Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Zabriskie, Queen

Area of Concentration

Sociology

Abstract

Following its massive losses in World War II, Great Britain passed the British Nationality Act of 1948 to fill the pressing need for labor. This act was instrumental to the progression of migration and reform laws because it claimed all citizens of Great Britain’s colonies as British subjects. With their newfound status, commonwealth citizens from all over began to migrate to Great Britain for labor opportunity and social mobility, including Jamaican transnational mothers. These unsung heroes of Great Britain’s rehabilitation migrated from Jamaica to Great Britain during the years of 1948 to 1971, and, as a result of their migration, left children in Jamaica. These mothers were forced to navigate three different forms of motherhood: Jamaican, English, and transnational. Through the use of an oral history interview with a Jamaican transnational mother, an oral history interview with the child of a Jamaican transnational mother, and archival data, I worked to answer the following question: How do Jamaican transnational mothers who migrated from Jamaica to England during the years of 1948 to 1971 define motherhood? Drawing from Yosso’s theory of community cultural wealth, I show that these mothers used Caribbean cultural capital, social capital, resistant capital, and familial capital, to navigate Great Britain’s hostile environment, construct, and then enact their own form of motherhood: Empowered Motherhood. This research reveals the ways in which black women’s voices are silenced in history and the impact of colonialism in how we currently define family.

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