Skip to content
University of Maryland LibrariesDigital Repository at the University of Maryland
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Creating Spaces of Home: Haitian Women's Journey of Migration, "Lakay!"

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Poinson_umd_0117E_12943.pdf (18.01Mb)
    No. of downloads: 265

    Date
    2012
    Author
    Poinson, Manouchka
    Advisor
    Bolles, A. Lynn
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    The literature on Haitian women immigrants has not offered a comprehensive portrayal of their experiences in America, but has treated their plight as a neutral entity, void of differences. Even more distressing, there is a lack of focus on the Haitian women's experiences in the U.S. based literature. However, the true experience of many Haitian women migrants is that they have been either the first to migrate and or the focal point of the migration process in terms of recruitment. This study addresses the specificity of Haitian women's experiences in the Washington, D.C. area, not one of the long established immigration centers in the U.S. An intersectional approach that maps the simultaneity of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, class and legal status on the lives of these immigrants allowed theories of space, identity and notions of home to be developed. How did this group of women attempt to create "Lakay" in the metro Washington, D.C. area? Taking an ethnographical approach, this project centralizes an American immigrant population that has occupied a marginal if not invisible space by theorizing Haitian women's experience and giving them a voice in the broader framework of migration studies. Furthermore, the project will illustrate Haitian women's migration stories through examining their roles within their family, the community and transnationally through an analysis of the cultural understanding of Haitian women as central pillars of society. In particular, this ethnographic study explores the everyday lives of Haitian women as immigrants and also provides an in-depth analysis of their social worlds. We find that Haitians in the Washington, D.C. area were not visible due in large part to the small population size, the dispersal of the community, both factors that contributed to the lack of prominent social institutions that have historically drawn immigrants to an area. Despite this, the participants have created a space of home in Washington D.C. in which their investment in the community lies mainly in the churches and organizations to which they belong. From a transnational perspective, home for the participants is also simultaneously located in the U.S. and in Haiti, where they long to return.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1903/12559
    Collections
    • American Studies Theses and Dissertations
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility
     

     

    Browse

    All of DRUMCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister
    Pages
    About DRUMAbout Download Statistics

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility