Blood Relations: Caribbean Immigrants and the Harlem Community, 1900–1930

by Irma Watkins-Owens

In Blood Relations, Irma Watkins-Owens focuses on the complex interaction of African Americans and African Caribbeans in Harlem during the first decades of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1930, 40,000 Caribbean immigrants settled in New York City and joined with African Americans to create the unique ethnic community of Harlem. Watkins-Owens confronts issues of Caribbean immigrant and black American relations, placing their interaction in the context of community formation. She draws the reader into a cultural milieu that included the radical tradition of stepladder speaking; Marcus Garvey's contentious leadership; the underground numbers operations of Caribbean immigrant entrepreneurs; and the literary renaissance and emergence of black journalists.

Through interviews, census data, and biography, Watkins-Owens shows how immigrants and southern African American migrants settled together in railroad flats and brownstones, worked primarily at service occupations, often lodged with relatives or home people, and strove to "make it" in New York.

Genres: History

Paperback

First published March 22, 1996

Reviews

[Mr. Monahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Watkins-Owens confidently breaks with the traditional but incomplete narratives on Harlem scholarship in her book Blood Relations. From introduction to conclusion she has authored an exemplary work of intraracial scholarship, the likes of which is seemingly needed in understanding the relationships between race, ethnicity, culture, immigration and urban space. Dr. Watkins-Owens openly challenges the overemphasis scholars such as Gilbert Osofsky place on conflict in understanding the specific relationship between Harlem’s African Americans and African Caribbean immigrants.(Watkins-Owens, pp.9-10) Her argument—a compelling one—is that while intraracial conflict existed, more complex dynamics deserve equal or greater attention. Watkins-Owens focuses her research on mostly two of the immigrant-native dynamics: cooperation and interaction. In this approach, the author is acknowledging and demonstrating the rich diversity within a historical significant community that has previously been inaccurately portrayed as all too monolithic. Dr. Watkins-Owens concludes that between 1900-1930 “Harlem developed on the ethnic and not simply racial dynamics.” (Watkins-Owens p. 165)

Ultimately, the author successfully incorporates narrative threads on gender, labor, organized religion, business, and politics into the defense of her thesis. Watkins-Owens focuses her research on the diverse classes of African Caribbean immigrants who culminate a multigenerational and multiphasic journey of immigration through the Caribbean and Latin American (more specifically Panama) with arrival in New York (although Miami is another destination, it is not the focus of this research). Any parallels between the European and African Caribbean immigrant experience cease upon arrival in New York, where unlike their European counterparts, African Caribbean immigrants found stability and/or mobility more elusive.

One particularly well researched and argued aspect of the book is the significant role played by churches and fraternal organizations in establishing power and prestige in the hands of the African Caribbean immigrants, while not completely robbing them of their native culture. While native organizations such as the Sons and Daughters of New York may seem to embody the ideal of native-immigrant conflict, Watkins-Owens finds that African Caribbean organizations like the Bermuda Benevolent Association were very successful at creating opportunity for newly-arrived immigrants.(Watkins-Owens p. 67) Many such organizations became, according to Watkins-Owens “important vehicles of social respectability” (Watkins-Owens p. 169) Additionally, groups like the Trinidad Benevolent Association took on the role of advancing economic stability; something that intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois advocates in The Philadelphia Negro.

Another thread that compliments this work nicely is that of gender; which like the concept of labor, Watkins-Owens has successfully incorporated or streamlined into the narrative. While the exclusion of women from skilled-labor professions leaves most with no choice but domestic careers, the struggle for both political and social independence is evident. Watkins-Owens describes the some fifteen thousand Harlem women who gained the right to vote in 1917 and thus shifted the “traditional alliances in Harlem politics.” (Watkins-Owens p. 79)

One problematic issue that manifests itself repeatedly is that of the African Americans who migrate from the South to Harlem during the 1900-1930 time span. The reader can tell that Southern African Americans are equally significant to the Harlem dynamic as African Caribbean immigrants, but they are not the subject of the narrative(s) and any attempt to hurriedly explain their impact on the intraracial dynamic comes off as incomplete and/or brash. However, the author does admit that the subject of Southern African Americans in Harlem is worthy of another book altogether.
Methodologically, Dr. Watkins-Owens certainly seems to have used a thorough body of primary source material.

[Joseph Hillyard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another one I read for class but forgot to log during the year. Although the writing can get dry at point, would still recommend for its content and exploration of the intraracial relationship between African Americans and Black Caribbean people. Too many Americans are ignorant of this very real and very complicated dynamic.