meets the needs of its elderly and secures the financial future of its children. Building a life with the past and future generations of Jamaican immigrants in mind simply isn’t something I have seen done.

If American culture is individualistic, then Jamaican culture takes it up a notch.  We immigrate with blinders on, rarely reaching back to help those beyond our close family to make a successful transition. Like the displaced Asgardians of the Marvel cinematic universe, we must learn that home is not a physical location but a sentiment.   

Blackness is an insufficient term for the multi-cultural African diaspora that now widely spans six continents. It is my hope that my African-American compatriots will expand their view of what it means to be culturally Black. I also hope that my fellow Caribbeans will adopt a more dynamic and nurturing vision of immigrant community. Only then will the unique seasoning blend we bring to the American melting pot contribute its full flavor.

Jayma Anne Montgomery  is a Jamaican immigrant and an Army trained internal medicine physician turned blogger and author. Her work can be found at ThisWomansThoughtLife.com. Montgomery’s reflections and writings are derived from her multifaceted background and posed from a Christian worldview. Montgomery is pursuing a master’s degree in creative writing with the goal of remaining a bi-vocational writer and physician indefinitely. She has aspirations of local and overseas medical missions, particularly to serve those institutionalized in long-term care settings.

Montgomery works as a physician at hospitals in the Charlotte metro area.  She is a wife and mother of two young children.

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