El Caribe y América Latina: The Caribbean and Latin America 9783964569905

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IN MEMORIAM ALEJANDRO LOSADA (1936-1985)

El Caribe y América Latina • The Caribbean and Latín America Editado por Ulrich Fleischmann/Ineke Phaf

Actas del III. Coloquio Interdisciplinary sobre el Caribe efectuado el 9 y 10 de noviembre de 1984. Organización y publicación por el Lateinamerika-Institut de la Universidad Libre de Berlin en colaboración con el John F. Kennedy Institut para Estudios sobre Estados Unidos de Norteamérica de la Universidad Libre de Berlin. Papers presented at the III. Interdisciplinary Colloquium about the Caribbean on the 9th. and 10th. of November 1984. Organisation and publication by the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Free University of Berlin in collaboration with the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies of the Free University of Berlin.

Verlag Klaus Dieter Vervuert 1987

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek El Caribe y América Latina : actas del III. C o l o q u i o Interdisciplinario sobre el Caribe efectuado el 9 y 10 de noviembre de 1984 = T h e Caribbean and Latin America / organización y pubi, p o r el Lateinamerika-Inst. de la Univ. Libre de Berlin en colaboración con el John-F.-Kennedy-Inst. p a r a Estudios sobre Estados U n i d o s de Norteamérica de la Univ. Libre de Berlin. Ed. p o r Ulrich Fleischmann ; Ineke P h a f . - F r a n k f u r t / M a i n : Vervuert, 1987 Auf d. Haupttitels, auch: 3. Interdisciplinary Colloquium about the Caribbean. Inst, of Latin American Studies ISBN 3-921600-53-7 NE: Fleischmann, Ulrich [Hrsg.]; Interdisciplinary C o l l o q u i u m about the Caribbean etty manufacturing, pimping and prostitution, begging, stealing [1] - This article is baed on my 'Diplomarbeit'. I am grateful to Michael Eldred and Ulrich Weigel for hellp n translating this article. [2] - The ILO was thi most influencial force in conceptualising the informal sector, finding out its inhesren development potential and placing it in the centre of recent development debate. R p o r t of the ILO Kenya Mission (1972); Hart (1973); Sethuraman (1976, 1981); for t h e Werld Bank see Mazumdar (1976) and World Bank (1978).

227 and selling scrap. [...] 'Scuffling' provided an important alternative to paid employment, especially in the areas in which the incidence of f u l l - t i m e or secular unemployment was high" (Clarke 1975: 97). In these areas a large variety of small-scale and informal activities are to be found. Men work as self-employed artisans or craftsmen in furniture making, metal working, sign painting or car repair, while women are active in domestic service, higgling or as seamstresses. Informal activities are of vital importance not only in urban but also in rural areas. A large proportion of the rural population are "neither peasants nor proletarians" (Frucht 1967) and earn an income through "occupational multiplicity" (Comitas 1964). Many rural households supplement their agricultural income with a number of gainful activities, such as higgling, services and petty manufacturing. These activities would assume great importance if measures were undertaken to dampen the migration f r o m the land to the cities.

The Informal Sector: two Examples What is this informal sector which has become such a vital source of livelihood for many Jamaicans, both urban and rural? A more recent definition proposes that the informal sector "[...] consists of small-scale units engaged in the production and distribution of goods and services with the primary objective of generating employment and income to their participants not-withstanding the constraints on capital, both physical and human, and know-how" (Sethuraman 1981: 17). The main obstacles for harassment or neglect. necessity, by employing pursue a strategy which

informal activities are shortage of capital, lack of skills, and state Seen optimistically, informal entrepreneurs make a virtue of factors left unused by the modern formal sector. In doing so, they is d e f a c t o more suited to a developing economy [3].

Informal entrepreneurs try to overcome the lack of access to formal credit and savings institutions by raising capital through wage labour or family resources. In this context, the Jamaican type of mutual savings institution called 'partners' has an important influence on the savings and accumulation ability of low-income groups [4]. Informal entrepreneurs also tend to use labour intensive techniques and indigenous resources. Skills for informal activities are usually acquired outside the formal schooling system, through tradition or ' o n - t h e - j o b ' training. Many informal enterprises operate illegally or without licences, which results in a high degree of uncertainty and dependence on state tolerance.

[3] - The discussion on the informal sector concept is still highly controversial: (1) There is the problem of demarcation between formal and informal sector, which is o f t e n made arbitrarily. (2) The assessment of the relation between formal and informal sector differs from benign to exploitative/subordinate. (3) There is the question whether and under what conditions evolutionary growth of the sector is possible. See Bienefeld (1975); Bromley/Gerry (1979); Leys (1973) and the debate in World Development, vol.6, 9/10 (1978). [4] - In a 'partners' an initiator-leader contacts an optional number of participants to contribute an equal agreed sum of money each week, fortnight or month for as many times as there are members. According to lots taken at the commencement of the 'throwing' period, each participant 'draws' the sum of each regular instalment until the cycle has come full turn. See Edwards (1980: 48 ff.); Katzin (1959).

228 The informal sector contributes to the Jamaican economy by providing important goods and services, and by generating employment for an estimated 25 % of the labour force [5]. Three main groups of activities can be distinguished: distribution, with a share of 53 % of the informal labour force, followed by services with 29 % and production with 17 %. Since most of the service and distributive activities have low skill and capital requirements, competitive pressure is correspondingly high, and incomes often pitifully low. Although these activties have a limited potential for development and are therefore regularly neglected in the debate on the informal sector, they provide a living for most of the informal labour force. Informal production, which has the best potential for economic growth employs the smallest proportion of informal workers. Informal activities are more important for women than for men. While informal male employment accounts for around 17 % of the male labour force, it amounts to 37 % of the female labour force. This may be due to the fact that women are more seriously affected by formal unemployment and to the high female labour participation in Jamaica. The specific Caribbean family and household structure, in which women have to support their children, forces them to earn their own income [6]. Women cannot rely on the support of their male partners, since the latter receive only low incomes or are unemployed. Informal activities are particularly attractive to women because they combine easily with childcare and housework. But women are usually employed in less profitable activities such as higgling or services, whereas the more promising production is male dominated. The informal sector is by no means homogenous, as the above structure already indicates. In the following this will be further illustrated with to examples: informal clothing manufacturing and higgling.

Small-scale Clothing Manufacturing Small-scale clothing is the most prominent informal production activity. Of 13,000 units and 30,000 workers identified in a study on small-scale, n o n - f a r m establishments, 45 % of the units and 30 % of the labour force were active in clothing manufacturing (Davies et al. 1979). Dressmaking is the main clothing activity, followed by tailoring, shoemaking and garment making (Table 1). Garment making, although insignificant in terms of number of units, employs a remarkably high share of the labour force.

[5] - Although there are many indicators of the relevance of informal activities in Jamaica, very f e w inquiries are made into this subject. The PREALC-Report on the informal sector of Kingston has only tentative evidence, while the survey on small-scale, n o n - f a r m establishments by Davies et al. offers only empirical data without any analysis. Unless otherwise mentioned, the data on the informal sector are estimates made by the author according to the calculation method of the PREALC-Report. [6] - For the Caribbean family and household structure see Clarke (1957); Roberts/Sinclair (1978); Standing (1981); Ennew (1982).

229 TABLE 1: Breakdown of small-scale clothing industry - 1978 Enterprise

Dressmaking Tailoring Shoemaking Garmentmaking Others Total Clothing

Workers

Average Workers per Powered EnterMachine prise

Percent Keeping Record

47.0 % 32.0 % 18.0 %

39.0 % 33.0 % 18.0 %

1.2 1.5 1.4

4.0 5.4 5.4

1.9 % 7.1 % 2.7 %

2.0 % 0.4 %

9.0 % 1.0 %

7.5 3.8

1.3 3.1

63.3 % 34.8 %

5.915

8.831

1.5

3.3

5.0 %

Source: Davies et al. (1979: 49) The small group of garment establishments is already on a more sophisticated level of small-scale manufacturing with a considerable organization of the production process. Average employment is relatively high as is the use of electric machines. They are mostly housed in permanent workshops. Most of the garment enterprises keep records, which indicates managerial know-how. Since the above indicators go along with increasing urbanization, most of the garment enterprises are located in urban areas (Table 2). For larger establishments it is easier to purchase supplies off-factory, and to receive a discount or obtain credit. Since these have access not only to fashionable trimmings and fabrics but also to good skills and well-established business relations, they can sell on the ready-to-wear market. Some can even do sub-contracting work for a formal establishment. However, sub-contracting has been declining in the last few years because formal garment factories are anxious not to support prospective competitors. TABLE 2: Distribution of clothing establishment and employment bv location - 1978 Enterprise

Kingston above 100,000 Major Towns 20,000 100,000 Small Towns 2,000 20,000 Rural Areas below 2,000 Total

Workers

Average Workers per Enterprise

Percent Keeping Record

10.3 %

22.8 %

3.3

16.3 %

5.0 %

8.0 %

2.4

10.5 %

9.1 %

11.7 %

1.9

7.1 %

75.6 %

57.5 %

1.1

2.8 %

100.0 %

100.0 %

1.5

5.0 %

Source: Davies et al. (1979: 20; 37; 52 ff.) Most of the group's establishments are one person operations (80 %) employing simple low productivity techniques (Table 1). They are engaged in dress making, tailoring and shoemaking and are located primarily in rural areas (Table 2). Very simple technology prevails in capital equipment with 70 % of the machines in dressmaking and tailoring being human powered (Davies et al. 1979: 35). Accordingly, every third dressmaker and almost every

230 f i f t h tailor operates on the verandah. Record keeping diminished with diminishing establishment size and is almost non existent in rural areas. Most of these units have to purchase their supplies from formal shops and since they can buy only small quantities they obtain neither credit nor discounts. Ironically enough, these petty manufacturers are compelled to give credit to maintain their clientele. They produce mainly for low-income consumers on order, and have long unproductive periods waiting for clients. The internal market for informal clothing has tightened since importers and the domestic textile industry are setting new standards in fashion, price, and quality. Few enterprises manage to compete with these formal goods; most have to share a limited market or look for alternative markets. Tourism is providing an alternative market. There are for example, a few dressmakers who use recycled material, such as sugar and flour bags. They make 'fashionable' clothes for tourists which are sold on craftmarkets or by the roadside. Another example are the dressmakers in the small village of Catatupa, on the railway line between Montego Bay and Kingston. During the tourist season, the 'Governors Coach' stops twice a week on an excursion to this village. When the train arrives, the main street of the village looks like a huge open-air fabric warehouse. Women with several dresses, skirts and blouses as samples o f f e r their services more or less violently to tourists. While the tourists continue their journey to a plantation or rum factory, the dressmakers hurriedly cut and sew the clothes ordered with simple tools and machines. A few hours later the train stops on its way back. In those few minutes the women search for their clients and turn the carriages into makeshift dressing rooms. The main drawback for the informal clothing enterprises is that under present market conditions they are almost inevitably trapped in low productivity. But avenues of transition do exist as the internal division and stratification of the first example indicates. There is the small group of garment establishments, already on the edge of the formal sector, which are able to secure or even expand their markets. Their success is mainly a personal one and depends on an appropriate combination of socio-economic background, education and training, business connections and business acumen. However, most informal clothing operators are less fortunate and have difficulties in securing their markets, unless they manage to find an alternative market outlet. In rural areas the market conditions are still better than in urban areas, where competitive pressure f r o m both formal and informal garment enterprises is high. The gap between urban and rural areas indicates that an increasing level of urbanization is associated with larger and better equipped enterprises. It is thus probably easier for marginal enterprises to survive in rural areas. The basic characteristics and problems of clothing manufacturing could be transferred to every other activity of the informal productive sector, such as food processing, craft, wood and metal work. In this connection one Jamaican's observation still holds: "Although there is near-opulence at the upper level of that sector, at the lower level there is extreme poverty" [7],

The Jamaican Higglers The largest informal sub-sector are distributive activities such as shop-keeping, higgling, peddling and street vending. Within this sub-sector 'higglers', the Jamaican market women, are the most noticeable group [8], Until recently the marketing of locally produced food supplies for domestic consumption was almost completely in the hands of higglers. Since the times of slavery, when slaves were allowed to sell the surplus f r o m

[7] - Interview with a Jamaican businessman during summer 1981. [8] - The most well-known inquiries on higglers were undertaken by Fisher/Katzin (1959, 1960); Mintz/Hall (1960); Edwards (1980); Norton/Symanski (1975).

