“I was always really interested in migration and movement—why people move and what happens when they move and how they form community,” said Maddox, an associate professor in the African & African-American Studies department.

In her new book, A Home Away from Home: Mutual Aid, Political Activism, and Caribbean American Identity (University of Pennsylvania Press), Maddox explores those ideas, as well as the influence of organizations that supported Caribbean immigrants as they arrived in the U.S. around the early 1900s.

How did you come up with the idea for A Home Away from Home?

I knew that I wanted to work on some aspect of immigration or migration history for my Ph.D. [which she earned in 2016]. I started going to the Schomburg Center [for Research in Black Culture]in Harlem, and I found these records of Caribbean-American mutual aid societies. There were so many of them. I thought, “They’re really important. We should be talking about this.”

What did you learn from studying these mutual aid societies?

I realized that the societies were important for lots of reasons: helping migrants form community with each other and taking care of them in a time where there weren’t many outlets for Black immigrants.This is when we have a lot of segregationist laws in the U.S. toward Black people … and they’re not OK with that. They become really politically active. They’re fighting against anti-lynching laws. They’re fighting for better living conditions within New York City, better education. This is also the time where we have a lot of xenophobic immigration laws.

What were some of the surprising parts of your research?

[These immigrants] are also still heavily involved in the politics of home—the political climate of the Caribbean, and what’s happening there. Globally, they’re also really invested in what’s happening in Africa. One of the key points that I look at is 1935 when Italy invaded Ethiopia; at this time, Ethiopia is the only country on the African continent that’s not colonized by European power. The whole African diaspora and all Black people around the world are looking at Ethiopia. And so these groups are raising money to send to Ethiopian troops. They’re sending supplies there. Some people are actually going to fight for the Ethiopian army. So not only are they invested in what was happening where they are, but they see themselves connected to Black people throughout the world.

How did you see those connections form through your research?

One of the things that I was really interested in is how Black identity is formed—even with my own family, we’re all Black, but there were differences. So how did they become Caribbean, because they start off as someone from Antigua or Jamaica, but then they become Caribbean in the U.S. At the same time, they’re also becoming Black, and they’re becoming African American. They’re living in the same neighborhoods with African American people, they’re in the same job positions.

What do you hope people take away from reading your book?

There aren’t a lot of books that study this early period of Caribbean immigration. We tend to talk about the period after 1960 when there’s this boom of migrants, but I’m really interested to show that there are Caribbean immigrants who were coming prior to that, who are part of the fabric of New York City history, of U.S. history. I’m excited this book is coming out during Black History Month, because we don’t always talk about Black migrants as part of that history. But they are. For instance—no one ever talks about Malcolm X’s Caribbean heritage and what that meant for him as a Black political leader in the U.S. I’m hoping that this helps people feel seen and represented in ways that they hadn’t been before.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

“We all know that today, the humanities are under siege in virtually every university in this country,” Brenna Moore, Ph.D., theology professor, said at Fordham’s first-ever Humanities Day event on Sept. 19. “The logic seems to be we need a stripped down, efficient society, and education is about making workers competitive in our economy. Today we gather to push back on this pernicious logic.”

Moore is part of a group of faculty members that formed the Fordham Humanities Consortium, which aims to “help our students flourish as they choose majors that seem increasingly countercultural.” The group organized the Humanities Day gathering, in partnership with Fordham’s Career Center, drawing more than 100 students to hear from alumni and faculty about the importance of a humanities degree and potential future paths.

Putting Lessons into Action

Kacie Candela, FCRH ’19, is now a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, where she utilizes skills she learned as an English and international political economy major.

“I was able to take advantage of working with a professor so closely that by the time I got to law school, I didn’t need that close direction—I knew how to write a 60-page academic article because I had already done it,” she said.

Ian Smith, FCLC ’22, who majored in international studies and is a consultant for the United Nations, said that he took advantage of the resources at Fordham to land his current job.

“I got this job only because I did an internship at this agency, and the reason I got this internship was because I did research in Kenya over the summer when I was going into senior year, and the only reason I got to do that was because I got a grant from the dean’s office,” he said.

Finding Your Purpose

Tyesha Maddox, Ph.D., assistant professor of African and African American Studies, said that her own journey to becoming a historian of the African diaspora, with a focus on the Caribbean, was inspired by her family’s connections to the region. For Maddox, who started her academic journey with a bachelor’s in history and Africana Studies from Cornell University, the key was finding how her personal journey intersects with the needs of the broader world.

“The hard thing to do in life is to find a way to connect your purpose with your passion, and to do something that fulfills you and that you feel brings meaning to the world,” she said.

For Justin Foley, FCRH ’95, GABELLI ’03, his undergraduate experience showed him how to think creatively and be open to new paths, which is how he went from working as a tenant organizer to deciding to pursue an M.B.A. to becoming a program organizer for the Service Employees International Union.

Foley said his undergraduate degree in the humanities gave him the skills to navigate his not-quite-linear career path.

“Nobody said, ‘Here’s what your career track is going to be,’” said Foley, who double majored in urban studies and philosophy. “I really learned to indulge my curiosity about the world around me … My undergrad time has given me a framework for my values.”

Taking Advice

Aidan Graham, a junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill, said that he saw similarities between himself and Candela, as he is also majoring in international political economy—and philosophy—with plans to go into law as well. But he appreciated hearing from successful alumni who said their first path was not necessarily the only path.

“I found it comforting because a lot of the panelists said that the uncertainty that comes with studying humanities and not knowing your exact career path is common,” he said. “It’s like a sense of community.”

Additional reporting by Kelly Prinz.