AFRICAN IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES: DIMENSIONS OF MIGRATION, IMMIGRATION, AND EXILE

Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome 
Fordham University 
June 1, 1999



The Problem

Most casual observers only notice the most visible among the increasing number of African immigrants in the United States. Hair braiding and street vending by African immigrant micro enterpreneurs has become almost ubiquitous in many urban areas. However, such business people represent only one facet of the multidimensional varieties of African immigration to the United States. African immigrants include academics and intellectuals, professionals including lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, nurses, students, teachers. Some have done the traditional things that immigrants to the United States do to survive - taxi-driving, domestic service, factory work, gas-pumping, security guarding, home-health aiding, and innumerable other menial service sector jobs in homes, the hotels, restaurants, and hospitals. Often, these jobs are combined with schooling at night, or multiple jobs are taken to make ends meet. They have children, a huge extended family that depends on them for assistance or sustenance. Whatever housing the migrant or immigrant has is often shared with prodigious numbers of visitors, and house guests.

Over time, the nature, form and process of African immigration to the United States have changed remarkably. Beginning with early African migration, which intensified in the period after the second world war, and during the period of the nationalist anti-colonial struggle for independence, until today, when many United States consulates in African countries are swamped with Africans seeking rapid and immediate exit from their respective countries, there are identifiable economic, political, and social push and pull factors that move people to the United States from Africa. Most significant among these is the phenomenon of globalization, encapsulated by the process of creating a New World Order. The United States is central to the process of constructing and perpetuating this new world order. It is the primary architect and main beneficiary from the gains of globalization. The effects of globalization are manifested on the African continent in the Structural Adjustment Programs and democratization projects that have generated both negative and positive forces that drive the unflagging desire of Africans to migrate, immigrate, and seek political asylum in the United States.

While scholars have identified a variety of push and pull factors that stimulate or generate migration and immigration, African Immigration to the United States is ignored in immigration studies literature. A variety of economic, political, and social factors are identified as responsible for immigration (Horowitz, 1992; Watkins-Owens, 1996; Fuchs, 1992; Weiner, 1992; Logan, 1992). These factors also generate the movement of African immigrants to the United States. Like other immigrants, they need to gain access to better economic opportunities, to escape from political turmoil, and to seek refuge from all manner of persecution . When African immigrants establish footholds in the informal economy, they are playing out a very old story that has been seen ever since immigrants started coming to the United States from other lands. When they flee repressive governments, hunger, natural disasters, and want, they also replay a very old story. Yet, this tells us nothing about what both separates and encompasses African immigration to the United States from other peoples' immigration.

This study will focus on the period between 1970 and 1999. It will identify globalization as the causal factor that drives immigration. If globalization is taken as the independent variable, it becomes clear that African migration and immigration to the United States can be constituted in one sense as the human response to globalization over time. These responses in turn set in motion the processes that define the nature of the world at given times and places, the thoughts and machinations of the powers-that-be both on the African continent and in the West, and the responses of the governed, which set in motion, other changes, and counter pressures.

Globalization, briefly defined, is the increasingly coordinated management of the world's political economy. It involves the internationalization of finance, capital, the state, and human populations. This study is aimed at identifying some of the specificities of globalization. It will sort out Western individual, state, and other collective intentions, and indicate how these intentions are deployed on the African continent. The study will also identify, decode, and examine African intentions as subjects of history. These latter intentions will be juxtaposed against those of Westerners to show that a causal analysis that is based on European action and African reaction is limited in both explanatory power and theoretical relevance. The intended and unintended consequences of these dialectical deployments of intentions and consequent actions and reactions will be presented to explain the nature, form, and types of African migration and immigration to the United States and the consequences therefrom for Africa and the United States.