231 their subsistence plots on Sunday markets, women have dominated the market trade [9]. It is estimated that at least 5 % of Jamaica's female labour force is active as higglers. They are the link between the small peasant producers and the urban economy. In Jamaica there are almost 90 government-supervised markets and many informal street markets. Most of these are periodical markets open from one to six days a week, depending on market and settlement size. Kingston has eight markets, all of which are large, open six days a week and have space for more than sixty higglers. Coronation Market, in downtown Kingston, clearly at the top of Jamaica's traditional market hierarchy, is the island's major wholesale centre. Higglers from all over Jamaica come there to purchase their supplies of fruits and vegetables not available locally. Every larger market combines retail and wholesaling functions. Apart from the direct transfer of produce from farm to market by members of the peasant family - usually a woman - the movement of domestic food supplies from the fiels to local markets is channeled through numerous and intricate networks of higglers. Higglers may undertake both buying and selling, and wholesale or retail, or both, and they may work part-time or full-time. Unless a farm is near a market, most of its produce will reach the market through a 'country higgler', usually a woman who buys from the peasant producers in her home district early in the week. Often she may have to walk long distances through hilly or mountainous areas to reach her peasant supplier, with whom she is anxious to keep up friendly business relations. Usually a higgler helps a peasant in harvesting and sorting the crop. She also tries to procure a variety of goods to minimize the risk. Normally there is no long bargaining since both, higgler and peasant, are well-informed about present market prices. In preparing for the market trip, the higgler has to clean, bundle and pack her goods carefully. She takes what she has gathered by market truck or bus to the marketplace. There she may sell wholesale and/or retail, especially on Friday and Saturday, when the market crowds are usually larger. The country higgler is an essential link between the small farmer and the urban economy, especially by bringing the produce to market. The 'town higgler' is another important link. This is normally a female market town resident who rents a stall in the market place. Produce is bought both from country higglers and from wholesale markets. A good business and friendship relation often also exists between the country higgler and the town higgler, even to the extent that a country higgler may be allowed to offer her produce at her business friend's stall. The country higgler will also try to satisfy the town higgler's requirements by offering her the best produce and giving her personal credit. Besides higglers, who have a diversified stock, there are 'speculators', men who have specialized in a particular commodity such as tomatoes or root crops. They are country residents, grow some produce themselves, have their own transport, deal in larger quantities, and cover greater distances. They usually sell wholesale in the marketplace, often to 'vendors', other men who also specialize, but sell at both wholesale and retail. Although in all traditional Jamaican markets women traders predominate, specialization, capital intensification, wholesaling, and interregional or long-distance trade are characterized by a predominance of men. While wholesaling takes place mostly during the early morning hours and offers the possibility of selling large quantities quickly, retail trade goes on during the day and allows higher profits on smaller quantities. Selling prices break down into cost prices (dependent on seasonal supply and quality), transport expenses, market and stall fees and the higgler's personal profit margin. If a higgler can only obtain her supplies at a price that is somewhat higher or can make a particularly favourable buy at less than the [9] - On the history of higgling and the sexual division of labour see Mintz/Hall (1960); Edwards (1980).

232 prevailing price, she will transfer it to her customers, adding her personal profit margin to the costprice. If her products are underpriced by other higglers, the higgler's usual response is to wait. Because higglers are already aware of the constant factors in the supply prices of produce on entering the marketplace and know about the seasonal variations in quantity and price of each commodity, they can be quite certain that goods being sold below the market price at a given time will soon be exhausted, and then buyers will have to pay the going market prices. Only under time pressure, when, for example, a country higgler wants to leave the marketplace at a certain time or when the commodity is in danger of spoiling, will they reduce their profit margin. The retail price is further influenced by social criteria. Higglers ask different prices from different types of buyers. Members of the Jamaican upper class and tourists have to pay the highest prices, members of the middle class and domestic servants pay less and buyers of the higgler's own socio-economic group pay the lowest prices. The price to one of the higgler's own class almost never exceeds the higgler's cost plus her usual margin; as one stallholder put it: "The hungry feed the starving" (Fisher Katzin 1960: 325). Other price reductions such as through bartering are seldom, but higglers favour their regular clients through 'brawta', i.e. by giving an extra unit. Higglers' prices have, besides a profitoriented component also a social element, which takes into account the dense network of mutual dependence, social need and status identity. Entry into market trade is commonly seen to be very easy, but this view neglects that a profitable business in higgling also depends on capital, know-how and, even more importantly, on business connections and business acumen. Capital may originate from personal or family savings. Many higglers, both urban and rural, obtain their initial capital by wage-labour, usually domestic work, and by participating in a 'partners' until they have saved the necessary cash. Know-how is acquired mainly through tradition, handed down by the mother, grandmother or an aunt. Higglers and other informal traders are regularly criticized by members o f the Jamaican middle and upper class. This is nicely illustrated by a Jamaican businessman's observation: "Their [informal traders' - B.S.] prosperity depends mainly on: 1. tax evasion; 2. no overhead expenses; 3. unsophisticated life style; 4. absence of moral principles in competing with the other sector. For instance between the years 1978-1980 they actually captured trade in the down town sections o f Kingston [...] They purchase merchandise and trade them on the side walk underprising the very merchants on whose piazza/side walk they illegally sell without a trade licence. Even in the field o f 'financing' they outcast the formal traders. Instead of going to a bank and securing loans of interest rates up to 20 % per annum, they pool their cash in what they call 'partners' [...]" [10]. These resentments are narrow-minded and display an ignorance o f the problems of the unemployed and poor. Furthermore the traditional marketing system has often been criticized for being inefficient, unhygienic and inadequate for an industrializing country like Jamaica. There are obvious problems such as the spoilage of produce through transportation and the lack of adequate storage facilities, as well as construction and hygiene deficiencies in market buildings. But not much effort has been made to modernize or repair the government-supervised markets or to improve transport facilities for higglers. By contrast to this neglect o f the traditional markets, large investments were made in the government-supervised Agricultural Marketing Cooperation (AMC) in the 60's. The AMC was supposed to encourage domestic production by offering guaranteed minimum prices for certain commodities, and by improving distribution through collecting, transporting, storing, packing and processing. In 1968/69 retail functions were added, and AMC plans [10] - Interview op. cit.

233 have been announced to extend the retail network throughout the island. Although it was feared that it would become a serious competitor for the traditional marketing system, the government advance to control the domestic food distribution had already failed by the end of the 70's. One reason was that small peasant producers preferred to cooperate with higglers, who pay higher prices, give personal credit and to whom they have close business relations. Others continued with direct marketing through female members of the household, which offered a higher return and an additional source of income f d r this family member. Besides this, middle-sized farms often have their own transport and contracts with supermarkets and retailers. The AMC's failure clearly shows that the traditional market system can survive. The modernization of the distribution system is also highly controversial: "Given the scarcity of capital for economic development and the high labour-tocapital-ratio and present facilities, the use of available capital to eliminate higglers might adversely affect other existing economic arrangements" (Mintz, cit. in Edwards 1980: 51). The threat to traditional marketing comes now from another direction, namely growing competition with supermarkets and private retail shops. This is especially relevant in upper and middle class areas where new shopping centres have been established. Supermarkets and especially private retail shops have become increasingly important in the retailing of eggs, meat, fruits and vegetables. Apart f r o m Kingston and Montego Bay, however, the local markets continue to dominate retail food distribution. To sum up: the traditional marketing system is important for supplying urban areas with domestic agricultural products and for the cash flow of rural areas. It is a vital source of income and employment particularly for women. Although the formal distribution sector has tried to gain control of domestic food supply, the higglers manage to survive. The traditional marketing system is highly stratified internally. A few 'vendors' and 'speculators' are at the top, followed by some higglers, who occupy market positions with considerable costs of entry. At the very bottom there is the large group of marginal higglers who depend on illegal street markets and who may have just enough 'capital' to fill a tray or basket with ginneps, hot peppers or oranges. Their lives are a little better than begging, relieved only by cooperative attitudes and a keen sense of solidarity. Conclusion and Outlook

In Jamaica the informal sector has become a vital source of employment since neither the agricultural sector nor the modern formal sector is able to absorb the labour force. Although unemployment is obviously the main reason for informal employment, some may prefer to make their own 'fortune' with independent work, because of the low wages in lower positions in the formal sector. In agriculture the labour demand is stagnating or even decreasing, so that informal employment is particularly relevant to the attempt to curb the migration f r o m the country to urban areas. In the city most migrants have nothing better than to 'scuffle' in the slums of Kingston. In urban areas the market for informal goods and services is already tight, depending in each case by the niches left by the formal sector. In rural areas small-scale entrepreneurs are not confronted with so much direct competitive pressure but often only scantily survive nevertheless. The informal sector is very heterogeneous, showing a stratification within every subsector and within every activity group. At the top of the sector there are few establishments which already stand on the edge of the formal sector. On an intermediate level there is a larger group of small enterprises with relatively secure market positions and considerable costs of entry. But the majority of informal participants are located at the bottom of the sector's pyramid. Their activities hardly secure the bare means of existence. There may be an upward and downward mobility between the different levels

234 of the informal sector, but very little is known about this since long-term investigations are not available. Likewise, very little is known about socio-cultural patterns and their effects on informal business activities. There are institutions such as 'partners', the mutual savings f u n d , which have an important influence on the savings ability of low-income groups. There is also the higgler's 'brawta', the custom of giving an extra unit to regular clients, which can be seen as an attempt to secure customers. The higglers examplify the importance of friendly business relations, which in Jamaica are seen as a kind of business partnership. The existence of this network of mutual dependence may be assessed as an obstacle to short-term profit-making, but in the long-term turns out to be a vital institution for its participants' security. The failure of the AMC is due mainly to its neglect of this complicated network of interaction between peasants and higglers. Moreover, the higglers' selling-price discrimination serves to distribute income from the upper and middle class to the lower class. This socio-cultural 'composition' of mutual dependence, social need and status identity, sketched briefly for the higglers, probably has an equivalent in the business interaction of the manufacturing and service group. In the entire economic context not many illusions are left about the development of the informal sector. In the long-term, the scope for informal enterprises depends very much on the activities of the formal sector and the niches it leaves open. The example of smallscale clothing manufacturing has shown that the market is threatened by formal domestic and imported products. Only the top informal establishments can compete with formal enterprises, while the rest have to share a limited or even tightening market. As long as the present strategy of industrialization and modernization is pursued, it seems to be only a question of time before those active in the informal sector are pushed more into poverty. Even employment-oriented programmes and recommendations by international agencies to promote small-scale and informal activities do not allow much room for optimism, unless profound structural changes are initiated. Promotion of informal activities is aimed at respectable and larger establishments. Activities in informal services and distribution as well as the large group of very small manufacturing units are neglected. This may result in the latter's losing their markets, while at the same time not enough new jobs are created in the former group to absorb the laid-off labour force. On the political level recommendations are made to Third World governments. The state is called upon to stop its harassment of informal enterprises, and to set an example by subcontracting informal establishments for labour intensive tasks so as to obtain a product supply from informal manufacturers (see ILO 1972: 22). In a national context such a programme depends largely on the influence of political and economic lobbies and whether they see informal activities and an employment-oriented development strategy as functional or dysfunctional for their interests. In an international context the question arises as to whether the national governments of Third World countries will manage politically to implement profound changes which favour labour-intensive industries and rely on indigenous resources. Jamaica's recent experiences with the IMF and international banks are an especially eloquent example of the international obstacles to structural changes in favour of the poor [11].

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239

Astrid Roemer: In the beginning was the word and after that the analphabets. About the power of literature.

If I, as a so called Third World Woman in an extremely western world, interpret literature, then I am trying to do that with a consciousness that is more or less of first cleansed western traditional literary concepts. For instance: comparing the Surinamese literature with that of the Dutch is but senseless for the following reasons: the Netherlands has an age-old literary tradition which in addition is inspired by the Classics who in turn had also collected their wisdom f r o m the A f r i c a n s , the Asiatics and the Indians. Moreover, the Netherlands has a class besides society which makes it possible f o r some people to practise literature as a profession a n d / o r as leisure activities. The Netherlands has a commercial r e a d i n g - c u l t u r e which is supported by a population of millions. T h e Netherlands, in addition, is a highly developed and rich country. What applies to the Netherlands is metaphorical f o r industrialized countries who look upon the mineral and agrarian producing countries as belonging to the T h i r d World. N o wonder that the Surinamese author is associated with thin, badly - p r o d u c e d - u n d e r - h i s - o w n supervision edited books, mimeographs, pamphlets and such products, dripping with frustration because of colonialism. And the h u m a n being behind the author is being looked at with total depreciation. These are the facts which at least incite me to look for an own paradigm f o r literature of the n o n - w e s t e r n countries in general, and f o r Surinamese literature in particular and to give my role as an author a co-ordinating filling in.

Historical context

Literature in her generality runs more or less parallel with history in its generality. But besides the historical tradition of a country, a nation and its population/people, literature also gives us documents of smaller collectives as f o r instance classes, families, small f a m i l y - u n i t s , even of individuals. As a ' N a t i o n ' Suriname is young and still f r e e f r o m traditions. But in its authentic diversity the Surinamese people have a loaded past, a vibrating present and a f u t u r e full of surprises. So, to look at the existing literature of my native country, it is of the first importance to ask myself which points of recognition do I f i n d in that literature - as an individual, so both as personality, and as a m e m b e r of a more generally and historically loaded collective (woman, a f r o - S u r i n a m e s e , etc). Historical facts which are specific and peculiar to that country - the heterogeneity of the population, the m u l t i - c u l t u r e and the multi-lingual idiom usage, as well as in a certain sense the d i f f u s e colonial and post-colonial history of each nation individually and collectively, f o r m the base of our emotional and intellectual awareness. It is this base that by means of points of recognition looks f o r a f f i n i t y with the (Surinamese) literature.

