Beauty As Power? Adaptations of Beautification Regimes by English-Speaking West Indian Immigrants in Bronx, New York

Science Center A254

The aim of this research is to discover the relationship between English-Speaking Caribbean immigrants and sociocultural adaptation to American society using beauty practices centered on hair and skin care as a case study. By conducting one-on-one interviews with first-generation women who have immigrated to the United States from the English-speaking Caribbean, as well as those born in the United States to immigrant parents (second generation), I aim to uncover themes that reveal the evolution of cultural practices, as they pertain to hair and skin, when done in a new society. What I anticipate is that the differences between living in the United States and in the Caribbean make it more difficult to continue beauty practices. Thus, these immigrant women evolve by adapting as well as appropriating American beauty regimes. What I expect to learn is how beauty acts as a mechanism of sociocultural adaptation between societies and how it reveals social conditions through its execution.