Brooklyn style: Hip-hop markers and racial affiliation among European immigrants in New York City

Abstract

Many immigrants and expatriates of European heritage who come to the United States are surprised at being inducted into a system of racial categorization in which they are labeled as `White'. This paper examines data from informal interviews with teenage immigrants who come from a number of eastern European countries including Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Bulgaria and are bound by their affiliation with hip-hop culture. They live mainly in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens and express their affiliation with hip-hop through stylized language and lifestyle practices. For many, hip-hop culture and Black American culture more broadly offer more attractive models for identity formation than the surrounding White mainstream culture. Their use of hip-hop linguistic markers and other forms of identity display place them at odds with their compatriots who have chosen to align themselves with the White mainstream. This is evident in verbal interactions at both the linguistic and discursive level as young people negotiate a place in their adopted homeland. Taken together, the data raise interesting questions about the relationship of hip-hop stylized speech to existing ethnolects such as African American English and the extent to which this speech style represents an emerging ethnolect in its own right.