1 9 5 0 - 1 9 8 0 Alienation and recognition Alienation 1950-1960 Although I have discovered Surinamese literature by my own initiative so not by way of education and training, my feeling towards it was in the first instance one of

240 disappointment. Dutch authors like Mulisch, Claus, Wolkers, Vestdijk, Multatuli especially the "80's generation" - were my references, and in comparison with them 'homeland-authors' like Robin Ravales, Ruud Mungroo, Thea Doelwijt and many poets shrank into nothingness - so did I judge, although I was charmed by the fact that I as a Surinamese human being had a lot more in common with them than with my Dutch idols. From the series of male white authors who were suggested to me by similar specialists of Dutch literature, I was generally attracted by the techniques applied so to clothe with words that what the reader experiences as 'naked'. And besides that, Mulisch profiled his being Jewish, Claus broke down for me the borders between genres and Wolkers' erotism dazed me; Multatuli and Vestdijk: the first had my interest because of his political commitment and his description of the tropics (-people), and the second had an oeuvre that struck me to my knees, and the "80's generation" moved me with their passionate writing. This recognition was virile but produced only pseudo-fruits: insight into white life-style and admiration for highly developed authorship. But in that same period I also read Lou Lichtveld (pseud. Albert Helman), especially his great Surinamese novels like The silent plantation. My monkey is laughing, and My monkey is crying, but those brain children of this man, born and raised in Suriname, left me with an alienating feeling: I did not exist, my family did not exist, the Surinamese society as a recognizable organism did not exist either. Helman just talked in his Surinamese novels about things which for me as a Surinamese woman did not in any way reflect my experience and affection. (Later, when I had grown much older and used especially his essays to interpret his fiction, I went on to accept this author as a writer of the 'Surinamese house'). Whereas Helman as an author of Surinamese origin did not at all speak about me, the "Moetete-group" (1962) had been founded especially for Surinamese literature. What was intended to start a literary revolution, turned out to be caught in its own words: a magazine (Moetete) which flourished for a very short time, flanked by additional other publications. The group made whirl up enough dust, was clearly engaged and was not absorbed by form-disputes. Moetete (indian basket) did not start to move the literature, because it was a noise. Rich in sound and rhythmical and up to date with regard to content were the prose and the poetry which found their way as offset-prints in piles to the public which breathlessly listened to its authors. But Moetete continued being a noise and did not become a school or current within the home-literature. Polemics about structure and form questions were background music, an accompaniment to small talk. The people were allowed to listen and buy, were allowed to be consumers and did not get secondary literature to remain in thought occupied with the authors. Besides that, here, too, occured the same old evil: in its contents this literature did not deliver any substantial points of recognition for individual Surinamese. Of course, the topics were generally human and the idiomatic use referred to something recognizable, but the gap which separates fiction f r o m reality and the ideal f r o m the action yawned as a sterile void. Was it true that this alienating feeling which my own authors and my own literature raised in me had something to do with my own individuality? Was my perception of being Surinamese so extremely d i f f e r e n t from that of the authors? I informed myself about the Surinamese library of friends, acquaintances and others and to my complete astonishment discovered that the works of our authors, self-edited with so many difficulties, suffered a virgin existence as nostalgic attributes. It was then that I consoled myself with the idea, precisely like so many so-called literate persons, of being too much influenced by colonial values, because of which "identification with one's own" had become impossible. Although I did not know anybody who distinguished himself in writing in a way which touched me, I remained a believer in the art of the word and in the power of the

241 imagination. Still more direct I sought and I myself ended up in old book shops, but especially chronical writers turned out to be only acute observers. Nothing in me and nothing outside of me suggested the idea to me of plunging into the literature of the so called 'own region' or of going to search for the literature of Blacks a n d / o r Women [1]. On one hand, because of my total education I was aimed one-sided at Dutch literature; on the other hand even in a political sense the Caribbean area and the hinterland of Suriname, the whole of South America, did not exist at all! And, what certainly led to my selective interest too was my nearly neurotic desire for inescapable points of recognition represented literally.

Recognition 1960-1980 Eldridge Cleaver My technical ability fails with regard to giving words of what happened to me when reading Soul on ice. Everything that simmered in me was brought to a boil by this black American, and I was sure of why I wanted to publish and why I was writing: to create a counter-image in the literary reality in which the most specific aspect of myself was lacking. Of course, every Surinamese poet had chanted also the woman as a lover and as a mother, and described her lyrically as a biological phenomenon. But always-always again she was made subservient to the sensory perception of the man. Of course, these authors used my language, but they had not beautified it. Of course, I recognized their commitment, but it was much too conceptual and generally applicable. Cleaver derailed me; and step by step I approached a world of experiences which were rooted in the base of my Surinamese awareness. I revived. I had found the way and the reason to communicate indirectly. And Cleaver had convinced me that personal experiences can be the most effective source of inspiration. Where for heaven's sake did I find in the Surinamese literature examples like that? I had to read Koenders, a friend said, and I have read all those yellowed Foetoeboi's (Surinamese magazines f r o m the twenties). Eddy Bruma had it, somebody else thought, and I also worked myself through his sranan-toneo. Indeed: in these two Surinamese men completely devoted to their home-country, authors from time to time - I heard more or less a sound that harmonized a bit, that is to say, did not disharmonize with my feeling of self-value. For that was what I had never found in the Surinamese literature. I was not foolish, o f f e n d e d or deprived - on the contrary: it is legitimate to manifest one's own value. Leo Ferrier In 1968 I read Atman, the intrigating novel of Leo Ferrier. I was in Holland for the first time and had been there nearly a year, and while reading, a greedy feeling of nostalgia nested itself in me: I knew, that is, I recognized the awareness of the characters, of my people, of my country and of the author. The mother figure whom Ferrier had designed, frightened me of something that was developing itself within me: being a woman - as a mother of independant children, as a wife of an intangible man, but above all as a sexual partner of a totally unknown person whom I loved painfully. I was touched in my deepest essence. For me, the Surinamese literature is recreated as the archetypical face of the Surinamese woman in Ferrier's Atman, deeply experienced and disgustingly absorbing. Bea Vianen

[1] - Astrid Roemer: "Zwarte vrouwen zijn zichtbaar geworden", in: Hugo Durieux (ed.), Vanuit veel werelden - Migrantenculturen in Nederland, Het Wereldvenster, Weesp 1984.

242 A few years after Atman, I read Bea Vianen: Sarnami Hai, Penal Cage, I eat, I eat, etc. fascinating books which loosened a lot of nostalgia because they really seemed sprouted from an experienced Surinamese awareness. Her personages - particularly the men - are recognizable and reproduced in a surprisingly realistic way. Her women made me rebellious because of their lack of emancipatory courage in their relations to their husbands - so more Surinamese they are, indeed. In her début-novel Sarnami Hai (Surinam, I am) this woman-writer unveils on a Hindustan-Surinamese decor the daily life of a young woman. And to the archetype of Leo Ferrier another one is added: The anguishing face of a girl becoming a woman in a society of men who dictate form and content. The characters of Vianen too wound themselves at in life and since she does not elaborate alternatives in her oeuvre, her anti-heroes remain as stereotypes in my imagination. Edgar Cairo As afraid as I was of Leo Ferrier because of the dazzling depths in Atman and as proud as I was because of Bea Vianen, our first female novelist, so more reading hunger touches me with any title by Edgar Cairo. I thought: Ferrier and Vianen are finally of different origin than Cairo and I am, so his characters will call up more in me, and Cairo is a scientific literary critic and beyond his fictional eruptions will also publish enough theoretical reflections. For in the meantime I was searching for even more inspiring examples. Cairo too laid things bare, literally and figuratively. He, mark you, provided the Surinamese literature with a historical political truth: the poorest of our country - the paupered so called town negroes. This author has an inimitable way of writing "poorness" to culture. Men, women and their children, descendants of those who 'fled' to the capital, Africans abused as slaves, crowd his fiction. I know, recognize and acknowledge this reality as an unavoidable part of our colonial past, but my feeling of self-value rejects his characters. The scope of the literature Particularly the publications of the last twenty years profile the Surinamese literature in a clear way. Especially the last mentioned authors have contributed to that a lot. What definitely should not be forgotten, is that these authors, too, began, precisely like the many 'nameless' writers, with publishing their own works until the moment that some western publishers started interesting themselves in their works. So, although few exceptions mark our literature, there exists a f r u i t f u l symbiosis between the so called official and the self published literature [2], For so much is being written and published. There hardly exists a topic that does not participate in our literature either as a fiction and/or non-fiction. But does literature only concern registration of processes, documentation of reality, or will truth be made existential? Searching for a new paradigm these questions pose themselves, although they remain without answer. Many studies have been made about 'the language' as a phenomenon, and the investigators agree unconditionally about this one question: language is thinking. And even there, where words fail (e.g. in exact sciences) it is the language which gives the 'signs'.

[2] - Astrid Roemer: "Een karikatuur van de Surinaamse literatur of hoe Surinaamse auteurs overleven", in: Oso 1, I, Nijmegen 1982.

243 Literature has to do with words, words personify and abstract a culture, a culture is given form and content by human beings. This means that lingual usage is never f r e e of values; that language-contents influence the thought, in short, that language is a power medium. The largest part of what I think I know is stored in language and has come to me via language usage. Especially through the language, for instance literature, total strangers communicate with each other world wide. Ideas, thoughts, feelings, even dreams are made recognizable by language. But also so called fact-material information is transmitted in this way. Language, so also literature, is definitely a medium with which persons (can) be manipulated, (can) obtain power and/or exercise influence on their own life a n d / o r that of others. How is Surinamese literature related to this factor? In what proportion is Surinamese literature to this datum? Within the context of the literature I indicated that the structure of the Surinamese awareness is formed by historical facts which are specific to and belong to that country. If literature can at least be a medium to exercise influence on awareness, then our literature will only be a powerful medium if it shows an extremely recognizable a f f i n i t y with what is specific and particular in the Surinamese awareness. This a f f i n i t y can be a question of form and/or content. A model that can serve as a projection-screen for the Surinamese author displays f r o m the first gaps which deform the imagination. It is precisely that deformation that demands a literature which supplies new insights out of recognizable situations. Starting f r o m the idea that language is a power medium, the new paradigm of our literature modifies itself as a model which is inspired in the emotional and intellectual awareness of Surinamese (persons who feel themselves more or less involved with Suriname and feel themselves as a part of that people). Is any piece of prose and poetry that imagines according to the above mentioned model literature then? Just as each drop of rain is water but not a river yet and certainly not a sea current, you could answer that question affirmatively. But where do I stay with my point, that language is a power medium and that artificial language-usage for instance can get individuals out of their isolation, can move social forces, can help whole peoples to regain their self-respect and dignity? It seems easy to formulate goals; so does considering a paradigm. But it will be the skills, under which especially the capacity of identification of the author himself which will elevate language-usage to literature. Form and content As for me: my not variable marks are my violent pigmentation and my absolute sex. In addition, I am a product of a so called primary product producing or 'poor' country. Women, blacks and so called third-world-citizens do not have power mediums as capital and production resources. Besides that we have to be conscious of the fact that we will not get them for the time being, because 'nobody' is willing to part and 'everybody' tends to give just as much that his 'own interest', but then only the personal interest, is served. Since the international communication between human beings is intensified and masscommunication media (radio, television, cassettes, video, computers, etc.) have come within the scope of awareness of nearly everybody, the time has come f o r us to orient ourselves on the language-usage as an emancipatory power-medium. The form in the concept of literature as power medium for blacks, women, and citizens of so called third-world countries is not beforehand the printed word. The book, for instance, is as phenomenon for us an almost obsolete thing: Books are always produced in/through so called manufacturing or highly developed countries. Suriname does not have publishers, paper is extremely expensive, printing houses o f f e r their services to commerce and government, and the bookshops lean on the imports. If we still want to build up an

244 oeuvre that is our own, then we will have to discard the 'book printing art'. No fear: our past hands us over the f o r m , because as Blacks, as Women and as so called third-world citizens we possess a rich tradition of listening and speaking, of experiencing and narrating, of complaining and celebrating. Why should we displease our imagination which enlightens our spirit in language-sounds? I mean: why not opt for literature with a voice: listen-literature? The analphabetism with which the so called lettered people saddled us up again and again, then immediately does not exist any more if language-usage has become an oral fact - a problem less! We are still being struck speechless by industrialized countries with their modern communication apparatus. It is high time to use these indoctrination media to tell our own story. I challenge myself especially to fabricate listen-literature which is by no means inferior to the silence of the printed word. What black author has extended himself to such proportions worldwide to the consciousness of people, as for instance Michael Jackson or Bob Marley, as (black) singers. From that we have to learn; so do not copy in an easy-loving way western forms, but search for what our literature is dictating. The content, naturally, should have to do justice to what the paradigm presupposes and so would have to be rooted in the consciousness of the Surinamese human. But just because that collective consciousness is humanly spoken a conglomeration of the possible and the impossible, it will depend on the personal history of the author and of the consumer how 'liberating* the literature is. Also the Zeitgeist plays in this context an obtrusive role, as well as the national political situation. Referring to the last factor, there seems to be little difference between the characters in the novels of for instance Dutch and Surinamese authors. In the end, they are all victims sometimes of their own emotions, sometimes of others and often of a system. Humanly spoken, every literature has the function of a bridge: a certain measure of recognition for everybody. It is the language-usage that can build up walls, sometimes it is too abstract, then again too flowery and too expressive, sometimes too flat and ordinary; mostly it is simply inaccessible for those speaking another language. For Surinamese is a multi-lingual country with more than fourteen mother-languages, one oral lingua f r a n c a and one official language, and the various groups of the population have not developed themselves equally a n d / o r equivalently. The existing literature, with regard to the language-usage, is not representative for the Surinamese population. But the new paradigm also takes into account the multi-lingual situation of the country: language is not the trammeled treasure of a competing selfconfirming elite; language-usage is the right of every individual to express himself in the most personal and most human way [3]. Let us, especially as authors, use the language which we each command best in a way which fits us best. Finally: Literature can be for us a power medium if we reject the models which western literary history dictates and if we are conscious of a specific paradigm that the historicity of our country and our people imposes on us. Only when we are rescued f r o m the mirror image of the material rulers of this world and search for what are our essential values, as individuals and as a collective, as lettered and as an unlettered persons literature will speak for us, because only then the language will have found its originality again: in the beginning was the word...

[3] - Astrid Roemer: "Het vrouwelijk schrijven- een zaak van levensbelang", in: Opzij Amsterdam 1985.

