Newly arrived from Cuba, Angelica, Dora, Marina, and Damaris attempted to negotiate new surroundings and immigrant identities, building a sense of home for themselves and their families. Data from qualitative interviews, classroom observations, and focus group conversations revealed hopes that by acquiring English language skills, they would improve their quality of life in their new country. Struggles included personal factors situated in their pasts in Cuba and their new surrounds in the Miami Cuban exile enclave, contexts that were further complicated by uncertain expectations of new lives in Miami and the overwhelming task of learning a new language at a local adult education center.
"As a West Indian student, I rather prided myself not only on my spoken English - as all West Indians, at least of my generation do - but also on my French accent, which was often commended. It so happened that at a French summer school in Nice in 1947, I translated `il ne pleuvait plus' orally as `the rain had held up' and was given a clear negative finger signal by my tutor. The next speaker said `it had stopped raining' and was told to continue. I was stung, but rather annoyed (with myself) when my English buddies, after class, sided with the tutor. My problem was that I had used standard Guianese (and East Caribbean) idiom, which was not standard English. The difference lay in Caribbean English usage. That was the beginning." "I can only marvel at the number of times I came near to believing the views of others - that the work would never be finished, "Dr.Allsopp said. "It is therefore in a spirit of great thanks to God and cautious optimism that I offer this dictionary to all Caribbeans." One finds words such as "touched" (soft or spoiling in parts); "force- ripe" (precocious, usually a child); "dead house" (the house where a deceased person lived); and "deal" (to practise witchcraft of the kind that involves trading living souls or dealing with the devil).
