From TT to T.O.
Subtitle: second generation identities in the Caribbean diaspora
By: by Camille Hernandez-Ramdwar.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 260
ISBN-13: 9780494160459
Subjects: Group identity -- Ontario -- Toronto.; Identity (Psychology) -- Ontario -- Toronto.; Children of immigrants -- Ontario -- Toronto.; Trinidadians -- Canada; Trinidadians -- Ethnic identity.; Immigrants -- Cultural assimilation -- Ontario -- Toronto.; Canada -- Emigration and immigration -- Social aspects.
Other titles: Second generation identities in the Caribbean diaspora.
Description: The diasporic and transnational construction of identities by migrants who make "home" in a new land has increasingly been the focus of interest and study by academics. However, the construction of identities by the offspring of these migrants---the second generation---has often been overlooked in the scholarship. Being born and/or raised in the diaspora, the experiences of identity among second generation experiences are very diverse, sometimes markedly different from the first generation's, and at other times echoing the first generation's sentiments of a longing for "home", nostalgia, and alienation.In this study, I examine identities and identity-making among second generation people who are of Trinidadian descent living in Toronto. I combine in-depth interviews with key individuals along with textual analysis of "sites" in which identity is performed and expressed: Caribana, soca fetes, websites, literature, as well as the consumption of music, food and clothes. My objective is to address the complexities of identity formation and negotiation in a multicultural yet white-dominant society such as Toronto. The study explores why and how certain individuals may choose to maintain and cultivate a distinct "Trinidadian" identity in a locale far-removed from Trinidad, while attending to the range of meanings they attach to being "Trini". I argue that new forms of creolization that are occurring among second generation people in the diaspora, a continuation of a tradition fostered in the Caribbean experiences of colonialism, slavery, indentureship and newer postcolonial trans-nationalisms.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2764.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 247-260).