The Asian Caribbean in the Caribbean Diaspora

Essays on Migration, Identity, and Literary and Cultural Representations

Aleah N. Ranjitsingh

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798216262602
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Emigration & Immigration
• Index: Social Sciences

This book expands notions of the Caribbean diaspora, which is often cast in very specific ways, so as to account for the Asian as part of the Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora. It seeks to be descriptive, while also countering a limited discourse on the Caribbean diaspora.
The Asian Caribbean in the Caribbean Diaspora is grounded in the very histories and legacies of indentureship, contract labor, later migrations to the region, and encounter. The Asian presence has long been felt in the greater Caribbean – the result of colonial powers which necessitated labor on Caribbean plantations against the backdrop of empire and burgeoning capitalist structures; and later migrations as "free" migrants compelled by emigration schemes and economic opportunity. This work is descriptive, while also countering a limited discourse on the Caribbean diaspora. Its collection of interdisciplinary chapters which center the Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Javanese in and outside of the Caribbean, reveal migration narratives, encounters on Caribbean plantations and in diasporic urban centers, notions of homeland and experiences of return, family histories, identity formation and subjectivity, the ways in which Caribbean people create and convey meaning about these histories, experiences and self, and the contributions of Caribbean people of Asian descent to the framing of the Caribbean and Asian diasporas.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Preface
• Introduction: The Asian Caribbean in the Caribbean Diaspora
• Chapter 1: Memory Archives of a Not-So-Distant Past: Cufun Landolio Attai 1917–1985
• Chapter 2: Japanese Brazilian Ethnic Return Migration to Japan and the Reconfiguration of National Identities and Homeland Affiliations
• Chapter 3: The Heterochronicity and Transnational Locality of Indo-Caribbean Gendered Modernities within Diasporic “Returns”
• Chapter 4: Chinese Caribbean Narratives: Migration, Identity, and Belonging at Home and Diaspora
• Chapter 5: The Failure of Japanese Emigration to the Dominican Republic
• Chapter 6: Unpacking “Indo-Caribbean” through Intersectional Feminism in New York City
• Chapter 7: Dougla Maneuverings: Mixedness and Complex Embodiments in the Caribbean Diaspora
• Chapter 8: Echoes across Oceans: Transdiasporic Indo-Caribbean Anthologies and Post-Amnesia Jahaji Bhai(n)
• Chapter 9: “Where Did History Go, I Asked Myself, If It Could Not Be Retold?”: Trauma and the Chinese Cuban Transnational History in Cristina García’s Novel Monkey Hunting (2003)
• Chapter 10: Finding Home in the Diaspora: Roots, Reconnection, and Renewal in Joy Mahabir’s Jouvert
• Chapter 11: Homosexuality, Societal Expectations, and the Claims of Family: Queering Geographies of Domesticity and Belonging in Shani Mootoo’s Valmiki’s Daughter (2008)
• Chapter 12: After “Indo-Caribbean”: Interrogating Interstitial Identities and Diasporic Solidarities in Conversation with Andil Gosine
• Chapter 13: Creating Space: Migrations, Nationalism, Unity, and Cultural Diversity among the Javanese-Surinamese in Suriname a d the Netherlands
• Chapter 14: Chutney Songs, Indian Beats, and Black Music: Digital Diasporic Consciousness on Indo-Caribbean Social Media
• Chapter 15: “Leave the Door Open”: Sounding Afro-Asian & Caribbean Cultural Production
• Index
• About the Contributors