13,

245

Marlis Hellinger: The Heritage of Colonialism: Bilingualism in the English-speaking Caribbean

1. Introduction

To a large extent, the current ethnic, political and social structure of the English-speaking Caribbean must be interpreted as part of 17th and 18th century colonial heritage. This includes a characteristic type of bilingualism which relates West Indian or Caribbean varieties of Standard English and English-oriented Creoles (cf. Holm 1983; Hellinger 1985). Both languages, English as well as the Creole, fulfill very d i f f e r e n t communicative and social functions. While English as the medium of official, and in particular, written domains enjoys a high social prestige, the Creole is used in more informal and predominantly oral interaction and is - even by many native speakers - attributed a rather low overt prestige. Throughout the English-speaking Caribbean proficiency in English remains a prerequisite for any social advance. The structural similarities between English and the respective Creole as well as the asymmetric social relationship of the two languages have, in countries such as Jamaica, Belize or Guyana, led to the interpretation of the linguistic status quo not in terms of bilingualism but of a standard/dialect situation. In other words, the Creole is not accepted as an autonomous linguistic system but is seen as a regional/social variety of the European standard language. As such the Creole is ignored on all but the most elementary levels of education. In the following, I will briefly describe some of the structural and functional features of Creoles, taking Belizean Creole as an example. I will then discuss some of the criteria that have been proposed for the classification of languages as independent systems. A modification of these criteria will finally allow for a description of Creole communities where the related colonial language is still used as bilingual.

2. Belize as a multiethnic and multilingual community

Belize (the former British Honduras) illustrates the ethnic and linguistic variation which is so typical for the English-speaking Caribbean. In 1970, Belize had ca. 120,000 inhabitants of essentially four main ethnic backgrounds: Black Creoles of A f r i c a n - E u r o p e a n descent, the so-called Spaniards of Indian-European origin, Black Caribs, who are of Indian and African descent, and finally Mayan Indians. Further, there are small East-Indian, Chinese, Arabic and European minorities (cf. Koenig 1975). The first languages of the major ethnic groups are Belizean Creole (BC), Central American Spanish, G a r i f u n a (or Black Carib) and Mayan Indian (Kekchi, Mopan, Yucatec). BC is an English-oriented Creole whose historical relationship to English is most evident on the lexical level. Apart f r o m a few Africanisms, a number of words of SpanishPortuguese origin and some loanwords f r o m regional languages (Mayan and Garifuna), BC vocabulary can be derived f r o m English lexical material. These lexical similarities have provided the main argument for classifying BC as a regional/social variety of English or in a nonlinguistic terminology - as a "deviation" f r o m English.

246 Several points can be raised against such an interpretation. On the phonological level, the two systems are so far apart that mutual intelligibility is not guaranteed. More important, identical etymological roots have not generally developed in the same direction so that semantic as well as functional differences of lexical items are no exception. Finally, BC as well as other European-oriented Creoles - has in its core grammar (e.g. in the tense/aspect system) a number of syntactic features which cannot be derived from English (or the respective colonial language). Insofar as these features cannot be explained by interference from one of the original contact languages, very general and perhaps universal processes of linguistic evolution have been suggested as a source (cf. Bickerton 1981). The sociolinguistic situation in Belize can be described as a continuum, ranging from the basilect (the Creole) through mesolectal varieties to the acrolect (West Indian Standard English). There is no room here to discuss the concept of a linguistic continuum (cf. Escure 1982). 3. Some features of BC The following morphological and syntactic features of BC are also characteristic of other Caribbean Creoles, irrespective of their lexical orientation. They are here chosen to illustrate the fact that their interpretation has frequently been influenced by colonialist thinking. 3.1 - The first feature is the morphological representation of 3rd person singular verb forms, which requires -s in English, but zero in BC (basilectal and some mesolectal varieties). (1)

i liv rait de She/He lives right there.

(2)

nobadi no we fi do Nobody knows what to do.

A Eurocentristic interpretation will describe the BC verbal forms as "deviant" and even "corrupt". However, acrolectal -s is redundant since the marking of 3rd person singular also appears in the pronoun. BC (as well as many other languages) avoids double marking. 3.2 - A similar case is the formation of nominal plurals, which in English may be achieved by an inflectional marker (two girls), by ablaut (two feet) or zero (two sheep). Zero is also possible in BC (tu gyal "two girls") especially in cases where plurality is determined contextually (e.g. by a numeral). Optionally, plural can be marked by a separate particle: di gyal dem "the girls". Thus, BC offers the choice of zero or single marking (double marking such as di gyals dem must be interpreted as a mesolectal feature signifying de-creolization). Since the hypothesis is plausible that plural marking in BC is governed by contextual aspects rather than congruence there is no way to describe the BC system as deficient. 3.3 - The third feature is the existence of generic forms in the Creole pronominal system. Where English and other colonial languages mark gender, i.e. in the 3rd person singular personal pronoun, BC has generic forms: (3)

i liv rait de She/He lives right there.

(4)

mi no si am I don't see her/him/it.

247

From a Eurocentristic perspective Creoles have been characterized as d e f i c i e n t f o r their lack of gender marking. However, there are numerous standard languages that do not mark pronominal gender, among them many West A f r i c a n languages (e.g. Yoruba, Igbo, Ewe), which seem to have contributed m u c h more than a f e w lexical items to the emerging Creoles (cf. Alleyne 1980). T h e lack of generic pronouns in English has been shown to create serious referential, and thus psychological, problems f o r many speakers (cf. M a c K a y / F u l k e r s o n 1980). F r o m this perspective, BC and other Creoles o f f e r the means f o r verbalizing a concept (genericness) which in English is d i f f i c u l t to express. 3.4 - Perhaps the most crucial area where Creoles d i f f e r f r o m their colonial lexifier languages is the verbal system. BC marks tense and aspect by separate particles. T h e actual appearance of these particles follows contextual and communicative rules. (5)

mi haas (mi) ron we yeside M y horse ran away yesterday.

(6)

di pikni dem di sliip T h e children are sleeping.

(7)

den mi di wok They were working.

A Eurocentristic interpretation of (5) as deviant can be rejected by pointing towards r e d u n d a n t marking in the English equivalent. Also, potential ambiguities will easily be resolved by the context. It is f u r t h e r important to recognize similarities between the Creoles and some West A f r i c a n languages in the system of verbal marking which support the hypothesis that Creoles may typologically not belong to the same class of languages as their colonial relatives. 3.5 - T h e f i f t h f e a t u r e concerns negation. In sentences that do not contain an auxiliary element, English has to support the negative particle by some f o r m of do (/ don't know), whereas BC has no i/o-support rule. On the other hand, it employs double negation. (8)

mi no no I d o n ' t know.

(9)

nobadi neva tell mi notn N o b o d y told me anything.

N o n s t a n d a r d Black American English has similar rules of negation, which have o f t e n been grossly misinterpreted in educational and psychological literature. Not only was double negation seen as an instance of deviance f r o m English but also of a cognitive deficit on the p a r t of Black speakers. Such interpretations derive f r o m unfamiliarity with the linguistic facts as well as f r o m racist attitudes. Even a superficial comparison of Standard American English and N o n s t a n d a r d Black English shows a common underlying concept of negation which, however, specifies non-identical subcategorizations. 3.6 - T h e final f e a t u r e concerns structures which link a s u b j e c t with an adjectival c o m p l e m e n t . In English this is achieved by a f o r m of the copula be, whereas BC needs no linking element. (10) i beks bad S h e / H e is/was very angry. Conventional interpretations have described (10) as "lacking" the copula. An alternative view interprets the Creole structure as the result of deletion rules that display fewer restrictions in BC than in English: she is she's she.

248 This, however, leaves unexplained the fact that BC does employ copulative elemerts in other constructions, e.g., in equative and locative sentences. (11) unu da mi fren You all are my friends. (12) i de rait ya She/He is right there. On the other hand, there are West African languages where adjectives take on verbal features in particular constructions. This leads to the hypothesis that lexical elementi like BC beks may be treated as adjectives and will therefore need no linking elements in sentences like (10). To summarize, the political and social asymmetries between the Creole and the related European standard language have frequently influenced the description and explanation of Creole structures. Even if such descriptions are no longer found in linguistics, they may have contributed to the maintenance of negative attitudes towards Creoles that still prevail as a colonial heritage in many Creole communities. 4. Bilingualism A common definition of bilingualism (which also covers multi-lingualism) is "the alternate use of two or more languages by the same individual" (Mackey 1968: 555). This definition is open to several interpretations, depending on which linguistic systems will couit as languages. However, on the one hand a too narrow interpretation of bilingualism must be avoided which will only relate traditionally well-defined linguistic systems (like English and German, but presumably not Creoles) and, on the other hand, the alternate use of different (social, regional, functional) varieties of one linguistic system should not be covered by the term bilingualism. A discussion of this question must make use of criteria for the classification of langvages. Stewart's model of 1968 suggests the following four criteria: Standardization. This concept refers to the existence of codified norms in a speech community which determine the "correct" usage of the language. Such norms as they are laid down in grammars, dictionaries and literary works are usually associated with authority and prestige. Vitality is said to exist if the language has native speakers. Latin presents the case of a language which is highly standardized but does not function as a first language. Eiglish has both standardization and vitality, while a Creole within this framework would display vitality but not standardization. Historicity refers to the "normal" historical development of a language, linked with a continuous cultural tradition. Pidgins, Creoles as well as artificial languages are characterized as lacking historicity. Autonomy describes the status of a language as an independent linguistic system. Autonomy is obvious in the case of linguistic systems that are historically unrelated. In the case of related systems autonomy requires a structural and functional distance which goes beyond high/low or standard/dialect relationships. Thus, while German and Dutca (in spite of their close historical links) are classified as independent languages, creolei and their respective lexifier languages are not.

249 This framework is unsatisfactory in that it can neither differentiate Creoles from dialects nor provide arguments for the status of Creoles as independent languages. Further, the specification of terms like norm, normality or distance remains unclear. Stewart's model has been revised by Hymes in 1971 (cf. Bell 1976: 150). The revision leaves Stewart's criteria essentially unchanged, adding simply three f u r t h e r criteria: reduction, mixture and de facto norms. Reduction is a quantitative concept that differentiates a dialect f r o m the related standard in terms of the number of verbal choices. Mixture considers the fact that borrowing may be a major factor in language development. De facto norms widen the concept of standardization in that they include uncodified norms, such as they are manifest in native speakers' judgements on grammaticality and acceptability. This revised model is still inadequate for the classification of Creoles. modifications which include psychological arguments are suggested below.

Further

Standardization and de facto norms should be taken as subdivisions of one criterion, normation. This criterion (as all the others discussed here) must be understood as having dynamic properties to recognize the fact that standardization as a sociolinguistic attribute of a language may be the exception rather than the rule (which is the existence of de facto norms). Rather, many languages, among them Creoles like BC, are in a process of standardization: they are being used in more formal contexts, e.g. in the media or in literary writing, and national committees concern themselves with developing unified orthographies, scientific terminologies, etc. Thus, standardization as a special case of normation is closely linked with social and communicative changes in the speech community. Taking an English-based pidgin, an English-oriented Creole like BC, English and an English dialect as examples, we would get the following general specifications: Normation P de facto norms standardization

C E - + - ±

D + +

+

Vitality remains a useful criterion in its original definition. The fact that a language has native speakers implies that its formal and functional properties are adequate to fulfill all the communicative needs of its speakers. Again, a dynamic interpretation of the concept is necessary in order to recognize processes of creolization, i.e. sociolinguistic changes during which pidgins (which are generally defined as lacking vitality) may acquire native speakers. Historicity should be revised to include both linguistic and psychological aspects. On the linguistic level, a number of subdivisions are relevant, illustrated by the following questions: (a) Can the history of a language be traced back over a period of time that covers at least several generations? The answer is 'yes' for Creoles as well as English and its varieties, the difference being simply one of quantity (length of time). Pidgins would, except for some cases such as Tok Pisin, receive a negative specification. Naturally, the length of the known (and/or recorded) history will have an impact on the psychological level in that a longer history is evaluated more positively. (b) Is the language the result of "normal" language development, reflecting a period of continuous social and political history? Or is the development of the language marked by a catastrophic break in its continuity, as is the case with Caribbean Creoles whose evolution f r o m earlier pidgin stages is accompanied by a disruption of the speakers' ties with their original mother tongues? Answers to these questions do not establish historicity as such, they rather reflect different types of historicity. A f u r t h e r subcategory concerns the role of language contact in the history of language. Historicity can be more easily established in cases where language contact has not changed linguistic developments in a way that affects the basic structure of the language. Thus,

250 although English borrowed massively f r o m French at a particular period in its history (i.e. in the 11th century), its identification as a Germanic language remained. Creoles on the other hand were not simply "affected" by contact but rather they developed as new systems f r o m language contact, deriving many features (e.g. lexical items) f r o m the languages participating in the original contact situation, but creating others, especially on the syntactic level, whose origin cannot be traced back to any of the contact languages. Language contact, then, characterizes the communicative situation prior to the evolution of the Creole (the pidgin stage) while it plays a minor role in the history of English. Again, the argument yields d i f f e r e n t types of historicity rather than establishing historicity as such. On the psychological level, historicity may be said to exist if speakers will refer to older stages of the language (written documents or - as in the case of Creoles - oral tradition) as part of their cultural heritage. Such an attitude implies an interpretation of the language as autonomous in the sense that it provides a source for self-identification of the individual. A second psychological aspect of historicity is related to evaluation. Traditionally, a language with a long history is felt by its speakers to have a 'respectable' past. However, it is not only the temporal dimension which plays a role in the development of positive or negative attitudes, but also the social status of the language. Thus, although Creoles have a relatively long history (about 350 years in the case of Caribbean Creoles) their role as subordinate languages in an asymmetric social situation denies them associations with a 'respectable' past. To summarize, Creoles have historicity on a linguistic level (a historicity d i f f e r e n t in kind f r o m the one displayed by English), but are still in a process of acquiring psychological historicity. Historicity length of time 'normal'language development history marked by disruption of ties with mother tongues central role of language contact reference to previous stages of the language evaluation of history as positive

P -

C +

E + +

D + +

+

-

-

+

+

+

±

+

+

+ +

-

This leaves the criterion of autonomy, which is of relevance primarily in the differentiation of related languages/varieties. Again, linguistic as well as psychological aspects should be considered. On the linguistic level, the question of synchronic structural distance between historically related systems must be raised. So f a r , the only practical manifestation of this criterion has been mutual intelligibility of the compared linguistic structures. This argument is of little value in the present discussion since it cannot separate languages f r o m varieties of languages. Thus, an English-oriented Creole may be just as unintelligible for a native speaker of English as a particular English dialect. More important is the question of where such communicative problems can be located (syntactic and semantic differences) and how they can be explained. Autonomy for a linguistic system in comparison with the related standard language will be greater if apart f r o m such factors as social/regional differentiation - interference f r o m other languages a n d / o r substantial creative processes are responsible for the departure f r o m the related standard. This is true for Creoles, but not for varieties.

