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Tyesha Maddox, "A Home Away from Home: Mutual Aid, Political Activism, and Caribbean American Identity" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
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Kiana Knight
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Kiana Knight
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Kiana Knight
Welcome to New Books Network. I'm your host, Kiana Knight, and today I'm speaking with Dr. Tyisha Mattix about her book A Home Away from Mutual Aid, Political Activism and Caribbean American Identity, published with the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2024. In this conversation, we'll explore how Dr. Maddox brings together Afro Caribbean, African and African American histories to elucidate the role of mutual aid societies in Caribbean American communities in the first half of the 20th century. Dr. Maddox, thank you so much for joining me today.
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
Thank you so much for having me, Keanu.
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Kiana Knight
And we'll jump straight into it with talking about the origins of this project. So your book centers Caribbean immigrant mutual aid societies and benevolent associations as key institutions in diaspora formation. So I'm wondering what first drew you to these organizations as a historical subject?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
Thank you. That's an excellent question. I, Prior to my research, I didn't know much about mutual aid societies. I knew the practices of mutual aid and some of these benevolent associations, but I wasn't super familiar with them. I did a master's in undergrad. Well, I did a master's program continuing an idea that I had from undergraduate on looking at Caribbean and African American interactions in New York City. And I went to the Schomburg center for Research in Harlem, the treasure trove of all things black history. And when I was there, I kept coming across Caribbean immigrant mutual aid societies and benevolent associations. And the more I searched for them, the more I found. And I ended up finding about 66, like, individual organizations through these records. And I was like, these must be really important. And as I read through the records, I saw that they were doing a number of really important or serving a number of really important functions for Caribbean immigrants in New York who were settling. And I was like, I need to write about this. There was some work that had been done, chapters here and there and references to the organizations, but there weren't any full length studies that I had seen on these institutions. And so I figured it was time for that to be written.
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Kiana Knight
Okay, could you tell me a little bit about how you came to see These societies and associations as a lens for understanding Caribbean migration and community formation?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
Yeah, absolutely. I think because the mutual aid societies and vanilla associations were serving so many functions for these Caribbean immigrants, I saw that as really important to their community development in terms of helping immigrants, newly arrived immigrants, get settled in New York City, helping them find kinship and community. These organizations were super important for helping them find jobs, for recruiting other immigrants to come. I argue that these are carryover from the friendly societies that we see in the Caribbean post emancipation. And so these organizations, I think, really helped Caribbean immigrants acclimate themselves to this new environment that they were in in New York City. And so I just saw that as super important for how Caribbean immigrants could place themselves in this sometimes hostile and for many, unfamiliar new environment.
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Kiana Knight
That's a good segue into my next question. Earlier, early in the book, you discussed the historical roots of Caribbean friendly societies and their connections to African traditions of mutual aid. Why is it important to situate Caribbean immigrant organizations within this longer lineage?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
That's a really good question. I think for me, I was making these connections between the friendly societies and the Caribbean mutual aid societies, as well as older African traditional title societies and traditions of mutual aid, because I often got questioned on whether these New York City Caribbean immigrant mutual aid societies were just imitations of other immigrant groups, mutual aid societies. And I knew that they weren't because they were uniquely Caribbean in the way that they were structured in the things that they were talking about, although there were similarities to other immigrant groups, particularly the Chinese mutual aid and the Jewish mutual aid societies. But I wanted to show this connection between the Caribbean friendly societies and these organizations, because I also think it shows the way in which immigrants are. These Caribbean immigrants are able to, like, be resourceful, right. And resilient in creating community for themselves using the tools that they already had, similarly, the friendly societies. And looking at those, I knew that they weren't, like, nebulous and came out of nowhere. And so in looking at the history of them, I was trying to see how did formerly enslaved and in some of the very early societies before emancipation, how did they have these ideas? Where did these notions for creating these organizations come from? And so in doing that, I found many of the African traditional societies or title societies that were very prevalent in West Africa and how those organizations very similarly followed many of the traditions that we see in friendly societies. And so I wanted to make those connections to show that this project of mutual aid or this tradition of mutual aid is one that had been carried on for centuries. Now, post 2020 after the pandemic, where we see this new interest and burst of study on mutual aid, it seems as if this is something that's new. And so in the. In this book, I'm arguing that, no, this is a tradition that has existed amongst people of African descent for centuries. Right. And I'm making the connections between West Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. And so I think that's really important to center these people of African descent in the center of this tradition of mutual aid that have become so popular in the last few years.