We need to understand why Africans make the decision to leave their home countries and come to the United States. It is also important to understand how they cope with the demands of settling in a new country. Questions such as: Why do people decide to settle where they do? How do they find jobs? What support systems do they develop? What institutions do they establish? What are their needs? will aid in determining the extent to which African immigration replicates or differs from the experience of other immigrant groups. Also, what are the consequences of African immigration on the United States? What is the relevance of gender to the phenomenon of immigration? How does the gender of the immigrant affect their experiences in a new country? How might the linkages between African businesses and their American counterparts on one hand enhance the empowerment of immigrants here, and on the other, redound to the life and times of the inhabitants of their original homelands? Are African immigrants, or a part thereof, the ideal immigrants? Is their presence a boon or bane to the United States economy? Many scholars have considered these last two questions with regard to immigrants from other parts of the world.

There is evidence that immigrants from the Sahel region of West Africa have established a bustling economy in Harlem, New York City. For some, this niche economy contributes to supporting the economy and values of the United States. Also, the remittances sent home by the Sahelians, who are mostly vendors, traders and merchants, is so substantial as to be responsible for generating economic renewal back home. It is also argued that the work ethic, the religious ethos, the characteristic virtues of this population make them especially suited for characterization as the ideal immigrants who relive yet again, the Horatio Alger myth of fulfilling the American dream by creating something out of nothing (Millman, 1997). This study will identify the skills that enable African immigrants to succeed or fail in their communities of settlement. It will evaluate the extent to which African immigrants are building bridges between American businesses and African ones.

The issues to be considered include the following: the "brain drain" phenomenon, the consequences of immigration on the economic growth, and democratization of African countries, the effects of growing nativism and the related anti-immigrant philosophies in the United States, the mistrust of given groups of immigrants, the growing wave of second generation Africans, and the effects of African immigration on the production of knowledge in the academy. This study will go beyond the question of whether some immigrants are the ideal ones, and even whether some recreate the Horatio Alger myth of making something out of nothing in fulfilment of the American dream. It will attempt to answer the questions: Does the United States gain? Do African countries lose? Or is this a win-win equation? If some immigrant groups do succeed at rates unequaled by others, what networks do they build that facilitate success? What is the comprehensive story of African immigration to the United States? Although this study will not tell the comprehensive story, it will provide the context from which further studies can be undertaken. It will also generate interest and stimulate debate.

The Argument

This work will stand as a critique of scholarship as usual in the Western academy. However, it conceptualizes the Western academy as located worldwide. The phenomenon of African immigration to the United States is seen as composed of near-equal amounts of action and reaction from Africa and the Africans and the United States and its peoples. The phenomenon of globalization, when used as the independent variable, enables the profound understanding of immigration and migration as specific historical phenomena which have changed over time in response to new push and pull factors that are thrown up by the way in which the world system is constantly being re-constituted.

In scholarly thought, Africa essentially remains the "other". It is viewed as an exotic antithesis of the West, its history, its trajectory of development, progress, and culture. Compared with the glowing records of the history of Western achievement within the world, Africa is presented as either absent or anomalous, and the African as either the object of scholarly inquiry, or the poor, wretched being in need of massive doses of assistance in order to be either pulled into the mainstream of world consciousness, or otherwise, force-marched into recognizing her own potential. (Fanon, 1963; Rodney, 1974; Davidson, 1992; Mudimbe, 1988; Mamdani et al, 1988; Mamdani, 1996).

With globalization as the point of entry, it is possible to study concurrently the politics of the weak and strong actors within the world economy, including states, corporations, and peoples; the politics of exclusion and marginalization for most African peoples; and burgeoning definitions and constructions of citizenship. As the world becomes a "global village", driven by ever-more sophisticated innovations in information technology, African immigrants join the labor force in the United States, largely lacking in power but having a "presence" that changes the nature of transnational politics (Sassen, 1998). The labor markets in cities are the most visible sites of interaction between powerful transnational corporations, wealthy and middle class citizens of the United States and African immigrants who leave their countries of origin driven by the marginalization and impoverishment that accompany high levels of state debt and the consequences of stabilization and structural adjustment policies. In these labor markets, most are forced to become part of the informal economy either temporarily, or for the long term. Politically, they are at best, potentially powerful.

