Contemporary Racio-Ethnic Relations in the African Diaspora Pt 1

“Contemporary Racio-Ethnic Relations in the African Diaspora” Introduction Since 1965, immigration to the United States, especially from non-European countries, has dramatically increased due to changes in immigration laws abolishing national quotas and restrictions. The majority of this immigration has been from Asia and South America, but there has also been a steady increase in migration from Africa. While according to the 2000 U.S Census report African immigrants constitute only about 3% of all immigrants, the number of African immigrants has steadily increased since 1970, now amounting to an immigration rate higher than during the entire era of the Atlantic slave trade. This small yet important trend has prompted a renewed interest in the American experience of the African Diaspora, including among the scholars participating in research with the Diaspora Pathways Project at the Johns Hopkins University. The Diaspora Pathways Project is a long-term initiative seeking to explore the African Diaspora in the greater Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. In particular, it seeks to better understand the global movement and experiences of black Diasporans, the connections they establish with other blacks in this region, ties they maintain to Africa, as well as ways in which they adapt to and influence blacks in this region. Baltimore, is an “original port city” with a long history of African-American urban communities, and is a site of recent influx of African immigrants. Thus, it provides a data-rich environment to study the African Diaspora and a unique opportunity to study the interconnections between native blacks and African immigrants. John Arthur (2000) shares the Project’s concern for racio-ethnic relations between native blacks and African immigrants. He argues that for African immigrants, the U.S. primarily provides economic opportunities to improve the immigrants’ financial status and resources and to help support their relatives who continue to live in Africa. This movement of economically motivated individuals to the U.S. has contributed to the much discussed “brain drain” from African countries; it is argues that the best and brightest of that continent try their fortunes elsewhere. However, Arthur found that many African immigrants consider themselves only “sojourners” in the U.S., with full intentions of returning to their home countries in Africa. Such planned short stays raises issues over the degree to which social incorporation of these African immigrants takes place in foreign lands. Further, Arthur finds that Africans coming from black majority social contexts do not relate, for instance, to the American history of racial discrimination and prejudice. Conversely, black Americans seem to know little of the history of foreign domination and colonization experienced by many black Africans. Lacking such deeply important historical understandings of one another potentially places relations between African immigrants and black Americans in a fragile position. Lastly, African immigrants appear critical of black Americans who are seen as not vigorously pursuing the abundant economic and educational opportunities the U.S. has to offer to develop their human capital, an issue also leading to potential tension between the two groups. While Arthur’s findings provide a useful foundation for understanding potential relational issues between native blacks and African immigrants, The Diaspora Pathways Project sought to press deeper to identify and articulate the views these two groups have of each other and what these views might reveal about the larger context of immigrant adaptation and social incorporation associated with the African Diaspora. Hence, we pursued the following sociological research objective: “To gain insight into how African immigrants view native blacks and how native blacks view African immigrants contemporarily.” The stated research objective begs a method of social inquiry that allows for inductive exploration and analysis. Rather than test a specific set of research hypotheses constructed by the researcher, this qualitative analysis identifies knowledge situated within the actors involved in the study, allows for unanticipated themes and directions to emerge, and provides rich detail and thick description about the research subject. In this way, this work aims to build both our empirical and theoretical understanding of the African Diaspora. Using interview data collected by a group of trained undergraduates at the Johns Hopkins University in the spring of 2007, we have begun to identify some emerging themes in the interactions between African Immigrants and African Americans in the Baltimore area. Five of those themes are discussed in detail below. Data The data for this study was collected by a group of undergraduate students participating in a “Qualitative Research Practicum” during the spring semester of 2007. In this course, students gained hands-on training in interview and observational techniques of data collection, qualitative research design and data analysis, as well as in ethical research issues. The analysis reported here is based on the interview data. Students completed a total of 27 interviews with a diverse sample that includes African immigrants, native blacks, and “expert” respondents of varying racial and ethnic backgrounds whose professional work directly relates to African immigration or urban black communities. See Table 1 for attributes of the interviewees. In qualitative research, data quality is a very important element of accurate social representation in the analysis, and is analogous to issues of validity and reliability in quantitative research designs. With interview and observational data, the researcher truly