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Kiana Knight
I just love that response so much. So in line with these diasporic connections, the book highlights how these societies fostered connections not only among Caribbean immigrants, but also between Caribbean and African American communities. So could you talk a little bit about what kinds of alliances or tensions even that emerge from these interactions?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
Yeah, so actually, that goes to the root of what initially I was attracted to. So my. My mom is from St. Luc in the Caribbean, and my dad's family is from north and South Carolina. And so I was always very interested in Caribbean and African American communities and how we come to this idea of blackness and what blackness means when we're both black or they're. Both sides of my family are black, but black in very different ways. And so in trying to understand this, understand my family's history, this is where I got this interest in the mutual aid societies. And I saw the way in which Caribbean immigrants themselves were not only forging a Caribbean identity, because as I mentioned in the book, for many Caribbean immigrants who come to New York City at this time and who are part of these organizations, they don't necessarily see themselves as Caribbean. They see themselves as Jamaican. They see themselves as Saint Lucian, Bermudian, whatever. That they don't see themselves as part of a Caribbean identity until these organizations.
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Kiana Knight
Right.
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
That they're part of, or until they come to the diaspora and they're forced together to live, living together. And similarly, they begin to see themselves as part of a larger black identity. So their identity is very complex. Right. And so they're forging this Caribbean identity. They're also understanding themselves as part of an African American community. And. And so there's a lot going on. But in doing this, you can see in the organizations, which is why I think it's important to use the mutual aid societies as a lens, because we can see through the organizations the way in which their identity, ideas of identity are developing. So they start as single island nation organizations, then they turn to Pan Caribbean or Pan West Indian organizations. So they're seeing their identities as connected, then we see them doing a lot of work with African American groups. One of the big ones that I talk about is the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters, which was one of the black, one of the largest black unions in America at the time. And we see a lot of cooperation and cross programming going to each other's meetings, hosting events together through this. And so I think these organizations show a way in which Caribbean immigrants were not only seeing themselves as Caribbean in the US but they're also seeing themselves as very largely a part of this black African American community. And we can see that through the records in terms of who they were supporting, who was coming to their meetings. We also see some of the members of the Caribbean immigrant mutual aid societies also actively a part of the African American societies. And so, for instance, I think I talk about it. No, I do talk about it. In the book, Ashley L. Taaden serves as the like on the executive board for various Virgin island organizations, but he also is a secretary, I believe, for the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters. And so we see this cross cooperation amongst Caribbean and African American residents of New York. There, of course, are tensions. For one, they're living in the. Because they're all black. I focus on the Anglophone Caribbean. Many of the descendants that I look at are Afro Caribbean. And so they're seen as black. They're forced to live in the same neighborhood. So they're in the same neighborhoods. They're also forced and relegated to the same job positions because of Jim Crow. There's a lot of racism. And so even if they're trained for different positions, the systems in place are preventing them for getting certain jobs. And so they are also effectively vying for the same career positions. And so sometimes that causes tensions amongst that. I'm sorry, that causes tensions amongst the two groups. Right. And we see them, particularly the native groups, feeling slighted by these new people who are coming into their communities, who are taking their jobs, seemingly taking their jobs. And so this is where we see some of the tension arising and other aspects, but I think this is some of the major ways we see this happen. I regrettedly don't focus as much. I mentioned, of course, the tensions. I know it's not an idealistic process that's happening, but I tend to focus more on the alliances that are being created in the book. If I had all the time in the world, I would delve more into some of the tensions. But I do talk about it within the text.