Justification

Extensive bibliographic search reveals that very little has been written on African immigration to the United States. This study will conduct a search for unpublished material on African immigration to the United States for this facet of the research. A cursory glance at scholarly literature reveals the necessity of interdisciplinary work on African immigration to the United States. International Relations scholars who work on immigration issues understand and often stress the importance of globalization as a causal factor, but they do not consider that other areas of the world could possibly influence Western countries in terms of creating conditions that generate changes in immigration policies. (Teitelbaum and Weiner, 1995; Weiner, 1992; Zolberg, 1983). Others similarly assume an automatic position that Africa has very little to contribute to the constitution of the world, or that its contributions are negative (Huntington, 1998).

This work is a response not only to the field of immigration studies, but also a reaction to International relations, international political economy, history, sociology, women's studies, and African studies. In essence, it will be interdisciplinary. It emerges out of the observation that explanations of phenomena that relate to the study of Africa and Africans are grossly inadequate. The gap that currently exists regarding the influx of African immigrants to the United States must be filled in order that policymakers can design appropriate responses to the issues and problems that emerge in communities where these populations congregate.

This study would also provide a window into the ongoing process of acculturation, inculturation and multicultural interaction that is underway in locales like Harlem, New York. In a study of Harlem from the turn of the Century to 1930, Watkins-Owens shows that there was a significant degree of intra racial conflict and cooperation between black immigrants from the Caribbean and native born African Americans. It is expected that there would also be tensions between recent African immigrants, old Caribbean immigrants and African Americans in contemporary Harlem.

Methodology

I am applying for funds to conduct research in Harlem, New York City where there is a visible presence of African immigrants. If offered the grant, I will spend three months of the year in conducting interviews. I will spend three additional months doing archival and library research. During this time, I will conceptualize the manner in which globalization has over time, determined the nature, form, and type of African immigration to the United States. Doing this would entail using text and archival material that provide a window into past streams of immigration. A survey of United States and New York State Census and population reports will also be undertaken. I intend to compare the volumes of population movement, the nature of immigration, and the causes and consequences of such immigration on the United States and the African countries of origin over three time periods- from the pre-1945 period to 1959, from 1960-1969, and from 1970 to the present. The Schomburg center in New York City, Center for Research Libraries in Chicago, and the Library of Congress would be used for these purposes. At the IMF and World Bank libraries, I would have access to texts, papers and databases on the phenomenon of globalization and population movements.

This grant offers an invaluable opportunity to develop further the concepts of globalization, migration, and immigration in order to provide the foundation for the much-needed study of the causes of African migration and immigration to the United States. These efforts will be published as scholarly papers. I will spend six months in writing a book into which I will incorporate my findings. This project would above all, be a contribution to the scholarly literature in immigration studies, and studies of globalization, particularly those that relate to the consequences of the phenomena of democratization and the Structural Adjustment Program on Africa, and the Africans.

This will be a pilot study which will categorize African immigrants by socio-economic class, profession, and status in the community. The categorization will be done according to at least two standards. First, individuals that are interviewed will be asked to self-identify and place themselves in the class, profession, and status that fit. Second, from oral interviews which call for open-ended responses, subjects of interviews will be classified using standard, but yet to be determined parameters. One of the tasks that will be carried out during the period of the study is to identify, and use replicable standards of categorization. A possible level of categorization is by country and region of origin in Africa. The study will consider whether these and the earlier categories affect the causes and consequences of African immigration to the United States. The study will also conduct a comparative analysis of African immigrants according to the perceptions of native-born Americans, and the state. This will be done by culling media reportage on African immigrants to the United States, the records of congressional and state legislative deliberations, the few dissertations, masters theses, and periodical articles that exist on the subject.

Due to the dearth of scholarly works on the subject, explanations for the phenomena of African migration and immigration to the United States calls for a study based on oral interviews of identified respondent populations among African immigrants. At least 200 oral interviews will be conducted. This aspect of the study will follow the conceptualization of issues, problems, and the design of approaches to the study. The oral interviews will take the form of open ended questions to respondents, and the tape-recording of their responses. Whenever possible, questionnaires will be distributed. It is envisaged that the oral interviews will be used for semi-literate and illiterate populations, and questionnaires for the highly literate, and professional populations. One of the crucial tasks is how to choose a representative sample, given the heterogenous character of African immigrants divided by class, ethnic, national, regional, gender, and other cleavages. As a first step, I would concentrate on the micro entrepreneurs in the informal sector, such as those in the hair braiding sector, street peddlers, and small scale shopkeepers. In later studies, professional groups like educators, medical doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, engineers, and other professionals will be compared with immigrants in the informal sector, who are either in this situation temporarily, or permanently.

