Oneka LaBennett
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814752470
- eISBN:
- 9780814765289
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814752470.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter presents an ethnographic mapping of the youngsters' journeys within and beyond the confines of the Brooklyn Children's Museum (BCM), placing West Indian immigrant youth within the racial ...
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This chapter presents an ethnographic mapping of the youngsters' journeys within and beyond the confines of the Brooklyn Children's Museum (BCM), placing West Indian immigrant youth within the racial and gender-based obstacles Black teens must traverse as they navigate New York City. Outings to a Barnes and Noble bookstore, a McDonald's restaurant, and a movie theater, along with the teens' uses of cellular phones, emerge as conflict-ridden sites. The chapter addresses the prominent role of consumer culture in shaping the lives of these urban dwellers and interprets the youths' extracurricular activities in and around BCM as spatializing forces that help to construct transnational racial and gender identities.Less
This chapter presents an ethnographic mapping of the youngsters' journeys within and beyond the confines of the Brooklyn Children's Museum (BCM), placing West Indian immigrant youth within the racial and gender-based obstacles Black teens must traverse as they navigate New York City. Outings to a Barnes and Noble bookstore, a McDonald's restaurant, and a movie theater, along with the teens' uses of cellular phones, emerge as conflict-ridden sites. The chapter addresses the prominent role of consumer culture in shaping the lives of these urban dwellers and interprets the youths' extracurricular activities in and around BCM as spatializing forces that help to construct transnational racial and gender identities.