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Kiana Knight
Okay. So I want to transition to gender. Now, one of the most compelling arguments that you make is that Caribbean women were not peripheral to these associations, but often their backbone. What does centering women change about how we understand Caribbean migration history in particular?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
So I particularly wanted to focus on women in this period because I think what we tend to think of immigration, we have in this idea of immigrants or migrants being young males. And we don't necessarily look at women as active participants in immigration history. And I think by looking at these women, we see a new, like, whole, more whole sense of what the immigration process looks like. Particularly in this early period, women are traveling in either equal and sometimes even more larger numbers than men. And so I think that's really important to point out that this early period of Caribbean immigration looks very different from other genres or other periods of migration for Caribbean people. And I also center women because I think it's important that we see the ways in which women are also the carriers of culture. And so one of the reasons why we see, I believe, the mutual aid societies and benevolent associations being as successful as they are is because the female members of the organizations are very actively participants in these organizations. So in many of the organizations, we have a very large female membership. And so this idea of culture is being passed on through women. Women at this time were being recruited to work in the US as domestics. And so this is a reason why we see such a large number of women coming in. And as a result, we see this proliferation, I would argue, of these mutual aid societies and benevolent associations, because even in the Caribbean, we see women were some of the larger participants in friendly societies. In similar way, in these mutual aid societies, I think they're really important because in a time, I'm looking at 1890 to 1940, and in a time when women had very few leadership opportunities, we see women taking on a lot of the leadership opportunities in these organizations. And I think that's really important to highlight how women were actively involved in creating these spaces and creating this culture and community for Caribbean immigrants. Many of the immigrants who come, I think that's also another difference we see in this. This early period of immigration versus other periods of immigration in other places. From the Caribbean, particularly, I'm thinking of Central and South America, this immigration is more permanent, whereas the other immigration tends to be more transient. They're going for seasonal work, and so they go for crops, or they go to work on the railroad or on the canal, and then they go home. In this case, we see this migration being more permanent. And as a result, we see women being very important in helping set up these communities and continuing to create networks for each other. So I think that's really important. Score more with the college branded Venmo Debit card and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash Got paid back with the Venmo Debit card you can instantly access your balance and spend spend on what you want like game day, snacks, gear, tickets and more. The more you do, the more cash back you can earn. Plus there's no monthly fee or minimum balance. Sign up now@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo Mastercard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Select Schools available Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo me terms max $100 cash back per month My day
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
for details so I want to go
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Kiana Knight
a little deeper and ask about how gender functioned more specifically within these societies along with respectability because I think your book shows that ideas about gender and respectability shaped how these associations operated and how members represented themselves publicly. So could you tell me a little bit about how these ideas functioned within these societies and how ideas of gender and respectability and respectability evolved over time?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
Mm. So in looking at and we're talking about the Caribbean mutual aid societies in the us, Correct? Yeah. So looking at these organizations, I would argue that the friendly societies in the Caribbean were definitely more into regulating gender roles and these ideas of respectability. We see it a little bit in the societies in the US but not as not it's not policed as much as we did see in the Caribbean. So in the US There were of course, these ideas of. I'm trying to think. That was a good question. I'm sorry, I just wanted to think. I'm thinking like, I can make that argument for, I can make that argument for, for the Caribbean, but I'm trying to think in the US context if it's as harsh. I don't think it is. I don't think we see. I don't think we see the policing in the ways that we did in the Caribbean friendly societies. Because in the Caribbean friendly societies they had these moral codes, like if you were drunk, you wouldn't be allowed to receive your membership benefits if you go publicly drunk, right. Or if you did anything, like if you were arrested.
