The Internationalization of Kinship and the Feminization of Caribbean Migration: The Case of Afro-Trinidadian Immigrants in Los Angeles

The creation of families is just one of many changes being brought about by the process of globalization. For scholars of international migration there are important substantive and methodological lessons to be learned from a study of that process. Rather than treating migration as a linear, uni-directional flow, attention needs to be directed at the circular movements of populations. This article addresses Caribbean migration specifically, and focuses on the case of Afro-Trinidadian immigrants in Los Angeles. Because kinship lies at the heart of Caribbean social life both at home and abroad, the recycling behavior of Caribbean migrants has brought into existence families, new forms of kinship that call for rethinking what we mean by family. International families operate on the principle of networks rather than households, and are given form and content by women. Women figure prominently not only in Caribbean migration, but in the creation and maintenance of these ...