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.
Discusses the 1978 case of seven Jamaican women who were to be deported from Canada and the questions the case raised about the value of women's labor and discriminatory immigration policies. Elucidates why the women, in their roles as mothers, decided to challenge the orders to leave Canada and illuminates the ways in which racialized women find the means to negotiate in-between spaces that allow them to survive.