251

Finally, a psychological a r g u m e n t can be used to d e t e r m i n e the a u t o n o m y of a linguistic system: the individual's identification with a language as her or his m o t h e r tongue. This a r g u m e n t yields clear specifications f o r pidgins, Creoles and English while it is d o u b t f u l f o r dialects: most speakers of a particular English dialect will r e f e r to English as their mother tongue rather than to the dialect. T h e f a c t that some native speakers of BC s p e c i f y English as their first language must be interpreted in terms of the low overt prestige Creoles have even f o r m a n y native speakers. Evaluative f a c t o r s should also be considered as one aspect of a u t o n o m y . T h u s , in d e t e r m i n i n g the relationship between linguistic systems (dialects, Creoles) a n d a related (socially) d o m i n a n t language, a u t o n o m y may be said to exist psychologically if speakers describe their m o t h e r tongue as ' d i f f e r e n t ' rather than ' d e v i a n t ' . In m a n y Creole communities the deviance assumption remains as part of the colonial heritage. Autonomy 'distance' d u e to external a n d / o r creative aspects identification of language as L ^

P

C

E

D

+

+

[]

-

-

+

+

-

5. Conclusion

According to the m o d i f i c a t i o n s proposed above, Creoles as well as the f o r m e r colonial languages have n o r m a t i o n , vitality, historicity and a u t o n o m y . T h e linguistic status quo in the E n g l i s h - s p e a k i n g C a r i b b e a n must t h e r e f o r e be interpreted as bilingual. T h e recognition of such an interpretation and the choice of a particular educational model of bilingualism (such models are described in Craig 1980) will lead to substantial f o r m a l and f u n c t i o n a l changes of the respective Creole, e.g. d e v e l o p m e n t as a m e d i u m of literacy, syntactic standardization, lexical expansion, d e v e l o p m e n t of an o r t h o g r a p h y ; a f u r t h e r step is the introduction of English as a second language. T h e psychological, political and financial barriers that delay such d e v e l o p m e n t s may also be i n t e r p r e t e d as part of the colonial heritage.

Bibliography

A L L E Y N E , M e r v y n C.: Comparative

Afro-American.

A n n A r b o r ( K a r o m a ) 1980.

B E L L , Roger T.: Sociolinguistics:

Goals, Approaches

and Problems,

L o n d o n (Batsford) 1976.

BICK.ERTON, Derek: Roots of Language.

A n n A r b o r ( K a r o m a ) 1981.

C R A I G , Dennis R.: "Models f o r E d u c a t i o n a l Policy in Creole-Speaking Communities", in: V a l d m a n n , A l b e r t / A r n o l d H i g h f i e l d (eds.): Theoretical Orientations in Creole Studies. N e w York (Academic Press) 1980, 245-265. E S C U R E , Geneviève: "Contrastive Patterns of I n t r a g r o u p and I n t e r g r o u p Interaction in the Creole C o n t i n u u m of Belize", in: Language in Society, 11 (1982), 239-264.

252 H E L L I N G E R , Marlis: Englisch-orientierte PidginBuchgesellschaft) 1985.

und Kreolsprachen.

Darmstadt (Wissenschaftliche

HOLM, John (ed.): Central American

English.

Heidelberg (Groos) 1983.

K O E N I G , Edna L.: Ethnicity and Language in Corozal District, Belize: An Analysis of Code-Switching. Ph. D. Diss.: University of Texas at Austin, 1975. M A C K A Y , Donald/David F U L K E R S O N : "On the Comprehension and Production of Pronouns", in: Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18 (1980), 661-673. M A C K E Y , William F.: "The Description of Bilingualism", in: Fishman, Joshua S. (ed.): Readings of Language. The Hague (Mouton) 1968, 554-584.

in the

Sociology

STEWART, William A.: "A Sociolinguistic Typology for Describing National Multilingualism", in: Fishman, Joshua S. (ed.): Readings in the Sociology of Language. The Hague (Mouton) 1968, 531-545.

253

Susan C. Shepherd: Multiple Functions and Ambiguity: The Use of Repetition in Creole Narratives Repetition, a feature of Creole languages which is used extensively and is often misunderstood by non-creole speakers, plays a complex role in these languages and serves multiple functions. The discussion here will involve Antiguan Creole, an English-based Creole spoken in the Eastern Caribbean, but most of the claims to be made apply to other English-based and non-English-based Creoles as well. The functional development of repetition has been discussed in more detail in Shepherd (to appear). Some of the basic points will be summarized here. What is referred to as repetition exists in the speech of an individual on grammatical as well as pragmatic levels, and includes such devices as reduplication, formulaic repetition of a clause which occurred earlier in utterance, and repetition of a particular key theme in the structuring of discourse and narratives. Little attempt has been made to connect their use, yet the relationship between the functions served are remarkable. Emphasis, intensification, and humor are the most common functions, and there is a connection between them. Obviously repeating an element draws attention to it. Enough repetition goes beyond emphasizing a point and exaggerates it, often leading to a comic interpretation. The boundaries between these functions are not clearly drawn, and the meanings conveyed may be ambiguous. This is common in Creole languages. As Reisman (1964; 1970) and Rickford (1980) have shown, many words, structures, and gestures do double duty, often by conveying an 'acceptable' meaning alongside an 'unacceptable' one. A listener may choose to interpret a speaker's use of repetition as humorous when in fact intense anger was being expressed, or vice versa. Both speakers and listeners use the potential ambiguity to their own advantage, as will be discussed later. Some of the types of repetition referred to here occur within a single sentence. (l)-(3) are examples of reduplication and topicalization in Antiguan Creole: 1. intensive-emphatic De gyaal crazy-crazy. "The girl is very/really crazy." 2. iterative-habitual a) She a wok-wok. "She's always working." b) De pikny sicky-sicky. "The child is always getting/keeps getting sick." 3. a) A tiif me tiif? A borrow me borrow. "I stole it?! (No,) I borrowed it!" b) A sick Alvelle sick. "Clavelle is really sick." (She's not just skipping work.) In (1) the reduplication of "crazy" provides intensification. This use of reduplication is found in many languages (Moravcsik 1978), and has been discussed for Creoles by Alleyne (1980) and Hancock (1980). It basically corresponds to English use of "very". Reduplication can also signal a repeated or habitual action, as (2a) and (2b) indicate. In a

254 topicalized utterance, an adjective or verb on which the speaker wishes to focus is fronted and then repeated in normal position, as in (3) [1], The item is thus emphasized. Another type of repetition involves duplication of a main clause at the end of sentence, o f t e n with some sort of expansion:

the

4. a) Dat time drum play, ya know drum drum play. [2] "At that time drums played, you know drums played." b) Dey don even serve notice, dey don even serve. "They don't even notice, they don't even notice." The speaker thus focusses on an important point and draws the hearer's attention to it. The examples given so far involve repetition as a grammatical device, or within a single utterance or turn taken by a speaker. Further discussion will be concerned with uses of repetition that go beyond the sentence or grammatical level and serve function of structuring discourse. Repetition plays a significant role in conversations, arguments, and narratives. The use of repetition in examples such as (4a) and (b) is related to, and often d i f f i c u l t to distinguish f r o m , discourse functions. In discourse, repetition serves to emphasize a point of view or suggested topic, and to hold ground for an individual speaker. When used effectively it determines the course a conversation takes. Reisman (1964; 1974) has described Antiguan conversations as contrapuntal in nature: "There are a set of themes [...] which alternately or simultaneously fade in and out, but never seem to be lost. When a new theme enters, or tries to, the ongoing rush of voices crowds it out. It knocks again, and eventually after several attempts it takes a lead and the other voices join themselves to it, until the crowd of voices is again assaulted by an old theme wishing reentry" (1964: 223). The uses of repetition can be ambiguous. For example, the two (or more) speakers taking part in an argument may each simply make the same statement over and over, without seeming to listen to the other(s). Group feeling generally determines which point is allowed to dominate. An argument quickly becomes heated, and a speaker's anger is often apparent in the frequency and force with which he repeats his stand in the discussion. However, as mentioned, a second function of repetition o f t e n results in such arguments ending with no hard feelings, sometimes with the participants all laughing. Repetition is central to humor. The more often something is repeated the f u n n i e r it becomes. An outsider o f t e n has trouble determining when an argument is occurring in earnest, and when in jest. The ambiguity and potentially 'light' interpretation gives a speaker who is angry about something a means of expressing the anger without necessarily antagonizing the others involve. In other words, it often provides an 'out' for a speaker who has conveyed his or her anger and wishes to maintain friendly relations with the person addressed. It is possible to claim "I was only joking", and both parties are satisfied.

[1] - This is not true of topicalized elements in other word classes. Nouns and adverbs, for example, are fronted but not repeated. [2] - The speaker may have repeated drum in "drum drum play" to indicate that drums were continually playing, or the repetition may have been a hesitation phenomenon. The former is likely in context, but the latter is probably more likely given the usual iterative forms which are somewhat d i f f e r e n t and involve repetition of a verb rather than a noun. Ambiguous uses of repetition such as this one have not been included in the analysis. The relevant aspect of this example is the repetition of "drum play".

255 Sometimes repetition is used to bring a new topic into the foreground. A speaker can gain the floor through effective use of repetition, and attention will shift to his or her topic. (5) is an example of this: (5) P: Ya na min hear me tell Dee when me come in? Ya na min hear me tell Dee when me come in me ha subm f u h tell i? Ya na min hear me a gon tell i? "Didn't you hear me tell Dee when I came in? Didn't you hear me tell Dee when I came in that I had something to tell him? Didn't you hear I was going to tell him (something)?" The conversation then shifts to a discussion of what P wanted to tell Dee. This is common in normal conversations, and is related to the function of emphasis, but it may be difficult to see what this sort of repetition could have to do with cohesion or coherence in structuring discourse. In both spontaneous narratives and more structured story-telling there is extensive use of repetition serving this function. Repetition of a significant phrase or clause may occur several times within a given narrative, and helps to give cohesion by indicating what the teller views as the theme. It may also be used for clarification. A particular event is opened and focussed on, and the repeated initial segment provides its closing, often by calling attention to an idea, activity, or state of being that will be important at a later point in the story or conversation. The cohesiveness supplied by repetition can apply to the story or conversation as a whole, or simply to one section. For example, in (6), P's narrative starts in response to a warning that she should not get involved with a certain man: (6) P: Me kyaan burn ... De fire dat me a play wit done burn me aready. Kyaan burn again. Kyaan burn again. Me done get burn. "I can't get burned ... The fire that I'm playing with already burned me. I can't get burned again. I can't get burned again. I already got burned." She opens with "Me kyaan burn", and goes on to tell about her experiences with a man and the trouble he caused her - basically how she got "burned". This leads into her closing, which emphasizes her main point - that she won't get burned again. The repeated element is central to the story as a whole, and gives her reason for telling it. It is the focus of her story, and she clearly marks the beginning, middle, and end with it. In the narrative segment given in (7), on the other hand, repetition gives cohesion to only one section of the story: (7) H: An when dey smell, i smell, i take smell take smell, i take smell. People befo time na fence dey yaad. Take smell take smell. "And when they smelled, he smelted, he kept smelling. He smelled. People didn't use to fence in their yards. (He) kept smelling." H has been telling what a character known as John Bull used to do at Christmas celebrations in the past, and then proceeds to tell about a particularly effective John Bull she remembers from her childhood. A John Bull typically went around the village on Christmas day, often trying to frighten people, and one common occurrence was that he tried to smell what was cooking in various yards, and then would sneak in and steal something out of the pot. H uses reduplication to focus on the smelling action and indicate that is was continuous - "i take smell take smell" (he kept smelling or sniffing). She digresses to explain that people's yards weren't fenced in then, so it was easy for a

256 John Bull to get in and steal food. She then signals her return to the story by repeating "take smell take smell", which also closes that segment. She goes on to describe something else the John Bull did. Her use of repetition helps the hearer to keep in touch with the story and guides us back to the main story line. In order to examine the use of repetition in narratives more closely, several speakers were asked to tell the same story. They were given a picture book which tells a complete story containing several distinct episodes without using any words [3]. Briefly, the book shows a boy and a dog, and a frog that they have caught and put in a jar. The frog gets away, and the boy and the dog have a series of adventures as they try to find him. (8) and (9) are sections from two of these narratives: (8) T: 'A wey i de?' say de boy. De dog put i head in de bokl. De boy a call out 'Frog'. De dog - de dog i - de dog put i head in de bokl. "'Where is he?' said the boy. The dog put his head in the bottle. The boy is calling out 'Frog'. The dog put his head in the bottle." (9) F: ... but nobody really know wey de krapa gone ... ... but til nobody kyaan know wey de krapa gone, so dey come dong and come out soutside an a look all ova. An i a call de krapa. (i?) na know wey de krapa gone, see ... ... but nobody know wey de krapa kyan gone. "... but nobody really knows where the frog has gone ... ... but still nobody knows where the frog has gone, so they come down and come outside, and look all over. And he's calling the frog. (He?) doesn't know where the frog has gone, see ... ... but nobody knows where the frog can have gone." The types of repetition used here correspond to those already described for spontaneous narratives. Repetition can be used within a single segment or episode, and it can also be used to give cohesion to the story as a whole. (8) is an example of the first. In the pictures, the dog puts his head in a bottle looking for the frog. The boy goes to the window, calls the frog, and they both look out the window for him. Then the episode is closed. This is marked by the repetition of the beginning of the event - "de dog put i head in de bokl". Use of a picture book to elicit a story may lend itself to this opening and closing of episodes, because of the separate pictures. Repetition may mark a move to the next episode or the next picture. In example (9), the repetition of "nobody know wey de krapa gone" gives a central theme of the story, and is repeated four times throughout five distinct episodes. F first uses it when the boy and the dog notice that the frog is gone. They look for the frog in several different places, and each time as they realize the frog is not there F marks this with "nobody know wey de krapa gone" (with some slight variations). This continues until the [3] - The methodology used for this aspect of data collection is based on that developed by Bamberg (1983, 1984) in his work on children's narratives.

