ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters in this book. The book is based on life story interviews across three generations of forty-five families who originated in the former British West Indies, centering on the axes of Caribbean peoples to Britain from the former British colonies of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados. The mechanisms and success of the incorporation of African-Caribbean peoples into their "host" societies has depended on the reception climate and environment, and has played out differently in Europe and North America. African-Caribbean families appeared as the mirror opposite of the "ideal" family advocated by the white, colonial authorities. Research shows that among the West Indian community the sanctity of the family is in "meltdown." Social organization was premised on metaphors of family and models of family life in the Caribbean and its diaspora, and contributed toward defining a sense of identity and nationhood.
