Short Review of Bettina Schmidt, Caribbean Diaspora in the USA: Diversity of Religions in New York City By Carole Cusack

https://www.academia.edu/145829459/Short_Review_of_Bettina_Schmidt_Caribbean_Diaspora_in_the_USA_Diversity_of_Religions_in_New_York_City?email_work_card=title Bettina Schmidt's engaging, narrative-driven investigation of New York's Caribbean communities begins with the question, What does it mean to be Caribbean?' People move so much, ancestral languages are lost and new languages adopted, that it is inevitable that cultural phenomena will become adaptable in the interests of survival. When the fact that the Caribbean Sea region comprises more than 7,000 islands and the surrounding coasts is taken into account, the immense vitality and variety of the culture becomes more apparent, as does the difficulty of 'pinning down' a core of cultural practices. Schmidt's treatment skilfully avoids agglomerating different groups and concentrates on creating 'pictures' from Caribbean New York life. ...