257 point in the story at which the frog is found, and the story ends. Repetition of a key phrase gives cohesion to the story as a whole. Other speakers make similar uses of repetition in these structured, elicited narratives. As in spontaneous narratives, it can also mark a return to the narrative after a digression. It should be noted here that the picture book task was one which tended to elicit more standard English than was normally used by some speakers. This was due in part to the book format, which is associated with schools and standard language use. Even these speakers, however, made extensive use of repetition. It appears that repetition as a multifunctional strategy has become part of standard West Indian English, and this is one of many characteristics that distinguish it from standard American or standard British English. The use of repetition to structure conversations and narratives is not exclusively a Creole domain. There are also similar literary uses of repetition. Brown and Yule (1983: 197-198) discuss formal cohesive devices with reference to the following passage from Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. "Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. They went on, and I went along the fence. Luster came away f r o m the flower tree and we went along the fence and they stopped and we stopped and I looked through the fence while Luster was hunting in the grass." Although Brown and Yule do not specifically mention use of clausal repetition, Faulkner has made extensive use of it. It helps to hold the passage together even though we are not sure how to interpret it. However, this repetition is slightly different from that in the Creole examples in that Faulkner is not going back to the same action already described once and mentioning it again. Instead he uses the same words to later describe the same action occurring again, or continuing over time ("I went along the fence", "Luster was hunting in the grass"). Heath's (1983: 172) discussion of a Trackton child's story contains remarkable parallels to part of the analysis presented here: "[...] Teegie does provide an orientation to the story by pointing out that the result of the action was to have the potato chips put up, away from him. He evaluates this action by 'Way up dere. All time up.' He then names the actor and major action. He finishes off his story-poem by varying his opening lines in a twice-repeated utterance." Trackton is a black working-class community in the Piedmont Carolinas. Data from Black English speaking children in Ohio also exhibit such patterns of repetition (Shepherd, to appear). In telling the same picture book story that was elicited from Antiguan Creole speakers they used one or two clausal repetitions of the type discussed here per story. White children from the same school used such repetition only once or not at all in their stories. Antiguan children on the other hand, used an average of five repetitions per story. Creole speakers make far more pervasive use of repetition in their everyday language use, and it serves a wider range of functions. Consideration of morphological/grammatical structures such as reduplication provides a possible source for the device chosen for the social functions mentioned here, but this does not explain why the particular device of repetition was chosen. When the sociohistorical background to Caribbean Creoles is taken into consideration, we see that this grammatical structure probably received reinforcement from general discourse processes. Repetition is often used for clarification when a speaker has not been understood by a listener. It probably occurred frequently in the speech of slave trader.

258 slave owner, overseer, and slave in the early stages of pidginization and creolization. Repetition f o r humorous e f f e c t may have arisen out of this. As Reisman (1970) and R i c k f o r d and R i c k f o r d (1980) show, linguistic and cultural ambiguity is o f t e n in evidence in Creoles. "The existence of public and more 'acceptable' interpretations is exploited f o r the communication of more private or 'unacceptable' meanings" ( R i c k f o r d and Rickford 1980: 362). A slave could thus have made f u n of an overseer by repeatedly asking f o r clarification, or by continuing to repeat a Creole phrase which has not been and was unlikely to be understood. A similar phenomenon can be observed today in interactions between Antiguans and tourists. A n Antiguan may answer a tourist's question in Creole, and when not understood continue to repeat the same Creole answer several times, although capable of speaking standard English. Observers f i n d this quite amusing, and an 'acceptable' explanation ( f r o m the point of view of the tourist) can be o f f e r e d for such behavior. The speaker can always claim not to speak standard English, or to have been u n a w a r e that there was a language problem involved in the tourist's inability to understand the utterance. Multifunctionality has probably been maintained in part because of the advantageous uses to which the resultant ambiguity can be put. F u r t h e r reinforcement f o r the uses Creole speakers make of repetition comes f r o m child language and the role children have played in the development of Creole languages. Children in general (not just creole-speaking children) use repetition f o r functions that are related to the f u n c t i o n s present in the adult Creole - emphasis, attention-getting, and clarification. In addition, standard English speakers sometimes repeat words or phrases that they wish to emphasize or focus attention on, although their use of this device has not become as formulaic as that of Creole speakers. I propose that the above-mentioned factors in combination have led to the development of the system described f o r Actiguan Creole. The existence of one of these factors in isolation would probably not have led to the pervasive use of repetition that we f i n d in the Creole, and it would be impossible to trace this use to a single source.

Bibliography

A L L E Y N E , Mervyn: Comparative

Afro-American,

A n n A r b o r ( K a r o m a ) 1980.

B A M B E R G , Michael: Temporality and Backgrounding - A Developmental Study of Narrative Construction, Paper presented at Linguistic Colloquium Series, U.C. Berkely 1983. B A M B E R G , Michael: Anaphorische Pronomen in Erzählungen von 4- bis 9jährigen Kindern, Paper presented at the sixth Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft f ü r Soziologie, Bielefeld 1984. BROWN, G i l l i a n / G e o r g e Y U L E : Discourse Analysis,

Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1983.

H A N C O C K , Ian: "Lexical Expansion in Creole Languages", in: Albert V a l d m a n / A r n o l d Highfield (edi.). Theoretical Orientations in Creole Studies, New York (Academic Press) 1980, 6 3 - 8 8 H E A T H , Shirley Brice: If'avs with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1983.

259 MORA VCSIK, Edith A.: "Reduplicative Constructions", in: Charles A. Ferguson/Edith A. Moravcsik (eds.), Universals of Human Language, Vol. 3, Stanford (Stanford University Press) 1978: 297334. REISMAN, Karl: "The Isle is Full of Noises": a Study of Creole in the Speech Patterns of Antigua, West Indies, unpubl. Ph. D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1964. REISMAN, Karl: "Cultural and Linguistic Ambiguity in a West Indian Village", in: Norman E. Whitten jr./John F. Szwed (eds.), Afro-American Anthropology, New York (The Free Press) 1970: 129-144. REISMAN, Karl: "Contrapuntal Conversations in an Antiguan Village", in: R. Baumann/J. Sherzer (eds.), Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1974: 1J0-124. RICKFORD, John/Angela RICKFORD: "Cut-Eye and Suck Teeth: African Words and Gestures in New World Guise", in: J.L. Dillard (ed.), Perspectives on American English, The Hague (Mouton) 1980: 347-365. SHEPHERD, Susan: "On the Functional Development of Repetition in Antiguan Creole Morphology, Syntax, and Discourse", in: Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Historical Semantics/Historical Word Formation, The Hague (Mouton), to appear.

260

Remco van Capelleveen: Caribbean Immigrants in New York City and the Transformation of the Metropolitan Economy

This paper focuses on a specific aspect of the migration process which has only recently begun to draw attention: the relationship between the massive migration movements of Caribbean people to New York City and the fundamental reorganization of the metropolitan economy. Strikingly, migration f r o m the Caribbean to New York City has been growing massively at exactly the same time as the city experiences a severe economic decline as well as a dramatic j o b loss, resulting f r o m the transfer of manufacturing to the U.S. 'sunbelt' as well as Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. The obvious fact that most of the recent immigrants are able to f i n d some kind of employment raises the question of the quality of this economic decline and how it affects the social and economic situation of the immigrant population. Recent studies have shown that the decline of the manufacturing industry in New York City is part of an overall restructuring of the metropolitan economy which includes selected growth trends. A result of this restructuring is the polarization of the occupational structure and a marked expansion of low-wage jobs. In this paper, it is argued that the continuous influx of migrant labor has contributed significantly to the massive expansion of low-wage employment (which, in turn, is part and consequence of the process of economic restructuring) insofar as the migrants provide the cheap and flexible labor force to fill these jobs. This indicates a qualitatively new impact of Caribbean migration on the metropolitan economy and society. The immigrant population has become a crucial element not only for the functioning, but also for the very process of the restructuring of the metropolitan economy.

The 'Newest' Migration Movements Caribbean migration to the U.S. in general and to New York City in particular as used in this paper refers to the 'newest' migration movements that began in the late 1960s and led to a massive and still continuing influx of immigrants f r o m the Caribbean during the 1970s and 1980s (cf. Bryce-Laporte 1980). Migration movements, of course, are not new for the people of the Caribbean. In addition to the physically brutal and forcible transplantation of African people to the 'new world', migration movements have been part of Caribbean social reality for 150 years (cf. Marshall 1982, De A. Reid 1939). Starting at the end of the 19th century Caribbean migrants entered the U.S. - mostly to work in agriculture. This migratory flow lasted until the 1920s. It ceased almost completely during the 1930s and picked up again with the outbreak of World Warr II and the corresponding scarcity of labor power. While these migration movements were of the utmost importance for the people and societies of the Caribbean, they had little impact on U.S. society. In the late 1960s, after the 196S Immigration and Naturalization Act had taken full effect, migration f r o m the Caribbean to the U.S. virtually turned into a mass movement. The 1965 act replaced the national origin quota system and its racist bias in favor of a preference system which is based on kin relations as well as labor market requirements (cf. Reimers 1981). Although this new legislation also implied certain racial/ ethnic restrictions [1], it allowed for the fundamental change of the national and racial/ethnic

[1] - The new law aimed at abolishing the open discrimination of Asian immigrants which existed in earlier legislation and attempted to establish parity of entry conditions for people of almost all 'races' and nations. With respect to the Western hemisphere, there seemed to have been more intended than just equalization with the Eastern hemisphere, namely the restriction and control of immigration movements f r o m countries south of the border whose populations d i f f e r racially/ethnically as well as socio-culturally from mainstream U.S.A. The Caribbean colonies, for example, were granted a yearly quota of

261 composition of the immigrant population in favor of a rapid increase of immigrants from the 'Third World', most of all from the Caribbean, Latin America, ans Asia (cf. BryceLaporte/Mortimer 1976, Cornelius 1981). The proportion of legal immigrants [2] from Asia (mainly the Philippines, Korea, and China, later Vietnam) increased from 157,100 during the 1950s (1951-1960) to 1,633,800 during the 1970s (1971-1980), or from 6.2 to 36.4 per cent of the total legal immigration. At the same time, the proportion of European immigrants decreased from 1,492,200 to 801,300 or from 59.3 to 17.8 per cent. A similar shift took place in the Western hemisphere. The overall number of legal immigrants more than doubled from 841,300 during the 1950s to 1,929,000 during the 1970s. Immigration from Mexico and the Caribbean increased from 442,100 or 17.5 per cent to 1,397,000 or 31.1 per cent of total legal immigration. On the other hand, immigration from Canada decreased from 274,900 or 10.9 per cent to 114,800 or 2.6 per cent. Excluding Mexico, immigration from Central America (mainly El Salvador, Guatemala, and Panama) and South America (Columbia, Ecuador, and Guyana) [3] has tripled since the 1950s from 44,600 to 132,400 - or from 1.8 to 2.9 per cent of total immigration [4], Looking at legal immigration from the Caribbean islands alone, the dramatic increase in numbers of immigrants from this region becomes even clearer. Whereas the total legal immigration from The Caribbean was 'only' 122,800 during the 1950s, it rose to 519,500 during the 1960s, and to 759,800 during the 1970s. The largest numbers of migrants came from Cuba (78,300, 256,800, and 276,800 for the respective decades), the Dominican Republic (9,800, 94,100, and 148,000) and Jamaica (8,700, 71,000, and 142,000). Migration from Haiti and Trinidad/Tobago to the U.S. also increased drastically (from 4,000 and 1,600 during the 1950s to 58,700 and 61,800 during the 1970s). Even without the Cubans - who certainly are a special case - 483,000, or 10.7 per cent of total legal immigration to the U.S. came from the Caribbean islands in the 1970s. To this have to be added hundreds of thousand of undocumented immigrants from the Caribbean (and Latin America), who do not appear in the official statistics. A specific characteristic of the 'newest' immigration from the Caribbean is the predominance of women (cf. Mortimer/Bryce-Laporte 1981). The 'newest' immigrants tend to concentrate in a few cities. 40 per cent of all immigrants - but only 11 per cent of the overall U.S. population - live in the ten largest cities of the U.S. This urban concentration is even more marked for immigrants from the Caribbean. They are mainly concentrated in New York City (cf. International Migration Review 1979) which houses more than one million Caribbean people. At least one out of seven New York City residents is of Caribbean origin [5]. only 200 (since 1976, 600) persons who were counted as part of the overall quota of the European 'mother' countries. This racial/ethnic restriction, however, became largely ineffective as more and more Caribbean colonies attained political independence. [2] - The following statistical data are from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census 1984, U.S. Department of Justice 1982. [3] - Geographically, Guyana belongs to South America, but socio-culturally to the Caribbean. Unfortunately, this has not been considered in the official statistics. [4] - Since the escalation of the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s immigration from this region to the U.S. has increased dramatically. [5] - Some Caribbean scholars in New York City claim that more than one million Caribbean people live in Brooklyn alone.

