When it comes to identity, a new study claims teenage girls born in the U.S. to Caribbean parents, work hard to fit in.
Fordham University`s Dr. Oneka LaBennett, found that second generation Caribbean teenage girls she studied in one Brooklyn area, between the ages of 12 to 17, `code switched.`
That simply means, `they found ways to assimilate in school, at home, at work and among friends by playing up the ethnic identity that served them best,` LaBennett tells Gina Vergel of `Inside Fordham.`
Anthropologists and sociologists call it code switching since it means the teens behave one way in one social context and then another way in another setting.
`I definitely saw them [code switching]; they knew strategically when to assert a West Indian identity or an African-American one,` she is quoted as saying. This included the way they acted in front of their parents and African Americans.
`The girls downplayed any interest in hip-hop culture often associated with African Americans,` in front of their parents, she said, but away from them they sang along to some hip-hop songs.
And they also switched identities to align with their African-American peers.
`It was actually more of a bidirectional process—the West Indian teens influenced the African-American teens and the African-American teens influenced the West Indian teens,` she said. `There was a great deal of sharing.`
LaBennett, assistant professor in the Department of African and African-American Studies and co-research director for the Bronx African American History Project, began researching first-and second-generation Caribbean teens for her dissertation more than 10 years ago.
Source: CaribWorldNews.com
