"A work of extraordinary merit, Constructing Black Selves is a richly detailed account of the literary and artistic yields of Caribbean American immigrants of the second generation.  By scrutinizing and dissecting the productions of Harry Belafonte, Paule Marshall, AudreLorde, Piri Thomas, and the merengue hip-hoppers of Proyecto Uno, the book presents the ways in which these artists endeavored to construct, through their works, their black identity in the United States.  Lisa McGill goes on to examine the strategies they utilized to locatethemselves ethnically and racially within the African Americanpopulation, the larger American society, and even within their immigrant enclaves. By allowing these artists to speak for themselves through their oeuvres and performances, McGill dares us to perceive theadaptation processes of the second generationers with new and moredynamic perspectives.  A must read."

--Georges E. Fouron, co-author of Georges Woke Up Laughing: Long-Distance Nationalism and the Search for Home 

"McGill offers an important new perspective on Caribbean immigrant studies. Her focus on the cultural interchanges among the two populations valuably illuminates the contributions that second-generation black immigrants are making to black American culture. Her inclusion of Nuyorican and Afro-Latino communities appropriately broadens the scope of previous inquiry into the Caribbean presence inthe U.S. Finally, her interdisciplinary approach allows her to contextualize literary and cultural productions within the political movements framing their creation. In so doing, she pushes the boundaries of traditional methodologies of immigration theory, sociology, and cultural studies."

--Heather Hathaway, author of Caribbean Waves: Relocating Claude McKay and Paule Marshall 

“In Constructing Black Selves Lisa McGill is intent upon fashioning an account of Caribbean American narratives out of an alternative aesthetics.  Constructing Black Selves wrenches these novels from out of their hegemonic context and theorizes the position of the under-recognized injury of the black body.”

-- Donald E. Pease, co-editor of the Futures of American Studies