Jamaican Americans

• SIGNIFICANCE: Jamaican immigrants to the United States, coming from a nation with different patterns of race relations, must adjust their expectations as they deal with native-born Black and White Americans and often struggle with an uncertain racial and ethnic identity.

The movement of Jamaican people to the United States began in the early twentieth century and increased greatly after the 1965 relaxation of immigration restrictions. Jamaican immigrants clustered in metropolitan areas along the Eastern seaboard and in California, where many attained success as leaders in politics, religion, education, and business.

The Caribbean island of Jamaica was colonized by Spaniards in the sixteenth century. After most of the Arawak Natives died, the Spanish brought enslaved Africans to work their sugar plantations. The British acquired Jamaica in 1670 and continued the practice of slavery. Jamaican slavery ended in 1838, a generation before slavery’s demise in the United States. Jamaica gained national independence in 1962.

Centuries of slavery left the island with a majority Black population (many of whom were very poor), a smaller mixed-race segment, and a small, prosperous White population. Jamaica, unlike the United States, never developed Jim Crow laws, rigid color castes, or a tradition of lynching. Race is not a pressing issue in Jamaica, where Blacks occupy positions at all levels of society. Jamaican immigrants to the United States, most of whom are of African ancestry, often experience shock upon entering a society with a powerful White majority and a long history of blatant and rigid color prejudice and discrimination. They develop various strategies to deal with racism, such as confrontation, resignation, and the development of heightened race consciousness.

Immigration

Immigration from Jamaica to the United States occurred throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries. Many propertied and educated Jamaicans had established themselves in New York City by the 1920s. Other Jamaicans entered the country as temporary migrant farmworkers under special visas. During the World War II labor shortage, Jamaicans were encouraged to work on farms and in factories in the United States. The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act reduced West Indian immigration; however, Jamaican immigration surged following the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which opened admission to nonwhite immigrants from Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Jamaican newcomers settled mostly in the metropolitan areas of New York City and Miami. By 1990, 435,024 Jamaicans lived in the United States, about 80 percent of whom were foreign-born. The leading states of residence were New York, Florida, California, New Jersey, and Connecticut, according to 1990 US census figures. According to the 2020 US Census, over 1 million people of Jamaican descent lived in the United States.

2012 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics published by the Department of Homeland Security, the number of Jamaicans who became naturalized American citizens each year from 2003 to 2012 fluctuated between a low of 11,218 (2003) and a high of 21,324 (2008). In 2012, the number of Jamaicans granted US citizenship was 15,531. According to the U.S Citizens and Immigration Services, 20,200 Jamaicans became naturalized American citizens in 2023.

Education, Business, and Leadership

Jamaicans arriving in the first decades of the twentieth century became black community leaders in the areas of business, politics, and the arts. In New York City, many were business owners and professionals. Some, such as Marcus Garvey, became government, civil rights, or labor union leaders. Others, including Claude McKay, a prominent writer who helped found the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, became cultural leaders.

The 1965 immigration act established a preference for skilled migrants. Accordingly, Jamaican immigrants in the latter part of the twentieth century tended to be well educated. The departure of many technical, managerial, and professional workers badly needed for the island’s economic development has produced a “brain drain ” in Jamaica. The value Jamaican immigrants place on education is reflected in the school performance of Jamaican American youth. Ruben Rumbaut’s 1992 survey found that the children of Jamaican immigrants tended to have high grade-point averages and to score high on standardized reading and math tests. The children reported spending a large amount of time doing homework (versus watching television) and had very high educational aspirations.

Comparisons with US Blacks

Economic motivation underlies much Jamaican migration, and some transplanted islanders become business owners. Social scientists vary in their interpretations of West Indian entrepreneurship. Some, such as Thomas Sowell and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, credit West Indians with habits of thrift and hard work that cause them to be more successful economically than US-born Blacks. Others, including Reynolds Farley and Stephen Steinberg, argue that Jamaican immigrants constitute a select group, skilled and highly motivated before they leave the island. Farley and Steinberg also argue that the differences in economic success between immigrant and US-born Blacks have been exaggerated. Farley cites statistics showing that while West Indians are more often self-employed than US-born Blacks, the self-employment rate for Whites is much larger than for either nonwhite group. Statistics for unemployment and income also place Jamaican Americans well below whites. Most Jamaican Americans are not self-employed. Many obtain advanced education and become lawyers, doctors, and teachers; others work in construction. Women have high labor force participation, and many work in domestic service and nursing.

Questions of Identity

As Jamaican Americans attempt to arrive at a sense of racial or ethnic identity, they encounter opposing forces. On the one hand, they tend to retain their ethnic identity, thinking of themselves as Jamaican Americans, because of the constant influx of new immigrants who revitalize distinct cultural elements of folklore, food preferences, religion, and speech. This separateness is enforced by the attitudes of African Americans, who sometimes resent the islanders because of their foreignness, their entrepreneurial success, and because some White employers apparently prefer foreign-born workers. On the other hand, Jamaican Americans may adopt an assimilated label, calling themselves Black or African American, prompted by daily experiences with racism. Because of the conflicting pressures of living in the United States, second-generation islanders sometimes vacillate, at times identifying with African Americans and other times attempting to distance themselves from them.

Bibliography

Farley, Reynolds, and Walter R. Allen. The Color Line and the Quality of Life in America. Russell Sage, 1987.

Kirkwood, Toni Fuss. "Jamaican Students of Color in the American Classroom: Problems and Possibilities in Education." Intercultural Education, vol. 13, no. 3, 2002, pp. 305-13.

"Naturalization Statistics." U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 9 May 2024, www.uscis.gov/citizenship-resource-center/naturalization-statistics. Accessed 31 Oct. 2024.

Parrillo, Vincent. Strangers to These Shores. 5th ed., Allyn, 1997.

Portes, Alejandro, editor. The New Second Generation. Russell Sage, 1996.

Thomas, Deborah A. "Blackness across Borders: Jamaican Diasporas and New Politics of Citizenship." Identities, vol. 14, no. 1-2, 2007, pp. 111-33.

Vickerman, Milton. Crosscurrents: West Indian Immigrants and Race. Oxford University Press, 1998.