Thalia Ann Bethel
EDGE 6101
Critical Reflection Project #3
From Sea to Shining Sea: A Journey to America
When I was young girl, I wasn’t familiar with my family history until my tenth birthday. I always knew my mother’s family and my father’s family looked completely different from one another because of their skin color. On my father’s side of the family, all my relatives are very light skin and could pass for white. However, my mother’s relatives are either tan or very dark skin, but could only pass as black. The main reason for this color difference was my parent’s place of origin. Both of my parents have West Indian ancestry in their families, but since the Caribbean is a diversified place there isn’t any segregation of color. After my tenth birthday, I decided to ask my mother about my family history and where my father and she came from. She was born in Birmingham, England and my father originated from the island of Grenada. To explain her heritage, my mother decided to begin with her parents’ ancestry and their journey to the United States which connected her and my father’s relationship.
On May 2nd, 1955 McKenon Francis, my grandfather, arrived in Dover, England after a two week voyage from his native island of St. Kitts and Nevis. The voyage to England took two weeks because it was cheaper to take a ship than an airplane. The ship voyage included coming from St. Kitts and Nevis to arriving in Montserrat. From Montserrat, the ship went to the Mediterranean and arrived in Italy where my grandfather had to take a train to his destination. He described his experience as “an uplifting and exciting travel to a new world.” McKenon realized that life in Dover was different from St. Kitts and Nevis because he had to work a full day, where on the island he was able to work early and relax for the rest of the day. McKenon responded, “In St. Kitts and Nevis, I worked from 7am-4pm and in the evening I could relax by playing a game of cricket with my friends.”
When my grandfather arrived in England, not having any family there he had to live with a friend named Wesley Carthy. With only a high school education and few skills in carpentry, McKenon settled down and tried to find work in England. Like other West Indian immigrants’ reasons for emigrating to Great Britain, my grandfather’s reasons was the overpopulation, high unemployment rates in his native island, and the doors were closed for the United States at the time (Peach 3). After the post World War II era, the United States legislation proposed the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act of 1952 where it only set a quota of 100 West Indian nations to enter the country (Dinnerstein 100). McKenon’s primary reason for coming to Great Britain was its unlimited employment opportunities in finding a job. Since it was after World War II, the United Kingdom was left in devastation from bombings that had destroyed many buildings (Peach 3). The high employment rate helped McKenon and other immigrants find jobs in factories or construction. According to his account of employment in England, my grandfather stated that “England was full of work. My first job was in a factory named Imperial Chemical Industry where they discovered the new chemical called titanium for making airplane engines. I worked in this factory for about 15 years where there were alternate shifts such as I would do the night shift one week and the day shift the next week.”
While my grandfather was living in the United Kingdom, Shirley Henderson, his girlfriend, made an expedition to visit him in April 1958. They both knew each other since living in St. Kitts and Nevis. The main reason for Shirley’s expedition to England was to marry McKenon and start their family together in Birmingham. Three years before Shirley arrived in the U.K., it was difficult for McKenon to find housing because the English residents did not want to rent or sell their homes to black immigrants. They were racist toward the black people because they were different from them and afraid to open their doors to foreigners. It took about two months for McKenon to find a house for his newlywed wife.
McKenon and Shirley got married in July 1958. In February 1959, Avalin, my mother, was the first child to be born to my grandparents. After Avalin’s birth, my grandparents had two more children Shaun and Sharene. The Francis family spent fifteen years in the United Kingdom before deciding to come to America. As McKenon recalls, “I decided to bring my family to the United States because they were now opening their doors to West Indian immigrants and there was higher paying jobs in America compared to England,” According to historian Holger Henke, the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act of 1952 was abolished in 1965, thus triggering a new wave of migration that marked a notable turning point in the history of Caribbean-American migration in America (Henke 28). This law had an impact on my grandparent’s decision of first immigrating to England and then coming to the U.S. They did not plan to stay long in England because they had relatives in America where they could form a family community for their children. The United States Immigration Act of 1965 allowed many West Indian immigrants enter the country by the following requirements which was they either had to have close relatives of U.S. residents or they were refugees from communist goverments (Dinnerstein 104). Sarah Browne, my grandfather’s older sister, sponsored his family to enter the United States in 1968.
On November 16, 1968 at 12pm in John F Kennedy airport of New York City, the Francis family finally arrived in America. They came only with four suitcases to start their new life because they had to sell their old home to pay for their expenses to this country. Compared to his arrival in Great Britain, McKenon had relatives and friends in America that he and his family could stay with before living on their own. They spent two weeks with his sister, who helped find an apartment in Brooklyn. Similar to other West Indian immigrant families, the Francis family moved into a four-family apartment building on East 95th Street in East Flatbush. East Flatbush was beginning to have a great West Indian community during this time. Just like his early days in England, he had to find employment and quality education for his three children. McKenon remembered that he had to place the children in their zone school, which was the educational system of placing children in their neighborhood school.
