Maddox, Tyesha. 2024. A Home Away from Home Mutual Aid, Political Activism, and Caribbean American Identity (University of Pennsylvania Press)
Abstract
A Home Away from Home examines the significance of Caribbean American mutual aid societies and benevolent associations to the immigrant experience, particularly their implications for the formation of a Pan-Caribbean American identity and Black diasporic politics.
At the turn of the twentieth century, New York City exploded with the establishment of mutual aid societies and benevolent associations. Caribbean immigrants, especially women, eager to find their place in a bustling new world, created these organizations, including the West Indian Benevolent Association of New York City, founded in 1884. They served as forums for discussions on Caribbean American affairs, hosted cultural activities, and provided newly arrived immigrants with various forms of support, including job and housing assistance, rotating lines of credit, help in the naturalization process, and its most popular function—sickness and burial assistance. In examining the number of these organizations, their membership, and the functions they served, Maddox argues that mutual aid societies not only fostered a collective West Indian ethnic identity among immigrants from specific islands, but also strengthened kinship networks with those back home in the Caribbean. Especially important to these processes were Caribbean women such as Elizabeth Hendrickson, co-founder of the American West Indian Ladies’ Aid Society in 1915 and the Harlem Tenants’ League in 1928.
Immigrant involvement in mutual aid societies also strengthened the belief that their own fate was closely intertwined with the social, economic, and political welfare of the Black international community. A Home Away from Home demonstrates how Caribbean American mutual aid societies and benevolent associations in many ways became proto-Pan-Africanist organizations.
The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies’ Gender and Anti-Colonialism in the Interwar Caribbean, Issue 12, December 2018.
Maddox, Tyesha. 2018. “More than Auxiliary: Caribbean Women and Social Organizations in the Interwar Period.” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, Issue 12: 67-94
Abstract
The interwar period witnessed the formation of a large number of Caribbean American benevolent associations and mutual aid societies, which served as forums to discuss Caribbean American affairs, hosted cultural activities, helped members find employment and provided charity assistance. Through an examination of female participation in these organizations, this article challenges the historiography of Caribbean immigration that tends to normalize the male experience. These associations empowered Caribbean women to become involved in political activism and served as training grounds for female leaders. Through relief efforts, charity work and collaboration with Caribbean organizations, female members created diasporic networks that kept them abreast of events in the islands and connected to their West Indian identities. This article reveals that an examination of Caribbean women’s involvement in social organizations is essential in shaping complex and diverse immigrant narratives, which place women at the centre of diasporic formation and highlight their role as indispensable agents in forging transnational connections.
Keywords: Caribbean women, mutual aid societies, immigration, transnational networks
Maddox, Tyesha. April 2021. “Can Mutual Aid Withstand Pandemic Fatigue?,” Bloomberg CityLab
Abstract
In 2020, the challenges of the COVID-19 global health pandemic catalyzed millions of citizens to spring into action, and take matters into their own hands. Americans rallied into a resurgent force that propelled a rise in mutual aid organizing nationally. Thousands of new mutual aid groups developed alongside already more seasoned organizations. This article examines what mutual aid actually is and as we enter year two of this pandemic, how we keep the momentum we have built?
Maddox, Tyesha. Jan 2021. “It’s Time to Build on a Long Tradition of Racial Justice Movements,” Bloomberg CityLab
Abstract
On Oct. 11, 1865, hundreds of incensed Black men and women marched to the Morant Bay police station in Jamaica, disillusioned with the colony’s justice system. Protesters seized control and acquired weapons before marching towards the courthouse, where they opened the jails and released 51 prisoners. They set the courthouse on fire and then went on to burn the homes of prominent figures who embodied the moneyed and political class. For the next several days, the unrest spread to neighboring estates as more Jamaicans joined the rebellion in solidarity with the dissenters. The events of 1865 eerily parallel the 2020 uprisings surrounding the murder of George Floyd. In this article, I argue for the importance at looking at the long tradition of Black radical protest and their importance to advancing the fight for equality.