262 While the proportion of foreigners in the New York metropolitan area decreased slightly between 1960 and 1970 from 17.4 to 15.2 per cent of the total population (largely due to naturalization of older immigrants), it increased again to 18.1 per cent in 1980. As elsewhere in the U.S., the immigrant population of New York City has become younger, consists of more women than men, and participates more actively in the labor force than the native population as well as earlier immigrant groups. Of the approximately 700,000 legal immigrants who entered New York City between 1971 and 1979, about 31 per cent have been of Latin American origin [6], and about 22 per cent from the English-speaking Caribbean (Marshall 1983: 7-9). In addition, it is estimated that between 750,000 and 800,000 undocumented immigrants lived in New York City in the late 1970s (cf. Freedman 1980). Before discussing the impact of Caribbean immigration on New York City and its economy, a short remark to the ties between U.S. capital investments in the Caribbean and migration movements from the Caribbean to the U.S. in general, and New York City in particular, is necessary. Most of the immigration literature agrees that migration flows from the Caribbean (and other parts of the 'Third World') will not come to a halt in the foreseeable future. As long as the structural disparities between countries with a relative 'surplus population'and countries with comparativly high minimum wages continue to exist, potential immigrants will make every effort to come to the 'promised land', even if it means permanent discrimination and the risk of deportation. However, this is not an automatic and inevitable process. In contrast to popular opinion, it is not simply population growth and stagnant economies, due to inept and failed domestic politics in the sending countries, that generate massive migration movements into the U.S. Actually, neither the poorest countries nor necessarily those with the highest population growth have the largest out-migrations. Growth rates in gross domestic product (GDP) and in employment in the main Caribbean sending countries (such as the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Trinidad/Tobago) have been relatively high throughout the 1970s. These facts point to U.S. economic activity in these regions as an essential contributor to the massive migration movements (cf. Sassan-Koob 1984 b; Vuskovic 1980). The rapidly increased U.S. investment in export-oriented production ("export processing zones") in the Caribbean seems to have come to play the role traditionally held by export-agriculture in disrupting the traditional work structure. The indigenous people are socially and economically uprooted, thus generating massive out-migrations. Although this connection between direct U.S. investment in the Caribbean and emigration movements into the U.S. has yet to be analyzed more thoroughly, it suggests the closure of the international capitalist circle. Direct economic (as well as political and military) interventions of the U.S. in the Caribbean and the presence of a large Caribbean immigrant population within the metropolitan centers are but two sides of the same coin.

Declining Employment and Increasing Immigration - a Paradox? The following discussion starts from the empirical phenomenon that migration movements from the Caribbean (and from Latin America) to New York City have been growing massively at exactly the same time when the city was entering a process of deindustrialization and capital flight (most of all in manufacturing industries), and thus a dramatic decline in (manufacturing) employment (cf. Bluestone/Harrison 1982). Despite the declining job opportunities, migrants moving from the Caribbean (and Latin America) into New York City seem to have replaced natives who left the declining industrial center. The coexistence of continuing or even increasing (labor) immigration on the one hand,

[6] - This includes the Hispanic Caribbean; the statistics lump Central American, South American, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean migrants together under the category "Latin American immigrants". A high proportion of the Latin American immigrants is in fact from the Caribbean, particularly from the Dominican Republic.

263 and growing deindustrialization, capital flight, and job losses on the other, is historically new and theoretically insufficiently understood [7]. In most of the migration literature it is assumed that migration movements flow into regions of economic growth and not those of economic decline (cf. Piore 1979). Thus the question is: How does New York City absorb the continuing or even growing influx of labor migrants in face of deindustrialization, increasing unemployment, and a dramatic decline in these jobs that have historically been filled by immigrants? Overall employment levels in New York City have shown no growth since the mid-1950s, and a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since the mid-1970s, absolute overall employment has remained the same (at about 2.7 million). At the same time, the unemployment rate has almost doubled (from 4.8 per cent in 1970 to 9.2 per cent in 1981) which indicates a relative loss in overall employment. In manufacturing there was even an absolute decline in jobs. Between 1950 and 1981 more than one half of total employment in manufacturing were lost; jobs declined from 1,038,900 in 1950 to 494,000 in 1981. The bulk of employment loss was in the non-durable goods sector, which accounts for approximately 80 per cent of employment in manufacturing. The garment and textile industries alone lost 200,000 (legal) jobs. As a whole, between 1950 and 1981 the loss of employment opportunities in New York City was 52 per cent of all manufacturing jobs and 59 per cent of all (legal) garment and textile jobs (Ross/ Trachte 1983: 408-409). During the 1970s alone there was a 35 per cent decrease in manufacturing jobs [8]. Even office jobs have not been spared. Between 1969 and 1977 Manhattan's central business district had a 15 per cent decline in office employment, down from 910,000 to 770,000 jobs (Tobier 1979: 15-16). In addition, New York City's infrastructure and fiscal resources have been rapidly decaying (Tabb 1982). Before discussing the simultaneity of economic decline, employment loss, and increasing immigration the notion of economic decline of the traditional centers of manufacturing industries - in this case New York City - has to be reformulated. New York City remains, despite deindustrialization and job losses, integrated into the "capital migration circuit" of the international economy - in a way not unlike the 'industrial reserve army'of the unemployed labor force (Sassen-Koob 1981: 2-6; Ross/Trachte 1983). That is, it is still a reservoir of physical and social infrastructure, as well as of presently redundant, but potentially exploitable labor force. Under changing conditions, these infrastructural resources may (and, as will be shown later, already did) provide the basis for capital (re)investments. One key element in this process of regaining profitability is the changed relationship between capital and labor. The economic weakness of the metropolitan working class (due to the general crisis, capital flight, and high rates of unemployment) as well as the increasing attacks of management and government on the trade unions have heightened both the power of capital and the vulnerability of the working class. In addition, financially and (in the wake often) politically weakened city governments are desperate to attract business at any price and thus grant generous conditions for new investment [9]. In this context, a large and abundant supply of labor is of crucial

[7] - To my knowledge, one of the first scholars who dealt with this alledged paradox was Saskia Sassen-Koob (1981). [8] - The decline in employment is even worse when hours actually worked instead of the number of jobs are considered (Block 1984). [9] - The recent discussion about "enterprise zones" in metropolitan centers must be seen in this context of granting favorable conditions to business at any price (cf. Mattera 1981). The "enterprise zone" proposal is implicitly oriented towards such economic models as "Operation Bootstrap" in Puerto Rico, the "Border Industrialization Program" in the border areas of Mexico, and the "Export Processing Zones" in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean which all aim at providing cheap and flexible labor for export-oriented foreign-owned

264 relevance in order to fill low-wage and semi- or unskilled jobs. In light of the politicization and resistance of the 'traditional'low-wage segments of the working class, i.e. women, Blacks, and Puerto Ricans, during the last two decades continuing high levels of labor immigration from the Caribbean (and other parts of the 'Third World') are even more important to secure a cheap and legally weak labor force [10]. Decline and Growth: Differentiation of the Economic and Employment Structure In the previous section it was suggested that deindustrialization and the corresponding decline in employment opportunities are part of a more complex process of economic reorganization. When disaggregated, the data on New York City's deindustrialization process show specific potentials for growth amidst economic decline (Sassen-Koob 1983: 191-193). First, not all segments of manufacturing industries have been equally affected by capital flight. In the garment industry, the single most important manufacturing industry in New York City, only larger firms with mechanized production methods moved out while smaller shops as well as marketing and design agencies remained in the city. In addition, various forms of illegal employment such as sweatshops and industrial homework increased considerably (cf. Buck 1979; Mattera 1981). Second, the decline in manufacturing industries is often balanced by a growth of imports. This may generate a variety of new jobs associated with import trade and commerce. Third, there has been a distinct growth of advanced producer services, i.e. highly specialized services for corporate capital including banking, credit, and other financial services, insurance, real estate, engineering and architectural services, accounting and book-keeping, miscellaneous business services, legal services, etd. (Singelmann 1978: 31; cf. Sassen-Koob 1984 a: 141). The production of advances producer services, unlike other types of services (e.g. consumer services), does not have to take place in the geographical vicinity of their corporate customers. To the contrary, these services (although produced in New York City) have increasingly been exported - to a considerable degree to decentralized production sites of multinational corporations in the 'Third World' (cf. Sassen-Koob 1984 a: 144-145; Dixon/Jonas/McCaughan 1982: 102-104). With respect to employment levels there have also been growth trends amidst a general decline (Sassen-Koob 1983: 193-194). In the late 1970s, employment in various whitecollar industries in the service sector increased considerably, the biggest increase being in business services (almost 25 per cent). T w o - f i f t h s of these jobs are in the highly paid and high-status professional, technical, managerial, and administrative occupations. Growth, however, has also been occurring in the less unionized, low-wage competetive sector industries such as retail trade and consumer services. Furthermore, manufacturing industries, too, showed some growth trends, particularly in smaller industries (such as custommade jewelry, brooms and brushes, toys and sporting goods, etc.). Even the garment industry, whose decline has been well documented, experienced growth of smaller shops. In Chinatown, for example, the number of (legal) factories increased from 180 in 1970 to 400 in the late 1970s (Wang 1979). Moreover, recent years have seen a resurgence of sweatshop labor although this is hard to document. In 1978 there may have been as many as 4,500 sweatshops citywide which employed between 50,000 and 70,000 (almost production sites. In a way, this suggests the creation of a 'Third World' with all its implications, i.e. with low-paying, dirty, unsafe, and non-union jobs, in the midst of the metropolitan economy. [10] - Management's preference for cheap, legally weak and thus (alledgedly) docile immigrant labor over 'native' minorities explains partly why the marginalized 'native' Black population has increasingly lost in the competition for low-wage semi- and unskilled jobs (cf. footnote 12).

265 exclusively undocumented) workers. Virtually unregulated, and patently illegal (Buck 1979: 40).

all

of

these

shops

are

non-union,

At the same time, these differentiated decline and growth trends have generated an increasing polarization in the occupational structure (Sassen-Koob 1983: 194-195). First, there has been a decline in the upper, i.e. skilled layers of workers in manufacturing industries due to the elimination or relocation of specific production sites. Second, there has been a decline in the middle layers of white-collar employees due to the relocation of corporate headquarters including large o f f i c e complexes. Third, there has been an expansion of highly paid and specialized professional jobs in the advanced service sector [11]. Fourth, there has been an expansion of low-wage jobs in the service sector. The fastest growing occupational sector in New York City, the business services, contains also the highest share (24 per cent) of low-paid and semi- or unskilled jobs. In finance, insurance, and real estate 10.8 per cent and 18 per cent in the remaining service industries fall into this (low-wage) occupational category. In the overall service sector there have been more than 16 per cent of low-wage jobs with no skill requirements and no promotion possibilities (Sassen-Koob 1984 a: 154-155). F i f t h , there has been an expansion of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in some labor-intensive sectors of the manufacturing industries, particularly in sweatshops and industrial homework, which exist not only in the garment industries, but also increasingly in the toy, footwear, and electronic industries. All these d i f f e r e n t growth and decline trends have resulted in a polarization of the occupational structure, of which the expansion of low-wage and semi- or unskilled labor is a crucial element. The polarization of the occupational structure shows also in the growing income polarization. Comparing household income for 1969 and 1979 in New York City there has been an increase in the upper and lower income groups and a decline in the middle groups. The middle income groups declined f r o m 51 per cent of total household income in 1969 to 39 per cent in 1979. During the same time, the high-income groups increased f r o m 19 to 23.5 per cent, and the low-income groups f r o m 29.6 to 37.5 per cent of total income (Sassen-Koob 1984 a: 156-162). Considering the dramatic expansion of sweatshops and illegal industrial homework in recent years these figures for the low-income groups are certainly underestimated.

Caribbean Immigrants: a Key Element in the Process of Economic Restructuring

These trends of decline and growth point to a process of reorganization of the metropolitan economy and thus qualify the notion of deindustrialization (cf. Sassen-Koob 1982; 1983; 1984 a; Dixon/Jonas/McCaughan 1982; Ross/Trachte 1983). New York City has become a site of an advanced service economy, as well as of manufacturing industries that are either largely oriented towards the service sector or that are able to compete with production sites in low-wage countries. At the same time, this restructuring of the metropolitan economy has led to the 'peripheralization'[12] of considerable population

[11] - The corresponding increase in high-income groups is the basis of the "gentrification" process, i.e. the transformation of formerly deteriorating neighbourhoods into luxury appartments and condominiums including the related infrastructure such as boutiques, gourmet restaurants, etc. (cf. Tobier 1979).

