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From Different Shores:
Perspective on race and ethnicity in America. This reader (a collection of
essays) assembled by Ronald Takaki gives
us a perspective on ethnicity which deals with some of the realities of
immigrant life: Race, and gender in the the American Melting pot.
Contributions from authors such as Tomas Sowell, on Quotos; Arthur
Schlesinger: "Return to the melting pot"; Clara E. Rodriguez:"Puerto
Ricans... of New York"; Esther Ngan-Ling Chow: "The Feminist
movement: Where are... Asian...."; Ivan Light: "Ethnic Enterprise in America:
Japanese, Chinese and Blacks." We will take a look at this particular essay.
And of course there're also contributions on race and ethnic discourse by the
Author of this reader.
Now what
on earth could Chinese, Japanese
and Black immigrants have in common? The
fact
that they are immigrants brings up another interesting commonality. You
will note I said Black Immigrants. I will explained later.
If you are from the West Indies, say Trinidad, the
term "susu" in it's
most basic form brings to mind
a rotating credit associations between a number
of persons.
Each one shares or receive 'a turn' in the distribu-
tion of money, from their weekly contributions in a
rotation of a number of weeks, deter-mined by the
number of participants. In Barbados this enterprise
is referred to as 'Meeting.' In Guyana: 'Boxi money,'
Jamaica 'Partners' just to mention a few of the
Islands.
Trinidad's susu was chosen for his explanation
of rotating associations strictly on the name susu.
Susu according to M. J.Herskovits is a corruption
of the Yoruba word "ensusu" which is the name for this West African tribes form of rotating credit association.
You're aware; of course, that the majority of slaves
brought to the Atlantic region were taken from West
Africa (Nigeria). This brings us to the earlier promise
of explanation, at the end of the first paragraph.
Among the
Chinese and Japanese this very tradition
of rotating credit associa-tion flourishes.
In his essay "Ethnic enterprise in America:
Japanese, Chinese and Blacks."
Ivan Light gives us some insight as to why (with supporting
studies from other scientist) "Black Americans under
repre-sentation in small businesses"...has more to do with
an absence of community enterprise, such as that practiced
by the above mentioned groups. And not the myriad of age
old explanations.
Light quotes Gunnar Myrdal who in his diatribes seek
to compare Black Americans to foreign born whites,
Chinese and Japanese.
"Myrdal observe that 'the credit situation has
certainly been one of the major obstacles barring
the way for the Negro business man.' Yet Mydral
complains that the credit theory appears highly
inadequate....when contrasted with that of foreign
born whites, and especially with that of American
of Japanese or Chinese decent.'...[who] were overrepresented in business relative to native whites,
who presumably suffered no discrimination in
lending."
...The explanation is 200 years old. It asserts
that because of poverty, lack of capital, and
ability to borrow, Blacks has been unable to
finance business ventures ...quite apart from
discriminatory treat-ment at the hands of white
bankers,
Blacks did not receive loans at all or
received them only at higher price than
did
whites... |
In the first place, studies of small businessmen
have shown that, contrary to expectations, loans
from institutions have been relatively in significant
among the financial resources actually employed
by proprietors in the capitalization of small firms.
..."small new enterprises are financed primarily
by owners, their relatives an friends and by suppliers of materials and equipment.
Banking institutions extend only slight
accommodations to small new businesses."...
Accounting for these anomalies has
necessitated a reconsideration of Black business history in
which the emphasis has shifted from financial to
social causes. E. Franklin Frazier's tradition of
enterprise hypothesis stands out as the general
paradigm for research in this area:...
"it appears
that from what we know of the social and cultural
history of the Negro that it is the result largely of a
lack of tradition in the field of business enterprise."
...In a comprehensive review of rotating credit
association throughout the world, Shirley Ardener agrees with Geertz...she defines it as an association formed upon a core of participants who agree
to make regular contributions to a fund which is
given, in whole or in part, to each contribu-tor in
rotation."
...the rotating credit association may be taken as
a generic type of cooperative financial institution...this type of associa-tion serves or has served many
of the function of the western bank....of special
importance to this discussion are the rotating credit
association of southern China, Japan, and West Africa.
Immigrants to the United States from China and
Japan...West Indian Blacks brought the West
African rotating credit association to the United
States; they too used this traditional practice to
finance small business. American born Negroes
apparently did not employ a similar institution.
Hence the rotating credit association suggest
it self as a specific tradition in the field of business which accounts, in some measure, for the
differential business success of American-born
Negroes, West Indian Negroes, and Orientals.
Ivan Light explores the social context surrounding
these associations in their various forms and applications by Chinese (hui) and Japanese (ko) in in their
home lands. In Hawaii, northern California, and the
Pacific northwest.
The Japanese settlers refer to these credit associa-
tions as tanomoshi and in southern California as mujin."
Anthropological research has documented the
existence of rotating credit associations in many
parts of Africa."
The West Africa, Nigerian ensusu has historically
influence negro businessmen in the West Indies, the
Americas and Briton. In this essay Light also seeks
to explain why rotating credit association is lost on
American Blacks, considering that they too are of the
same West African origins. His conclusions are quite
interesting.
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