Building a Healthy Black Harlem: Health Politics in Harlem, New ...

for his assistance. The drug trade, however, is soon discovered by undercover detectives who visit the grocery store, speak to the owner, and arrest Gillis for the distribution of illegal substances.

Through Gillis' and Uggam's experiences, Fisher indicated that migrants' physical, psychological, and emotional health were compromised in Harlem and often led to social death. Gillis is what Uggam calls a “baby jess in from the land o' cotton” whose naiveté makes it difficult for him to effectively negotiate city life. His inability to maintain social and economic efficacy made him easy prey to negative, urban forces. Uggam's adaptation tells the reader more. Although the story does not indicate how long Uggam resided in Harlem, his experiences suggest that he lived in the community long enough to know cabaret owners and local businessmen and adopt an intolerant view of West Indian immigrants (whom he calls “monkey-chasers”) and Southern-born migrants. In his adaptation to Harlem, he absorbed elements of the criminal underworld, where loyalty was nonexistent and survival at the cost to others predominated. He, too, suffered from a social and physical death in that he shed his Southern teachings and was virtually alone. While not physically incarcerated, he was a social pariah; his connections to his family in North Carolina had been severed and his position in his new environment was dictated by deception and greed.

The move into Harlem was just as disconcerting and emotionally difficult for thousands of West Indian immigrants who entered the community. For Claude McKay, the Jamaican-born poet and novelist, New York City and Harlem in particular, were filled with contradictions.¹² In many of his poems, he evoked the image of New York City as a cold, unwelcoming environment with its abstract, modern technology. In “Subway Wind,” he referred to the subway system as the “city's great gaunt gut” where “gray trains” with their “packed cars the fans the crowd's breath cut, leaving the sick and heavy air behind.”¹³ In “The