Avalin was placed in P.S. 219 where they were a large number of Jewish and Italian students with very few Hispanic and West Indian students. Majority of the teachers in the school were Jewish women who were racist to the newly arrived black immigrants. Avalin experienced discrimination at a young age, “I was 9 years old when I came to America and the school children were very cruel to me because of my British accent and how I dressed. I also felt the school teacher did not help me adapt to the American school system,” Avalin recalls her experience in school. It also took her a long time to grow accustomed to American culture. For example, when my mother first encountered pizza, a popular American takeout food, she was disgusted because it reminded her of vomit on bread. As she got older, she assimilated to different American foods and the words they used to describe certain things. She was still use to British English spellings and words compared to Standard American English. Avalin had to adjust to several traditions and customs before she saw herself as a true American.
After living in America for about two months, my mother, grandfather, and grandmother had different viewpoints about the lifestyles of the U.S.:
Avalin: Although I was 9 years old, I remembered viewing America as small and
dirty because I had to live in an apartment which I was not used to living
in. In England, there was countryside for me to run around and America
did not have any backyards when you live in a small apartment.
McKenon: It was strange to me because the houses were different compared to
England. These houses were know as apartments because each floor had a
set of rooms for each family. I dislike the apartments because I was not
accustomed to them.
Shirley: It was a big comparison because the streets were dirty and the apartments
were a different housing style. The weather was different from England
meaning when it was cold in America, it was really cold.
For the first six weeks of living in the U.S., McKenon worked in a plastic factory in Queens until his immigration papers arrived. He found a new job working with a banking company called Banker’s Trust in New York City. He worked with this company for 25 years as a check processor and distributor until he retired. While on the job, he experienced discrimination from the elite white upper-class men who received higher pay than the blacks. McKenon explains, “The harder jobs received less money because they could not find anyone to do them, so they gave them to the black people. I received many of those hard jobs which had low paying salaries, but I gained a lot of experience from them.” Although he was assigned more difficult jobs, it did not discourage him from trying to make a living for his family. One thing that he promised his children was that they would eventually have a better job than him by pursuing a college degree.
Just like McKenon, Shirley had to find employment in America to support her family. Her first job was in a shipping agency where she did secretarial work. After two years, she worked at Chemical Bank as an analyst in the banking department. While working there, she faced discrimination on the job where certain employees were given low paying salaries. She says, “Although I was given certain jobs with the low paying salaries, it was an eye-opener for me because America is not always the land of opportunity.” Like other West Indian immigrants, Shirley thought this country was built on liberty and democracy for every individual regardless of economic status. Although my grandmother only had a high school diploma from St. Kitts, she continued to work hard to receive the higher paying positions that whites held. Whites were able to find jobs more easily than other racial groups because the majority of the staff at these top companies was white.
While my grandparents were adjusting to their jobs in America, my mother was adapting to the education system in Brooklyn. She attended South Shore High School which was an all-white high school with a black population of ten percent. Avalin experienced discrimination daily from the white students when she wanted to join student organizations and activities. She remembers, “They would make it very difficult to join a club because they didn’t want black students in majority of the organizations. I participated in very few clubs due to their prejudice remarks about blacks.” Throughout her four years at South Shore, she disliked the student atmosphere that her only focus was to graduate in 1977. McKenon and Shirley took their children’s education very strongly and encourage them to attend college after high school. Like many West Indian parents, they saw education as a social mobility to survive in the U.S.
On November 20, 1980, the Francis family became official U.S. citizens. My grandfather remembered taking a citizenship test which consisted of all kinds of questions that related to U.S. history and math. Although he found it quite difficult, he managed to pass it and received his citizenship. Since his children had attended American schools, it was easier for them to pass and become citizens. This was a major turning point for the family because they weren’t seen as immigrants and did not have to show their papers whenever they filed taxes or decided to buy a house.
After my mother graduated from high school, she was given the opportunity to attend Hunter College in Manhattan. In those days, a college education was inexpensive because financial aid helped pay my mother’s college tuition. Unlike South Shore High School, there was a larger population of minority groups such as Asians, Hispanics, Indians, and Blacks. Avalin enjoyed her college experience at Hunter because it was the first time she didn’t experience discrimination from the white race. In 1982, Avalin was the first person in the Francis family to graduate with a bachelor of arts in Mass Media Communications and find a job at Merrill Lynch as a dividend broker. McKenon and Shirley were very proud of their daughter and decided to have a graduation party for her. They invited family and friends in the neighborhood to their new house on Brooklyn Avenue in Flatbush. After all these years in America, the family was able to own a house in a white neighborhood. The house had belonged to an Italian family who decided to sell it and move to Long Island.