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Kiana Knight
So how would you characterize the political nature of these societies and how did their roles shift across different historical moments and geographic contexts?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
So I would argue that when we look at the early objectives of these mutually societies in the us, a lot of it was getting settled and acclimating themselves to American life. And so there were a lot of social functions in terms of helping people find jobs, helping people find housing, helping them just like navigate this new environment. And then over time, as we see less new arrivals of immigrants who are coming into these organizations and people are more settled and familiar with the city, we see this, I argue in the book, in the 1920s and 1930s also, particularly because there's so much happening politically to African American communities. This is like the mid air of American history where we're seeing Jim Crow roaring its ugly head in black communities. Increased lynching, increase, increased violence towards black communities. We see Caribbean immigrants in these organizations. Their objectives begin to shift towards being more political in their nature. And so still focusing, still having the social aspect of an organization, having church services, having dances, having cultural nights, but also implementing, implementing this idea of how do we make this city, in this country better for us, better for our children who are going to be here? And so we see them having politicians coming and canvassing at their meetings. We see members becoming actively involved in politics and we see them like lending their support towards certain causes, particularly in housing and education and immigration. And we see them really actively being part of this through demonstrations, through hosting meetings, through participating in strikes and in protests. Right. And so we see the nature of the organizations change over time. And I think that's directly correlated to the people who are in the organization and what their objectives are. Again, so they start off as just trying to get themselves settled and acclimated and understanding what life in the US is about to becoming. Okay, we know, we've been here for a little bit. We know what's going on. We don't like it, we need to change it. And so they become active. And we see this through cross cooperation with African American organizations. We see them lending their hands, participating in their protests as well. And so this is particularly where we see a lot of alliances form between Caribbean and African American organizations.
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Kiana Knight
All right, so I'm going to transition to methods now. You draw on sources scattered across multiple national archives and mutual aid organizations. What were some of the biggest archival challenges, and how did you navigate any archival silences? And also, could you tell us about the most surprising sources you encountered during the research process?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
So I. So this is a project that focuses on Caribbean immigrants in New York City. I do start the book, and I felt remiss not to start the book in the Caribbean to see who were these people that were coming. So I started the book. The first two chapters focus on the Caribbean, and then the last three chapters look at New York City, of course, with this lens, this bilateral lens, looking back at the Caribbean, because even once they're settled in the us, they're still actively involved in what's happening in the Caribbean. And so they never lose sight of being West Indian or Caribbean, and looking back at helping their friends and family who are still behind in the Caribbean. And in many cases, there are lots of people who have family members, who have children who are still in the Caribbean, so they are actively involved. And so as a result, I knew that. Well, my largest resource, of course, was the Schomburg, because that's where most of the records of these societies are. And I focus very heavily on the records of the societies. So the Schomburg is the number one treasure trove. And I was doing my PhD dissertation at NYU, so very convenient for me to be at the Schaumburg. Convenient and helpful and a quick ride uptown. So I was very happy with that. But I knew that I couldn't do a project on the Caribbean or on Caribbean immigrants and not go to the Caribbean. And so I went to several archives in the Caribbean. In I'm trying to believe I remember Trinidad. In I tried to go to Saint Lucia. As I mentioned, my family's from Saint Lucia. So I'm always trying to insert Saint Lucian history anywhere I can. Saint Lucia does not have much, unfortunately. Their archive was burned a couple times. And so the records are very sparse. But I used what I could. From there. I went to Barbados, I went to Jamaica, which were excellent archives that have lots of information and a Surprising place I went was St. Vincent and the Guernadines, and they had a lot of very helpful information there. I was actually surprised. I didn't know how much I would find in St. Vincent. And I surprisingly found a lot also. Another. It's so funny because we think of when we're doing this research that the archive is the end all, be all, but it's not. And so when I was in St. Lucia, I realized that there is a Ministry of Finance. And I was like, you know, let me see if they have anything. Because a lot of these friendly societies were housed under Ministry of Finance because of the money, the money collection aspect of it. And so I was like, you know, let