Some interesting findings with regard to the effects of migration, culled from published research, are presented below. 4 May 2022
Voluntary migrants are born achievers and risk-takers
1/ Peter Vandor's paper in Journal of World Business, published online October 16, 2020, reiterates the premise of self-selection for high-achieving migrants who voluntarily choose to migrate because of their class, social capital, education etc. He also acknowledges the common findings of their strong tendency towards entrepreneurship. But he goes further. He hypothesizes that--unlike the commonly accepted belief that it is owing to lack of opportunity in their adopted country--voluntary migrants (like Althea McNish) inherently possess the traits peculiar to successful entrepreneurs, that is, high tolerance for and willingness to take risks, coupled with a strong desire to achieve at a high level and attain success.
He proposes that the type of personality that leads to voluntary migration is exactly the type of personality that seeks out entrepreneurship as a preferred lifestyle: high risk tolerance and hunger for success. He therefore disagrees with the long-held notion that voluntary migrants start their own business simply because they find it difficult to enter the job market in their adopted country. As we know from the media articles, Althea never became a staff employee, but worked as an independent designer throughout her life.
Here is a quote from Vandor's introduction:
"This paper aims to contribute to this research by theoretically developing the personality-based self-selection hypothesis and testing it with a robust research design. It focuses on two personality traits: willingness to take risks and need for achievement. Building on entrepreneurial personality theory (Rauch and Frese, 2014, Chell, 2008; Kerr, Kerr, & Xu, 2018; Rauch & Frese, 2007), it argues that voluntary migrants are more likely to possess these traits due to self-selection, and that this subsequently leads to higher levels of entrepreneurship among migrants than among those who remain in the country of origin. In doing so, it focuses on voluntary international migrants, defined as individuals who relocate voluntarily to a country other than that of their usual residence, for a period of at least a year, for the purpose of seeking employment or self-employment.
Such individuals set, and strive to reach, challenging goals to demonstrate their ability and competence (McClelland, 1961). They are more persistent in pursuing goals and better able to cope with stress when confronted with adversity (Wu, Matthews, & Dagher, 2007). Such a mindset is likely to be helpful, even essential, in dealing with the many issues faced by international migrants, such as administrative hurdles, socio-cultural adjustment, and the above-mentioned risks of discrimination and psychological loss (Al Ariss, 2010; Bhugra, 2004; Cerdin et al., 2014; Zikic & Richardson, 2016). As Zikic et al. (2010) found in a study of qualified immigrants, respondents with a higher motivation to succeed and to take advantage of opportunities are more likely to adapt embracing and proactive strategies to overcome hurdles. At the same time, the promise of improved financial and material wellbeing, a prominent motive for voluntary migration (Borjas, 1994; Massey et al., 1993), probably looms larger for high-nAch individuals, who often have a relatively strong desire for financial and professional success (McClelland, 1961, 1965, Baruch, O’Creevy, Hind, & Vigoda-Gadot, 2004)."
In his paper, Vandor also emphasizes that voluntary migrants are fully aware of the challenges they will encounter and the risks they will be subjecting themselves to before they set out on their journey. But they weigh the pros and cons and decide to go ahead anyway.
2/ Acceptance by the host society is greater where migrant bears resemblance or is educated.
An article in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, January 2022 edition, volume 86, looks at the experience of young African migrants and factors contributing to or detrimental to success in their adopted country.
Among the things noted that contributed to success was the migrants' approach to life, that is, those most willing to integrate--defined by the authors as " the maintenance of the original culture while embracing compatible aspects of the new culture "-- tended to fare better in terms of adaptation and success in their new homeland. The article notes that those who integrated achieved better than those who assimilated. Assimilation was defined by them as: "putting aside the migrant’s original culture and adopting the host culture ."
My understanding of Althea's life story was that she was neither marginalized, which was another category, nor was she assimilated. She continued to express her sense of individual identity as a Caribbean immigrant while embracing many aspects of her new country, including marrying a British architect, so she could be designated as falling in the "integration" category, which this journal article saw as the category most prone to success in their adopted country.
Further, her middle-class upbringing with associated manners and sophistication (she was a graduate of the Royal College of Art) would have made her acceptable to those in the UK society. This no doubt contributed in a large way to her rise in UK society and the world of textile design. My advisor Abbey pointed out to me that class is frequently a determining factor in the success or failure of migrants.
This journal also stresses this point: "Perhaps the most fundamental migrant factor affecting acculturation is whether the cause of migration was voluntary or involuntary. ..Research examining the relationship of acculturation and experiences of education has typically found positive associations between acculturation and educational experiences. For example, research with migrant samples – including some African-born migrants – has found positive associations between integration strategies and academic achievement (López, Ehly, & García-Vásquez, 2002), grade point average (GPA), and perceived scholastics competence (Farver, Bhadha, & Narang, 2002). Furthermore, adoption of host culture in first and later generation migrant secondary school students has been found to predict decision to apply for tertiary education (Castillo, Lopez-Arenas, & Saldivarxys, 2010), while use of integration strategies has been found to be associated with the completion of tertiary education (Nekby, Rödin, & Özcan, 2009). "
3/Need for host communities to sanitize record of past injustices against migrants
I found some reflections in the journal Heritage, Memory, and Conflict, to which I was directed by my second advisor Jean Marie, to be helpful in reflecting on the experiences of the Merikins. Those reflections also raised questions in my mind about the effects on Althea's thinking and approach to life in the UK.