The same year my mother became a citizen, my father Humphrey Bethel arrived in the States. He came during the third largest West Indian migration during the 1980s. Humphrey came from Petit Martinique, Grenada and was the first family member in the Bethel family to arrive in New York legally. While living in Grenada, he managed to save money from his boat industry to pay for the plane ticket to New York. Upon his arrival, he stayed with his uncle’s family in Brooklyn where they provided him with food and shelter. Like McKenon’s immigrant experience, Humphrey had to search for employment that would accept his high school education. He finally found a job in carpentry because he had great hand skills when it came to building things. Back in Grenada, he worked as boatman where he fixed and sold boats so fixing cabinets and doing woodwork was simple to him. Although my father was a light-skin West Indian immigrant, he encountered discrimination and prejudice remarks from his Jewish and Italians employers. After working at the carpentry ship for five years, he found employment at Gem Pawnbrokers in Flatbush. He continues to work at Gem today and is one of the head managers at this company.
In 1983, Humphrey and Avalin met at a concert in Brooklyn College. At this time, my father was pursuing a degree in Accounting at the college and would later drop out due to the expenses and family situations. When they began dating, McKenon and Shirley didn’t approve of the relationship because of Humphrey’s religion, nationality, and he had a child from a previous relationship. McKenon and Shirley were Methodist that took their family and church beliefs very serious. They wanted Avalin to find an educated college man and someone of their same religion. Humphrey was Catholic and wasn’t quite as religious as the Francis family. He was trying to pursue a college degree, but the expenses and his employment at Gem interfered with his education. He also had a son in Trinidad that he had to help support with money and clothes.
Finally with McKenon and Shirley approval, Humphrey and Avalin married on May 11th, 1985. During the first year of marriage, they lived with Humphrey’s uncle, Roderick Deroche on East 29th Street in Brooklyn. The newlywed couple was searching for an apartment where they can place their new family. On February 25th, 1986, I was born at Brookdale Hospital in East Flatbush. My grandfather decided to help the new family by giving them an apartment in the four-family building that he now own on East 95th Street. My family would reside there for fourteen years before moving to a new house. Then on February 28, 1989, my brother Gervase was born and the same year my father’s sister Mary Bethel came to live with us. In the beginning, my mother and she didn’t get along because of their different beliefs in family and traditions. She believed that West Indian traditions of music and food should surround the children so they do not forget my father’s native island. Since my mother grew up in America, she has already assimilated into American culture and food.
My father instilled his West Indian culture into my brother and I by exposing us to popular West Indian music and foods. Both of my parents would tell us how important an education is in this country because it is the only source of survival. My father would always say, “The standard of living in this country is based on your educational accomplishments. Make sure you pursue a college education even if I have to break my back to pay for it. I want my children to only have what I didn’t have in life which is the best.”
However, my father wasn’t the only person to instill his West Indian culture in my sibling and I. My grandparents would tell us their stories from the island and encourage us to go back to visit the island every year. Since Brooklyn has a great West Indian presence, my mother would take us to the annual West Indian American Day Parade on Eastern Parkway because the Brooklyn carnival is an important tool for creating ethnic identity in the U.S. and marks the presence of West Indians from various countries. I have attended the parade almost every year and it has helped me embrace my West Indian heritage by joining the Caribbean Students Associations in my school.
As a second generation immigrant, I understand the struggles and hardships that my grandparents dealt with when arriving in this country. From the time the U.S. set a quota of 100 West Indian immigrants which became known as Mc-Carren Walter Immigration Act of 1952, this hinder my grandparents decisions to enter America directly. Even though the immigration system in America has changed, new immigrants experience the same feelings of disappointment and suffering by the existence of racial discrimination. Compared to previous West Indian immigrants in the 1920s, my grandparents and parents didn’t have any problems with African Americans because they settled in the West Indian area of New York. Unlike early West Indian immigrants, they did not settle in Harlem, but in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. They did not have any distinct differences with African American such as religion, customs, or traditions (Osofsky 136-137). Similar to early West Indian immigrants, my grandparents and parents did encounter racism from many Jews and Italians on the job and in their neighborhoods. Majority of Jewish women became teachers and taught in the New York City schools (Binder 116). In my early elementary school years, Jewish teachers made up a large population in the school atmosphere and some had their prejudice against my fellow classmates. I have lived in this country all my life and I still feel that prejudice and racism has affected my life. Although it is not such a big issue as before, it continues to exist in my neighborhood, at school, and at work. I have made my grandparents’ proud by getting an education in a country that took a long journey to arrive here.
Works Cited
Bethel, Avalin. Personal Interview. 30 Nov. 2005
Bethel, Humphrey. Personal Interview. 20 Apr. 2006
Binder, Frederick M. & Reimers, David M. All the Nations Under Heaven. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995: 116
Dinnerstein, Leonard & Reimers, David M. Ethnic Americans: A History of Immigration. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988: 100,104
Francis, McKenon. Personal Interview. 3 Dec. 2005
Francis, Shirley. Personal Interview. 4 Dec. 2005
Henke, Holger. The West Indian Americans. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001: 28
Osofsky. Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto.
Peach, Ceri. West Indian Migration to Britain. London: Oxford Press, 1968: 3
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