me check it out. And so I went and I spoke with someone. My aunt that day had been with me, and she was like, oh, I'll take a walk with you downtown. Let me come with you. And so we go to the Ministry of Finance, and I. I'm telling them what I'm doing, like, what I'm interested in, and they're like, oh, we don't have anything. And then the one woman comes out who's like the head of the Ministry of Finance, and she looks at my aunt and she goes, oh. She goes, gloria, this is your niece. Let me help you. Let me see what we have. This woman comes out with a stack of records from the night, from the 1900, like late, late 19th century, early 1900s, and just has a stack of records on friendly societies. And I'm like, so if my aunt wasn't here, I wouldn't have had access to these records. And so sometimes that's part of the problem with doing research in the Caribbean. It's who you know, who's your family? Why do you want these records? And so sometimes that can be a barrier. And luckily, that day, my aunt happened to walk down the town with me, and I got access to these records. So that was really funny. And then I. Of course, because we're looking at this period where they're part of the British Empire and many people who study any of these colonial places, former colonial places. I had to go to London. I had to go to Kew. Kew has so much information. A lot of the blue books and colonial records are there. They strategically took notes on these mutual aid societies. And so that was a really helpful place. I'm trying to think in New York City. I tried to go to Ellis Island. Their records, the New York City local records. I was anywhere. I thought there potentially could be records. For me, it's Funny, because I was having a conversation with someone who had been through my. Through my archive records, and they were like, wow, you really went everywhere. And I was like, I was trying. I was trying as much as I could to find information. And so I looked, I left. I would say no stone unturned.
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Kiana Knight
I love hearing about your extensive travels during your research process.
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
I also got very lucky in getting a lot of funding to do these summer trips, to take these research trips. So that was really very fortunate.
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Kiana Knight
Absolutely. So we hear the role that your aunt played in your research process. You mentioned in the acknowledgments that your family history inspired your interest in this kind of history and black identity formation. Could you talk about these specific moments throughout the research and writing process that made you feel connected to your family's history, or how did those personal connections influence the way you approach the project?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
Yeah, I think for me, in writing this history, I. I never. And the reason I even wanted to do this project, growing up in Brooklyn and part of a Caribbean and African American family background, I never. I don't think I ever felt represented, particularly in having both of those two. Of course, there are lots of people of African American descent in New York. There are lots of people of Caribbean descent in New York. And a lot of my friends were either or they were Caribbean or they were African American. And so for me, like, when I would go to my dad's family after I had spent the summer in St. Croix, and maybe I had a tan, maybe I had a little bit of a St. Lucian twang, and my grandpa would say, who's from South Carolina? Would say, why are you talking like a Caribbean person? What's that accent from? And so it made me feel just a little different. And then having conversations with my West Indian grandmother and having her say certain things about the African American community, I felt. I just felt. Not understood. And so I never felt like I really had representation and looking at those two communities and how they came together, until I read Paul Marshall's Brown Girl Brownstone, which looks at I am from Bed Stuy and grew up in Bed Stuy, born and raised. And I read that book, and it focuses on a daughter of Barbadian immigrants who live in Bed Stuy. Their one goal, as many Caribbean people, are to buy a house, to buy brownstone in Bed Stuy. And so she talks about coming of age as the daughter of Caribbean immigrants in a community that's African American. And so I was like, oh, yes, finally I feel, like, seen and represented. And so I wanted to write a history that. That I thought other people could connect to and that they would be feel seen and represented in. And so I wrote this book in the attempts of, like, understanding my own family's history and how we see these ideas of blackness, particularly the identity aspect, and how we come to these ideas of being Caribbean, but also of being black and being both of them. Because for many, many moments in my life growing up, my mom would say to me, you're Caribbean, don't forget it. You're Caribbean, don't forget it. But then I was born in New York, my dad's family is from north and South Carolina. And so I always felt very black. And I don't think it was until later, even though I spent many summers in the Caribbean, I don't think I really understood having both of those identities. And so this book was a way in which I could work through this idea of how identity is like this spectrum, and it's multiple things at the same time happening and being understood. And so that's what I think inspired me to write this, this book, and to understand it in the ways that I have and hopefully that relates to other people.