In the 23 November 2021 journal article by Maria Kobielska, it is noted that minority migrant communities (like the Merikins in Trinidad) often have to resort to various devices to maintain their sense of identity, such as through ceremonies and other performative practices. I took special note of this, since I heard from a researcher who belongs to the community that the Merrikins in Trinidad continue to perform the dances, sing the spirituals, and hold other ceremonies commemorative of their ancestors who came from the US in the early 1800s. The researcher also told me that the community desires to establish a monument to mark their presence and continued existence in that area of Trinidad.
Kobielska states the following: "According to literature, performative practices such as holiday celebrations, anniversaries, ceremonies, funerals, and religious services are considered affective media of memory (Erll and Rigney 2009, Kosiński 2010, Assmann 2011, Erll 2011) that produce identity and integration of a group (Olick 2007). Ceremonies reveal, repeat, and strengthen the dominants of a memory culture that frame past events’ understanding. Speeches delivered at commemorative ceremonies express common values and shared ideologies of the “in-group”, allow us to observe representation of the past in the context of present politics and its role in creating collective (and especially national) self-image and identity (Olick 2007, Reisigl 2008, Wodak 2010, Riehn 2019). "
She notes that for minority migrant groups, there is often a struggle to be recognized and acknowledged. This leads the group to creating what she calls "non-sites" for establishing memories. They are described as such because the majority population does not recognize their importance. "An attempt to commemorate a non-site, in turn, represents a struggle for recognition of minority memory rather than a celebration of communal remembrance. The public inauguration of a monument in a non-site of memory demonstrates social responses to the site, ways of referring to and processing it, as well as placing the local past in the context of supra-local memory forms."
She also reflected on the need of such groups to accept sanitized versions of their past in order for the general community to share in its commemoration. She says: "The speakers at the ceremony are thus supposed, putting it in general terms, to transform non-memory into a form of memory: to make it expressible and coordinate it with 'official' remembrance. "
The author was writing specifically in relation to Jews in Poland who suffered atrocities, but I find their experiences remind me of my sense of how the Merikins are remembered in Trinidad. I was struck by how one film, sponsored by foreign organizations, and some other literature, tended to downplay the struggles the US soldiers faced in settling in Trinidad, and instead, as with the ceremonies in Poland mentioned by Kobielska, the focus was on emphasizing what good people they are and how all in their new home country cooperated with one another, etc., etc. I got the distinct impression when I watched the film of the story being sanitized so as not to offend its sponsors.
4/Memories are slippery things and keep evolving
The HMC journal's January 12, 2022 article, Spaces of Memory echoed what Jean-Marie reminded me, that memories are somewhat fluid things. The article states as follows: "The work of memory in all its forms, from historical essays to personal reminiscences, legal testimonies, and imaginative recreations, is not only slippery but also inherently contradictory. On the one hand, memory posits a past reality that is recalled outside the person’s subjectivity. Yet, on the other hand, memory requires a narrator who is equipped with conventional cultural filters of generational distance, age and gender, class, and political affiliations, on whose authority the truth of the past can be revealed. Memories are narrated by someone in the present but nonetheless we still use them as authoritative sources of historical knowledge. Moreover, memories are always mediated, even in the flashes of so-called involuntary memory. They are complex constructions in which our present experience (individual and collective) conjoins with images that are collected by the mind from all manner of sources, including from our inner worlds....
"Through the semiotic and cultural lens that we adopt here, memory is envisaged as an active force field of competing discourses within which individual and collective acts of remembrance are constantly re-negotiated, re-elaborated and recounted in often conflictual and contested narratives. It is a conception of memory not as an irrevocably deposited and defined notion but as an active and transformative force that reshapes the past as much as the future, as it interrogates the present, its politics and the subject positions that constitute forms and communities of remembrance and memory transmission. "
So I do need to keep these cautions in mind when doing interviews for the podcast. Althea has been dead two years now. Her generation was my parents' generation or even earlier. So much may have been transmuted by time in the minds of my potential interviewees.
5/ Memory is also a tool for creativity
HMC journal's 12 January 2022 article, "Memory, art, and intergenerational transmission", makes the following point about the impact of important/traumatic memories passed from one generation to another, and how it fuels creativity.
"This is exactly what takes place in postmemory: successive generations reclaim the memories of their fathers and mothers; they reinterpret them, transform them and retranslate them in other ways. The discursivity of the postmemory is a transformative one, and, in many instances, as was the case in Latin America, a strongly creative and innovative one" (Violi 2020: 23).
"Thus, we do not consider intergenerational transmission as a linear unidirectional transference of an unmodified object (knowledge and memories of the past) of adults towards the youngsters, but we understand that there exists a dialogue where there is elaboration and translation by the new generations, according to their contexts, interests and questions of the present."