[12] - In a recent article I have discussed the dominant experience of large and increasing segments of the Black population in the U.S. as "marginalization", i.e. as (actual or potential) exclusion f r o m the process of capitalist production and thus f r o m material reproduction through wage labor (van Capelleveen 1985). In order to distinguish the marginalization of 'indigenous' A f r o - A m e r i c a n s f r o m that of the A f r o - C a r i b b e a n migrants

266 segments in New York City. This includes declining wages and un(der)employment, deteriorating housing conditions and high rents, as well as increasing poverty, aggravating health conditions, and dramatically growing infant mortality rates for selected groups of people (predominantly women, non-white minorities, and 'Third World' immigrants) (cf. Ross/Trachte 1983: 418-427). In this context, the actual presence of 'peripheral' populations in the metropolis itself plays a crucial role. It is exactly the continuing or increasing immigration of people from the Caribbean and Latin America that allows for the expansion of low-wage, semi- or unskilled, and dead-end jobs. This is true of the low occupational levels in the producer services (e.g. cleaners, transport workers, errand runners, etc.), the demand for cheap and flexible workers in the sphere of social reproduction of the high-income groups (e.g. doormen, cleaners, workers in specialty shops and restaurants, dog walkers, errand runners of all kinds, etc.), as well as for some sectors of the manufacturing industries. Caribbean and Latin American immigrants are both joining and gradually displacing the native minorities as the main suppliers of low-cost labor (cf. footnote 12). Deindustrialization notwithstanding, New York City is still one of the largest centers of manufacturing in the U.S. - third only to Chicago and Los Angeles. Large segments of its manufacturing industries are dependent upon the employment of low-paid migrant workers from Latin America and the Caribbean (and, to a lesser degree, from Asia) [13]. While white native workers continue to shift toward non-manufacturing and non-manual occupations, and large segments of the 'indigenous' Black population are increasingly excluded from the economic process, the immigrants maintain and even increase their overrepresentation in manufacturing and manual occupations. In 1980 28.4 per cent of the total female labor force and 48.3 per cent of the male total in New York City [14] were employed in manual jobs. In the case of migrant workers, the proportions were 55.3 per cent for women and 62.6 per cent for men, and in the case of Latin Americans even 68 per cent and 78 per cent, respectively. Combined legal and undocumented immigrants accounted for more than 40 per cent of the total New York manual labor force. Latin Americans alone made up some 20 per cent. The different development between the (white) native and the immigrant (Caribbean and Latin American) work force also shows in their respective participation in the manufacturing industry. In 1980, some 35 per cent of the total (legal) immigrants and 48 per cent of the (legal) Latin American immigrants in New York City were employed in manufacturing, in contrast to only 17 per cent of the total New York labor force (cf. footnote 14). As for the undocumented migrant workers, almost 41 per cent were employed in manufacturing - 32 per cent in light industry alone. This (over-) concentration in manufacturing is even more evident for migrant women who work

(who - until now, at least - are not excluded from the production process but, as will be shown, play an important role in the expansion of low-wage labor in manufacturing as well as in the service sector) I use the term 'peripheralization'. Empirically, however, this distinction is blurred because the (miserable) living conditions of the 'peripheralized' immigrants are often not much different from those of the marginalized 'indigenous' Afro-Americans. [13] - For the following data on immigrant employment in manual occupations and in the manufacturing industry see Marshall (1983: 33-47). [14] - The total labor force, of course, includes immigrants as well as non-white minorities. The proportion of white native workers alone in manual labor is much lower.

267 largely in garment and various non-durable goods producing industries [IS]. Empirically, the length of stay in the U.S. is in inverse proportion of the overrepresentation in manufacturing; i.e. the more recent the arrival of the immigrants, the more likely is their employment in manufacturing. Within manufacturing immigrants are typically employed in those industries with overproportionately high unemployment rates, the lowest wages, a predominantly semi- or unskilled work force, and a high degree of "labor-sensitivity" [16]. With respect to these characteristics, 'immigrant industries' (e.g. garment, textile, leather, plastics, and various non-durable as well as durable goods producing industries) seem to be the least fit for competition and economic survival. Many of these industries, however, showed higher increases in productivity (output per (wo)man-hour) during the 1970s than other alledgedly more dynamic industries. These increases have not been achieved through technological innovations or larger capital investment but through the recourse to older, seemingly outdated methods of work intensification (Marshall 1983: 40). These methods required the elimination of the achievements of organized labor with regard to the improvement of working conditions and wage levels. In other words, the profitability of the 'immigrant industries' depends to a considerable degree on the weakness or absence of trade unions, which translates into an increasing replacement of larger unionized shops by sweatshops and industrial homework, as well as by legal, but non-unionized, smaller shops. This 'renaissance'of seemingly outdated methods of work intensification takes place not only in traditional manufacturing industries, such as the garment and textile industries, but also - and increasingly - in the newer high tech industries. The dequalification process of employment in the wake of this development accounts for the growing proportion of women within the employed migrant population. This process of dequalification within manufacturing (as well as in the service sector) generates exactly those jobs that have historically been associated with women. At the same time, this 'feminization' of the occupational structure is likely to further the demand for migrant women workers (cf. Mortimer/Bryce-Laporte 1981; Fuentes/Ehrenreich 1983; Nash/Fernàndez-Kelly 1983). The Relevance of Immigrant Communities for the Social Reproduction within the City The growing presence of immigrant workers in New York City and other metropolitan centers in increasingly important not only with respect to specific sectors of the metropolitan economy such as labor-intensive services and manufacturing, but also with respect to the sphere of social reproduction within the city. The immigrants contribute considerably to the maintenance and restoration of social infrastructure as well as to the reduction of the costs of material reproduction of their labor power First, immigrant communities play a crucial role in preserving neighbourhoods which would otherwise deteriorate. The immigrants preserve and restore houses, stores, and smaller firms with their labor power and, to a lesser degree, their financial resources. In other words, they contribute essentially to the maintenance and restoration of the social and physical infrastructure of the city. In this respect they are the low-cost correlate to the gentrification process. Second, the 'investments' of the immigrants create employment

[15] - Women from the English-speaking Caribbean are an exception to this pattern. They can be found more often in personal services (private, households). This might be related to the fact that more of them (as opposed to Hispanic women, for example) come to the U.S. alone, often unmarried and thus in need of a 'stable' income (cf. Foner 1979). [16] - The concept of "labor-sensitivity" denotes production processes with a high elasticity of substitution, i.e. production processes whose demand for labor is influenced directly by the availability of such labor (Marshall 1983: 2-6).

268 opportunities for themselves (and taxes for the city). The creation of an informal service sector as well as the expansion in the garment industry has been, to a considerable part, the direct result of financial and labor power 'investments' of immigrants [17], Third, the goods and services produced by the immigrant communities contribute crucially to low costs of reproduction and this make it possible for the 'peripheralized' work force to subsist on extremely low wages. Many of these goods and services are provided through social networks such as family, friendship, and national-ethnic organizations (cf. McLaughlin 1981). If they were to be produced within the market economy they would be much more expensive and would drastically increase reproduction costs. Consequently, the immigrant communities are in themselves an important structural component of social reproduction - one that preserves, restores, and maximizes the spatial, economic, and social resources of the city by means of expending labor power and, to a lesser degree, financial resources without creating additional costs for the city or private business. Paradoxically, this means that ghettoization and the social and cultural separation of the immigrant population have become a specific mode of producing and reproducing material and social resources which are crucially important for the functioning and development of the overall metropolitan economy.

Conclusions and Perspectives

The foregoing analysis points to the close interrelation between continuing immigration movements f r o m the Caribbean to New York City and a process of economic reorganization which transforms the metropolitan economy: 1.-

What appears as (linear) deindustrialization is in fact a complex unity of growth and decline, entailing the restructuring of the labor market as well as a process of deskilling and deunionization.

2.-

The restructuring of the metropolitan economy leads to the 'peripheralization' of vast segments of the metropolitan population, which, in turn, is a key element in this restructuring process.

3.-

The reorganization continuing influx 'periphery', insofar for the expansion industries.

4.-

This implies that the migration movements f r o m the Caribbean (in particular and f r o m the 'Third World' in general) are not primarily the result of a structural demand for additional labor power (as has been the case with migrants in Western Europe), but, conversely, that the labor migrants themselves, because of their abundant presence and availability, generate this demand for a low-wage, semi- or unskilled, and flexible labor force in the first place (cf. Marshall 1983). It is exactly the presence of a large and growing immigrant population that allows for essential reductions in production costs in specific segments of the manufacturing industries and the service sector, which make capital investment in the metropolitan area attractive and profitable again. Once this demand for low-wage labor is created, however, management (and the state) tries to secure a sufficient supply of low-wage labor.

of of as of

the metropolitan economy relies in a specific way on the labor migrants f r o m the Caribbean and Latin American these provide the low-wage and flexible labor force necessary labor-intensive components of manufacturing and service

[17] - This has been possible because of alternative means of creating credit, e.g. the "rotating credit associations" (cf. Bonnett 1976).

269 The economic expedience of an overabundant wage labor force also sheds some light on the logic of U.S. immigration polilicy. In the face of increasing unemployment and job losses, there have been massive deportations and enforced departures of undocumented immigrants - up to a million a year in recent years. At the same time, newly arriving immigrants account for 30 to 40 per cent of the annual growth of the U.S. labor force (North/Martin 1980: 47). That is, 'illegality' has become a very important mode of immigration. This is particularly true for New York City where undocumented immigrants outnumber legal ones at least four to one (Nacla 1979: 28). The difference between a 'de jure' and a 'de facto' immigration policy is neither accidental nor the result of political incapability, but totally compatible with the economically and politically required flexibility of an immigrant work force which is best secured by stripping migrants of fundamental legal and political rights (cf. North/Martin 1980: 48-49; Hewlett 1981/82). As for f u t u r e prospects, there are several questions which are crucially relevant for the social and economic situation of the immigrants: First, the recent restructuring of the metropolitan economy and its shaping of immigrant social and economic life is not without potentials for conflict. The denial of political and legal rights, the social and economic 'peripheralization', as well as the (super)exploitation of the immigrants at their place of work will find their limits in the immigrants' resistance. This may include unionization at the work place, attempts to gain political power, and grassroots organizations within the community. In this context, the immigrant communities may turn out to be a particularly valuable resource in- so far as their social and cultural separation - although the genuine product of dominant (and racist) politics provides a potential for 'autonomy' from mainstream U.S. society and politics. Paradoxically, this potential for 'autonomy' is partially caused by the immigrants' ineligibility for welfare and other social security programs which forces them to secure their social reproduction 'autonomously' and not rely on state policies of material concessions. At the same time, the immigrants (and particularly the undocumented ones) are extremely vulnerable to open repression by the state due to their insecure political and legal status. Second, the effectiveness of immigrant resistance against 'peripheralization' and (super)exploitation will also depend on the competition a n d / o r solidarity between different immigrant groups, as well as between immigrants and native minorities. New York City has already seen clashes between immigrants from Columbia and El Salvador, f r o m the Dominican Republic and Haiti, between Puerto Ricans and Afro-Americans, etc. Such competition is likely to increase as a rapidly growing 'surplus population' faces continuously declining employment opportunities. On the other hand, the various immigrant groups f r o m the 'Third World', including 'native' minorities, share some common experience of economic exploitation, social marginalization and the denial of political rights. As a result there have been such phenomena as the collective identification of various Latin American peoples as Latinos, the Panafricanism of Black peoples, and the struggle of (legal) imigrants and native minorities to gain human and civil rights for undocumented immigrants [18].

[18] - A third question relevant for the (future) situation of the immigrants is their relationship to the white working class. This includes the theoretical issue of the relationship between race/ethnicity and class, racism and capitalist class domination, as well as the political question of 'nationalist' versus (working) class strategies (cf. van Capelleveen 1985; 1983). Unfortunately, there is not enough space to discuss these issues here.

270 Bibliography BLOCK, Fred: "The Myth of Reindustrialization", in: Socialist Review, 14, 1 (1984), 59-76. BLUESTONE, Barry/Bennett HARRISON: The Deindustrialization

of America, New York (Basic Books) 1982.

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5, 3

273

Index de nombres y direcciones/ Index of ñames and addresses

Lateinamerika-Institut der Freien Universität Berlin Rüdesheimerstr. 52 1000 Berlin 33 Klaus Bunke Prof. Dr. Ulrich Fleischmann Dr. José Morales-Saravia (Peru) Heike Malinowski Airich Nicolas (Haiti) Dr. Ineke Phaf (Netherlands) Helmtrud Rumpf

John F. Kennedy Institut f ü r Nordamerikastudien der Freien Universität Berlin Lansstr. 5-9 1000 Berlin 33 Dr. Remco van Capelleveen Prof. Dr. Michael Hoenisch Dr. Susan C. Shepherd (USA)

Edouard Glissant (Martinique) c/o UNESCO 7, Place de Fontenoy 75700 Paris, France Earl Lovelace (Trinidad) University of the West Indies Department of English St. Augustine, Trinidad, W.I. Emilio Jorge Rodriguez (Cuba) Casa de las Americas Dept. Investigaciones del Caribe 3 y G, El Vedado Ciudad de La Habana/Cuba Astrid Roemer (Surinam) c/o Institute of Social Studies P.O. Box 90733 2509 LS The Hague/The Netherlands

274 Dr. Wolfgang Bader c/o Generalkonsulat Rio/DAAD Postfach 1500 D-5300 Bonn 1 Dr. Thomas Bremer Justus Liebig Universität Institut f ü r Romanische Philologie Karl-Glöckner-Straße 21, Haus G D-6300 Giessen Dr. Rhonda Cobham (Trinidad) Amhurst College Merrill Place, Nr. 2 Smith House Mass. 01002, MA, USA Ottmar Ette Darmstädter Straße 26 D-6101 Ernsthofen-Modautal Prof. Dr. Frauke Gewecke Romanisches Seminar Universität Heidelberg Seminarstr. 3 D-6900 Heidelberg 1 Prof. Dr. Marlis Hellinger Seminar f ü r Englische Philologie Universität Hannover Im Moore 21 D-3000 Hannover 1 Klaus-Peter Henn Krawehlstr. 17 D-4300 Essen 1

Manfred Sievert Huberstr. 24 D-4800 Bielefeld 1

Dr. Jürgen Martini Universität Bayreuth Lehrstuhl für Englische Literaturwissenschaft und Komparatistik Postfach 3008 D-8580 Bayreuth Alja Naliwaiko Untersteinach 61 D-8588 Weidenberg Brigitte Späth Universität Konstanz Sonderforschungsbereich 221 Postfach 5560 D-7750 Konstanz 1 Dr. Carole D. Yawney (Canada) Department of Sociology York University/Atkinson College 4700 Keele Street, Downsview Ontario M3J 2R7, Canada