becomes the research instrument. Hence, the data quality is a reflection of the field worker’s skills and expertise as well. In general, the students produced a fairly high level of data quality. However, at times students missed the opportunity to probe subjects more deeply, asked leading questions, and veered from a purposeful sampling strategy. Overall, these issues, consistent with learning a new method of research, did not appear to affect the data analysis in any significant way. Method of Data Analysis To analyze the interview data, we borrowed from the “grounded theory” tradition. In particular, we created analytic codes that emanated from the data rather than from pre-existing social theories. In the grounded theory framework, open-coding and focused-coding help to identify emerging themes in the data. In the open-coding phase, researchers initially coded each line of each transcript to scrutinize every “utterance” for analytic value. From there, focused-coding generated a thematic understanding of a phenomena occurring in the data. We developed the substance and scope of this particular analysis through writing a series of reflective memos and drawing diagrams in attempts to find relationships between the codes. We began by grouping categories of open-codes together to see what broader theme might emerge. For example, coding categories referring to race-class, race-ethnic, and immigrant identity/identification came together to clarify a broader theme about demographic “labels” that were important and contested for respondents. In another example, coding categories about conflict and competition between African immigrants and native blacks, experiences as new immigrants, frequency of contact between groups, and Afrocentric businesses gave rise to a broader understanding of immigrant adaptation as a process rather than as a destination. A few direct parallels also appeared in the data, in terms of black American understandings of Africa and African expectations of black Americans, immigrant stereotypes and racial stereotypes, as well as African culture/society and Baltimore neighborhoods. Considering these coding categories in a parallel way helped clarify points of convergence and divergence. Lastly, there were a few coding categories that stood alone to reveal analytic value. For example, African immigrants and native blacks discuss what they consider as comparable issues (e.g. racism versus tribalism) yet “frame” the topic in very different ways. In another example, the data contains narratives about one’s national and ethnic origins and the relative importance of one’s origins to one’s identity. In addition to developing themes through coding practices, we also identified an undercurrent in the data about the notion of a “black collective.” Our initial foray in this topic led us to explore the scope of a possible black collective in the U.S. and identify both encouraging and discouraging signs of such in the data. Yet, as we pursued this theme, what became more apparent was evidence that the very concept of a black collective created an expectation of “similarity” that respondents critically interrogated. Their collective voices instead expressed chords of variation. Rather than articulating the scope for a black collective, the data interrogates an assumption of a black collective. Ultimately, through this method of grounded, reflective, and iterative inquiry, the data revealed a set of patterns about ways respondents drew social boundaries around racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic identity, and how these boundaries appear to intensify or relax in relation to certain social conditions and experiences. While Arthur’s (2000) work provides a historical and economic context for understanding racio-ethnic relations between black Americans and African immigrants, the Project’s analysis examines the sociology of the relations between these two groups, and finds variation around the social construction of racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic boundaries. The analytic themes that emerge in this data are as follows: • Generational differences in contact/opportunity for contact between African immigrants and Native blacks. When there is more contact, respondents’ narratives suggest more relaxed boundaries around racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic identity. • Differences between Native blacks and African immigrants about the relative importance of “origins.” When there is greater emphasis placed on “origin,” the narratives convey more rigid boundaries around racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic affiliation. • Native blacks and African immigrants both discuss issues of inequality, and although the discussion is “framed” in varying social contexts, respondents generalize their particular experience to the other. As a result, concepts of “race” and “racism” become contested between the two groups. • Understandings of the social context and social environment of African immigrants’ and Native blacks’ influence their understanding of themselves and one another, and resulting racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic boundaries. The data reveals that how Native blacks view Africa and how African immigrants view Baltimore is very important to their understandings of themselves, each other, and racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic boundaries. FINDINGS Several analytic themes emerge in this data. First, constructions of racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic identity, and the boundaries surrounding such affiliation, are contested between native blacks and African immigrants. Second, generational differences exist in interactions between African immigrants and Native blacks. When there is more contact, respondents’ narratives suggest more relaxed boundaries around racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic identity. Third, native blacks and African immigrants share differences about the relative importance of their origins in Africa. When there is greater emphasis placed on one’s origin the narratives convey more rigid boundaries around racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic affiliation. Fourth, native blacks and African immigrants both discuss issues of inequality, yet have very different interpretations it, leading to varying levels of (dis)comfort with issues such as race and racism. Fifth, understandings of the social context and social environment of African immigrants’ and native blacks’ influence their understanding of themselves and one another. Each of these five emerging themes is an area for further scholarly inquiry. Construction of Racial, Ethnic, and Racio-Ethnic Boundaries When we began the Practicum, our research objective stated that we were interested in the views that African-Americans and African immigrants held of one another. After very little time in the field, it quickly became clear that terms such as “African-American” and “black” and “African” were distinct terms in the views of the respondents. Africans objected to the term “African-American” because they felt that description should be reserved for people who could articulate a distinct origin from the African continent. For example, one respondent, who is a black American, is married to an African immigrant and she recently went to Africa to meet her husband’s extended family. They were surprised and insulted that she would consider herself “African-American”: When I referred to myself as African American, rather than black, they were insulted. And I would think, "Why are you guys insulted." They said, “Why are you calling yourself African?” And I said, "Well I certainly don’t come from Europe and I don’t come from Asia." And they were like well okay, what country do you come from? And I had to explain to them that I don’t necessarily know exactly because I haven't taken the time to do the research in terms of what country I come from. But I know for sure that my ancestors come from Africa. So for this respondent, calling herself “African-American” was appropriate while it raised problems for Africans. Another native black adds, “They [African immigrants] described African Americans, myself, as talking real ignorant, and they see themselves as more intelligent then that, which they said was why they didn’t like being called African at all.” In this example, a black American reports an African immigrant telling him outright that the term “AfricanAmerican” actually discourages him from preferring to be called “African” due to the parallel he perceives with native blacks. Within the sub-sample of black Americans, some felt that “black” signaled a sociopolitical history and struggle unique to native blacks while others felt that there were implied class differences when using terms such as “African-American” and “black.” As one middleaged black American explains: As a pride thing, I think we use the term black because it was used so long as a bad thing. I think when we started coming around the whole late sixties, early seventies, and it was “black pride. Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud,” we took that “Yeah we’re black people.” And we’re all African Americans but some of us tend to state “I’m a black man” as part of our pride in our culture, our African culture within….when I hear people say “As an African American…” it’s more so people that are college educated… For this respondent, assuming a racial identity was important because of the social movement associated with racial freedom. A racio-ethnic identity, on the other hand, such as “AfricanAmerican” actually signified a race-class affiliation. As another respondent, who is a collegeeducated native black woman, explains: I consider myself an African American, meaning that my family, my ancestors, were at some point African…I consider myself African American meaning that my skin color represents the people that were before me….When people think of black they think ghetto, they think rappers, they think….I won’t say the media…but high profile people are considered African Americans in society. For this respondent, the racio-ethnic identity, “African-American” was actually a racial categorization that stood apart from “black” because of American class issues. Still others could classify themselves based on what they were clearly not. As one respondent, who was born in the U.S. to African immigrant parents and then returned back to Africa as a child and was primarily raised there, reluctantly includes herself in the category of “black” because as she states, “’cos I’m not white!” For this African woman, the ethnic identity of her family, their country of origin and the culture associated with it, was more meaningful for her personal identity than a racial category commonly used in the U.S. The dialogue around racial, ethnic, and racio-ethnic labels reveals the contestation involved in constructing boundaries to define such identity. The data strongly questions assumptions that racial, ethnic, racio-ethnic categories are neat boxes where one chooses what they feel fits. Rather, such categories are social constructions that are dynamically navigated by both African immigrants and black Americans. To reflect this understanding emanating from the data, the research objective was correspondingly edited to study views held between “African immigrants” and “native blacks.” Future research in this area should be as sensitive to the labels assigned to respondents, and correspondingly, allow for articulation of racial, ethnic, and racioethnic identity and meanings to emerge from the respondent.