‘Women Were Always There…,’ in Gender and Migration in Historical Perspective: Institutions, Labour and Social Networks, 16th to 20th Centuries (Palgrave Studies in Economic History, August 2022)
Maddox, Tyesha. August 2022. “‘Women Were Always There…’: Caribbean Immigrant Women, Mutual Aid Societies, and Benevolent Associations in the Early 20th Century” in Gender and Migration in Historical Perspective: Institutions, Labour and Social Networks, 16th to 20th Centuries (Palgrave Studies in Economic History)
Abstract
Departing from traditional male-centered immigrant narratives, this chapter provides a nuanced and complex understanding of Anglophone Caribbean immigration to the United States by placing women in the center of diasporic formation as indispensable agents in forging transnational communities. In the early twentieth century, Caribbean women initiated female-led chains of immigration. Ultimately, laying the social and economic foundation for later immigrants and helping to establish a thriving Caribbean ethnic community in the US. Subsequently, this chapter posits that female immigrants served as the guardians and proponents of Caribbean culture in the US. They also played an imperative role in immigrant mutual aid societies and benevolent associations which further aided in the creation of formal and informal networks. These associations empowered immigrant women and served as training grounds for female leaders, giving them a platform in which to discuss issues of social and political reform. Examining immigrant women’s roles in social organizations provides an important voice to an often-neglected aspect of the Caribbean immigrant experience and highlights the inextricable links between notions of gender, race, and class in shaping complex and diverse immigrant narratives.
Keywords: Caribbean American history, women’s history, benevolent associations, immigration, transnational networks, diasporic communities
Contributor, The Black History Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained, London: DK Publishers (2021).
Contributor to The Black History Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained (November 2021), DK Publishers.
Abstract
With profiles of key people, movements, and events, The Black History Book brings together accounts of the most significant ideas and milestones in Black history and culture. This vital and thought-provoking book presents a bold and accessible overview of the history of the African continent and its peoples – from the earliest human migrations to modern Black communities and the African diaspora. Discover the rich and complex history of the peoples of Africa, and the struggles and triumphs of Black cultures and communities around the world. The Black History Book examines the achievements and struggles of Black communities across the world up to the modern day, as well as the influence of Black cultures on art, literature, and music the world over.
Contributed several articles: The African Diaspora, Black Lives Matter, Colour-Blind Policies in France, Brown vs. Board of Education, Louisiana Code Noir, Nat Turner’s Revolt
Think piece essay for Little Caribbean website, a community-driven initiative spearheaded by CARIBBEING, a Flatbush-based cultural hub and leading presenter of “all things Caribbean,” 2018.
New York: A Caribbean Capital (2018)
Abstract
The month of June marks National Caribbean-American Heritage Month in the United States. Established in 2005, Caribbean-American Heritage Month recognizes “the historic relationship between the people of the Caribbean and the people of the United States, as well as, …the many contributions of Caribbean immigrants and their descendants to the well-being of America.” Since the nineteenth century, Caribbean immigrants were counted among some of the most influential members of black American society, holding positions as religious leaders, educators, politicians, and entrepreneurs. In New York City, especially, they contributed their unique cultural experiences to help shape the state’s identity. From Caribbean real estate developers in the 1910s who helped sell Harlem as an enclave for black families, to settling and developing businesses in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Flatbush, Caribbean people have made strong contributions to the city of New York. These immigrants changed the political, economic, and social landscape of black life in the United States, and in doing so indelibly left their mark on American History. Without their contributions, New York would not be the city that it is today.
Cited in Gad Heuman’s The Caribbean: A Brief History (2018) pp 197, 228
Cited in Gad Heuman’s The Caribbean: A Brief History (2018) pp 197, 228.
Dr. Heuman references my research on gender and Caribbean women which challenges the historiographical tendency to normalize the male experience of immigrants by highlighting the prominent role of women in immigrant mutual aid societies and benevolent associations. He makes mention to my argument that Caribbean immigrant women were imperative to the success of these social organizations. In their roles as founders and leaders, they provided the groundswell for an indigenous front in community leadership. These associations became the training grounds for female leadership. Examining women’s roles thus provides critical insights into the impact of an often-neglected aspect of the Caribbean immigrant experience, further highlighting the inextricable links between gender, race, and class in shaping complex and diverse immigrant narratives.