From the mouths of daughters: Caribbean and black canadian women remember their mothers

The image of super-strong black mothers has dominated sociological discussions of the Black family particularly in the United States. In the Caribbean, mothering is viewed as women’s core identity. In essence, Black mothering across the African diaspora encompasses sacrifice and devotion. This article uses Black Canadian and Caribbean mothers’ relationship with their daughters’ to make both a methodological (the use of multiple sources) and epistemological (foregrounding Canada as a geographical site) intervention. I argue that while multiple sources may not get at all the facts, or the truth, taken together they do allow for a much more expansive portrait of the mother– daughter relationship. Equally important, by including interviews with middle-aged and elderly Black Canadian born and Caribbean migrant women in Canada, this article deviates from the adolescent–teenager relationship that dominates the mother–daughter scholarship while allowing for subjugated knowledge production.