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Kiana Knight
That's a beautiful response. So I'm going to ask about interventions. So your book contributes to broader conversations about diaspora, migration and black associational life. How do you see your work speaking to scholars of African American history in the Black Atlantic more broadly?
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
So I think this book, one, I think it's doing the work of many things. I am a historian of the African diaspora, and I believe that this is a very diasporic project. And I don't think it would fit into a solely Caribbean history. I don't think it would fit into a solely African American history. And so I wanted to show the ways in which this group of immigrants were part of this diaspora, how they understood themselves as part of this diaspora, and even looking at their political affiliations and how they're deeply connected to what's happening in the black world, not only in the Caribbean, but globally. And so this book, for me, I think, does the work of showing one, that African American history is more complex than we have tend to have. We have looked at it in the past, that it is inclusive of not only people who were born and raised in the Crib in America, but those who become American. And I think we forget that aspect of black immigrants as part of this African American history. And so I wanted to show that Caribbean American history is black history through this book. And so I think this book is talking to this historiography that tends to leave out Caribbean immigrants or immigrants in general, Black immigrants in general. From this idea of what African American
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Kiana Knight
history is, I completely agree. So to go ahead and wrap up, I'm going to ask about what you're working on next. Do your current projects continue to explore similar themes of migration, diaspora and community formation? Or are you doing some same, Completely different.
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Dr. Tyisha Mattix
Okay, yes and no. So the next project is looking at the Tallow Ethiopian War of 1935. So as I mentioned before, these mutual aid societies were very concerned with what was happening in the black world. And so when we look at the organizational records from 1935, all they were talking about was Ethiopia. And so there are these groups of Caribbean immigrants living in New York. And all they're doing is talking about Addis. All they're doing is talking about Haile Selassie and the Italian invasion. And it's for the whole year of 1935, every meeting they're thinking about how we can raise money, how we can send supplies. They're sending supplies, they're sending money, they're holding protests, they're holding meetings about Ethiopia. And so this is something that always like really interested me in this project. And I knew I talk about it in the book, but I knew I wanted to have it in more in depth discussion. I knew it wasn't enough to just focus a chapter on this. I wanted to look at this idea in a larger scale. And so I'm looking at the diasporic reactions to the Ethiopian war because we see a major response in the black world to this invasion. With the mutual aid societies that I'm looking at with African American communities in New York City, with Caribbean communities in the Caribbean, they're forming groups, they're forming, they're doing all the same similar things in support of Ethiopia, the black world, the black European world, particularly in Paris and London, they're all organizing groups to support Ethiopia. And so the next project is looking at these diasporic responses to the, to the Ethiopian war. Because black people are seeing themselves as very connected to Africa and particularly to Ethiopia. At this point, it's the only non colonized country in Africa. And so this attack on Ethiopian sovereignty feels like an attack on black freedom, on black liberation. And black people in the diaspora are responding very viscerally to this, to this war. And so I'm hoping to, I'm currently researching, I actually have a trip to Ethiopia in two weeks. I went last year, but I'm going back this year to work with the Institute of Ethiopian Studies. And I'm hoping to have something out by next year in terms of article and then long term on something, a full length manuscript.
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Kiana Knight
Wow. Well, I look forward to that next project and when it's published. But I want to thank you so much for joining us. And once again, this is the New Books Network, specifically the African American Studies Channel. And I'm your host, Kiana Knight. Thanks for listening.
- [39:41]
Dr. Tyisha Mattix
Thank you for having me.