Identity politics have become prominent in scholarly works. The question of whether immigrants should be assimilated as anonymous integrators into the melting pot, or remain distinct cultural groups which maintain linguistic, religious, social, and other characteristics that set them apart is an ongoing concern in immigration studies literature (Pedraza- Bailey, 1985; Barkan, 1996). I will pose to the participants in the study, the question of whether they would rather assimilate or maintain cultural aloofness. I will study the coping mechanisms and strategies that this group of immigrants devise within their communities of settlement to deal with the harshness of immigration. Many Africans of all classes form mutual aid societies, political and economic networks. These will be identified. An important aspect of the politics of identity concerns the question of gender. I will examine the extent to which African immigrants in general are exploited as a low-wage labor pool. I will also examine the extent to which the experiences of women differ from those of men.

An additional area of inquiry will be the extent to which the level of education of a new immigrant affects his or her chances for upward mobility. I will inquire into whether there are differences in the strategies deployed by affluent and professional immigrants, and the struggling, often illegal, ones who are part of the informal economy. I will consider whether strategies change as African immigrants become more successful, and why. This study would identify budding efforts, such as that undertaken at the Smithsonian and develop collaborative linkages with those elements that relate to the direct subject of this study, that is: why Africans emigrate to the United States, and the consequences thereof.

The methodology that will be used is akin with, but not identical to that developed by Fernand Braudel, since the annales method of analysis will be used in a recording and analysis of history, to capture the complex, and elementary facts of material life. It differs from Braudel's methodology to the extent that it takes seriously the contention that Africans have corpus of knowledge from which the world can learn. African immigrants thus have much that is both worthwhile, and valuable to contribute to the knowledge pool of their communities of settlement in the United States. Unfortunately, the African experience in material life remains excluded, and/or omitted from scholarly discourse. I will undertake a study that makes sense of contradictory accounts of the reality of the immigrant experience in scholarly literature, and particularly, in media accounts, which have traditionally excluded the experiences of the Africans, preferring to present them as helpless, hapless, souls who have nothing to offer to the United States, and are so powerless in the scheme of things, as to be a liability to the social and economic systems.

This study will distinguish among African immigrants, migrants, and exiles. The consequences of migration, immigration, and exile on African societies from which immigrants originate are profound. On the communities of settlement in the United States, there are significant changes as well. In the final analysis, the study will examine the impact of globalization on African immigrants to the United States, and the consequent effects on the United States and the African countries of origin. 

I bring to the work, my insight as an insider within the African immigrant communities, whose life experiences have spanned those that some immigrants have had, or are having. However, I am also trained as a social scientist who engages in critical analysis of social, economic, and political phenomena. My current and past work have explored dimensions of globalization and consequent effects on Africans, and the West (Okome, 1996, 1998). In this area, my teaching experience also enriches the awareness and capacity that I have for undertaking this study. I have taught courses that incorporated elements of globalization in an interdisciplinary exploration of how the world works, and how North relates to South.

The papers and published book that will be produced as the end-result of this study will be useful to policy makers as a source of data on which to base some decisions. Above all, the study will be the first step toward filling a huge chasm in studies of immigration African, and women's studies, as well as international relations and international political economy. It will be unique to the extent that Africans would be speaking in their own voices, and be treated as authoritative sources of knowledge. Studies that do this are extremely rare.

Relationship of this study to future research plans

At a later date, research ought to be undertaken in other major areas of concentration of African migrants and immigrants to the United States, of why African migrants and immigrants leave their countries of origin for temporary or permanent settlement in the United States, and the consequences of this move both back at home and in the United States. The grant from the Foundation will enable us to concentrate on two major tasks: Theory building, and studies in New York and Chicago that will provide a basis for future research.

