ABSTRACT
The facts and events surrounding Chinese immigration to the British West Indies are used to illustrate the processual aspects of ethnicity as an emergent cultural phenomenon. The Chinese did not always find it to their advantage to articulate their ethnicity in Caribbean “host” regions. Why they chose to exploit their Chineseness in one region and not in another is understood in terms of the social forces arising from the political economies of each of the regions in question. Where the overwhelmingly dominant cultural segment was European based, the Chinese tended to emulate the European lifestyle and de-emphasize their Chineseness. Where economic and political power was more shared or “pluralistic,” the chinese found it more in their interest to exploit their ethnicity. Ethnicity is thus not seen as an absolute or primary trait, but rather it is viewed as an adaptive behavior pattern to be expressed in certain definable circumstances and submerged in others.
