Cultural crossings: Migration, generation, and gender in writings by Claude McKay and Paule Marshall

This study examines the literary and cultural impact of African Caribbean immigration to America by analyzing the themes of migration, generation, and gender in the writings of two of the most prominent Black immigrant authors in the United States, Claude McKay and Paule Marshall. McKay, born in Jamaica in 1890 (d. 1948), was a first-generation immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1912; Marshall, born in Brooklyn in 1929, is a second-generation immigrant, a Barbadian American.;Focussing on McKay's poetry and three published novels, Home to Harlem (1928), Banjo (1929), and Banana Bottom (1933), and on Marshall's first and most recent novels, Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959) and Daughters (1991), this essay considers McKay's and Marshall's literary creations both as unique artistic productions, and as potential tools of social inquiry. Thus, the goals of the project fall under two rubrics. From a literary perspective, this dissertation offers new readings of the works by contextualizing them within the genre of the migration narrative more generally, thereby exploring the parameters of what might constitute the "Black" migration narrative. Additionally, by considering the works of two Black immigrant authors whose lives span the twentieth century, this inquiry explores the impact of African Caribbean writers on Black American letters from the Harlem Renaissance to the recent renaissance of Black women's literature. Finally, by concentrating on seemingly "marginal" Caribbean viewpoints within African American literary history, this examination calls for a reassessment of what has traditionally been considered the "center" of Black American literary studies.;On a broader level, this dissertation attempts to complicate monolithic conceptions of Blackness which have historically dominated American discourses in literary, sociological, and immigration theory. By examining the intersection of race and ethnicity through the writing of two selected Black ethnics, it demonstrates the need for serious investigation of the issue of ethnic difference within the context of racial sameness. Lastly, by addressing gender and generational differences characterizing the lives and writings of McKay and Marshall, this study tests the applicability of traditional immigration theory to Black immigrants in particular.