In West Indian in the West, Percy Hintzen draws on extensive ethnographic work with the West Indian community in the San Francisco Bay area to illuminate the ways in which social context affects ethnic identity formation.

The memories, symbols, and images with which West Indians identify in order to differentiate themselves from the culture which surrounds them are distinct depending on what part of the U.S. they live in. West Indian identity comes to take on different meanings within different locations in the United States.

Hintzen examines how West Indians publicly assert their identity by making use of stereotypic understandings of West Indians which exist in the larger culture. His work illuminates how ethnic communities negotiate spaces for themselves within the broader contexts in which they live.