Traces the author's journey as a Black Caribbean immigrant from Haiti to the United States. Describes the underlying factors that led to the author's relocation in the U.S. diaspora while at the same time examining the ways in which the author has been racially and linguistically positioned. The author further explains the negotiation of this position. The author's immigrant story is situated in the larger U.S. sociopolitical, linguistic, and racial context where immigrants, particularly immigrants of color, have faced many challenges.
Although the Americas and Caribbean region are purported to comprise different ethnic groups, this article’s focus is on people of African descent, who represent the largest ethnic group in many countries. The emphasis on people of African descent is related to their family structure, ethnic identity, cultural, psychohistorical, and contemporary psychosocial realities. This article discusses the limitations of Western psychology for theory, research, and applied work on people of African descent in the Americas and Caribbean region.