In the future, a thoroughgoing study of African immigration to the United States will involve collaboration with other scholars. I am already part of a network of young African scholars in the United States who are interested in the questions and issues raised by this study. Several book-length studies on this subject are envisaged. There is a verbal agreement from Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, Colorado, that expresses interest in publishing the book. A prospectus has also been requested by Dr. Jean Hay, acquisitions editor of Lynne Rienner Publishers in an email communication. The first volume that will be produced in relation to this project will conceptualize the issues, and problems related to the subject. It will also include case studies derived mainly from the New York City metropolitan area.

An institute for the study of African migration and immigration to the United States is needed. As a preparatory step toward the establishment of such an institute, several workshops, symposia, and conferences should be held to identify the goals, priorities, and parameters of the comprehensive study of the subject. These workshops, symposia, and conferences ought to include scholars from various disciplines. In the long term, the institute will also facilitate the conduct of a series of workshops, symposia, and conferences, the production of a newsletter, journal, and the establishment of a book series on this subject. The more the number of scholars that are motivated to undertake studies of African immigration to the United States, the better our chances for filling the information gap that now exists.

Bibliography

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Baubock, Rainier et al. eds. The Challenge of Diversity: Integration and Pluralism in Societies of Immigration. Aldershot, England: Avebury, 1996.

Braudel, Fernand, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th - 18th Century Volumes 1-3, New York: Harper and Row, 1979.

Carens, Joseph H. "Realistic and Idealistic Approaches to the Ethics of Migration". (Migration, Politics, and Ethics, part 3 - Special Issue: Ethics, Migration, and Global Stewardship, International Migration Review, 30: 1, Spring 1996.

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Davidson, Basil The Black Man s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation State. New York: Times Books, 1992.

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Hintjens, H.M. Immigration and Citizenship Debates: Reflections on Ten Common Themes International Migration 30:1, March 1992, pp. 5-18.

Horowitz, Donald L. "Immigration and Group Relations in France and America" in Horowitz, Donald L. and Gerard Noiriel, eds. Immigrants in Two Democracies. New York: New York University Press, 1992.

Huntington, Samuel. The Clash of Civilizations or the Remaking of World Order? London: Touchstone, 1998.

Kubat, Daniel et al., eds. The Politics of Migration Policies: The First World in the 1970s. New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1979.

Logan, Ikubolajeh Bernard The Brain Drain of Professional, Technical and Kindred Workers from Developing Countries: Some Lessons from the Africa-United States Flow of Professionals, 1980-1989, in Horowitz and Noiriel, eds. Immigrants in Two Democracies. New York: New York, 1992.

Luciani, Giacomo, ed. Migration Policies in Europe and the United States. Boston, Mass.: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993.

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Mamdani et al, "Understanding Africa" Economic and Political Weekly, 23:19, May 7, 1988, pp. 973-981.

Mudimbe, V. Y. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Millman, Joel The Other Americans: How Immigrants Renew Our country, Our Economy, and Our Values. NY: Viking, 1997.

Pedraza-Bailey, Silvia Political and Economic Migrants in America: Cubans and Mexicans, 1985.

Portes, Alexandra and Ruben G. Rhomboid Immigrant America: A Portrait. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

Richmond, Anthony Global Apartheid: Refugees, Racism and the New World Order Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Rodney, Walter How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1974.

Simon, Julian L. The Economic Consequences of Immigration Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

Teitelbaum, Michael S. and Myron Weiner, eds. Threatened Borders: World Migration and United States Policy. New York: W.W Norton and Company, 1995.

Watkins-Owens, Irma Blood Relations: Caribbean Immigrants in the Harlem Community, 1900-1930. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.

Weiner, Myron "International Population Movements: Implications for Foreign Policies and Migration Policies" in Horowitz and Noiriel, 1992.

Zolberg, Aristide "Contemporary Transnational Migrations in Historical Perspective: Patterns and Dilemma." in M. Kritz, ed. United States Migration and Refugee Policy, Lexington, Mass,: Lexington Books, 1983.

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