Voluntary Immigration and Continuing Encounters between Blacks: The Post-Quincentenary Challenge

Abstract

The quincentenary of Columbus's 1492 visit to America provided opportunities for scholars to engage in critical observation and observance of the event. The visit began the unended stream of voluntary crossings to the hemisphere and especially the United States. Similar crossings by blacks have been downplayed in American history; they have been located within the context of the slave trade, imposed segregation, and restricted movement. Even though, after emancipation, increasing numbers of persons immigrated to the United States from countries with predominantly black or racially mixed populations, their presence was less visible due to their relatively small numbers and their resemblance to and close association with the more numerous native-born black people. Since 1965, liberal legislation has led to increasing entry and heightened visibility of black immigrants, especially in urban and industrial centers of the country. There they bring greater ethnic diversification to the U.S. black population. These developmens challenge sociology to begin to address a complex future with expanding bases of ethnic encounters and differentiation and new possibilities for inter- and intragroup relations.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

1. For fuller discussion of the meaning of the term, see Roy Simón Bryce-Laporte , Crossing Over: Continuing Encounters/Encuentros Continuous (Washington, DC: D.C. Community Humanities Council, forthcoming).

2. Jamal S. Zaimalden , “The Scholarly Benefits of the Columbus Quincentenary Will Reach beyond 1992,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 Apr. 1989, p. B3.

Ivan Van Sertima , They Came before Columbus (New York: Random House, 1976).

4. For a fuller discussion of these migrations and encounters, see Roy Simón Bryce-Laporte , Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor...? (New York: New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 1986), pp. 9-19.

5. U.S., Department of Justice , Statistical Yearbook (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1990), tab. 2, pp. 48-50. These figures refer only to the legal immigrants and not to the legal nonimmigrants or the so-called illegal immigrants who have entered and now reside in the United States.

6. Roy Simón Bryce-Laporte , “The New Immigration: A Challenge to Our Sociological Imagination,” in Sourcebook on the New Immigration, ed. Roy Simón Bryce-Laporte et al. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1979), pp. 459-472.

idem , “Black Immigrants,” in Through Different Eyes, ed. Peter Rose , Stanley Rothman , and William J. Wilson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 44.

See also Arthur Paris , “Ira de Augustine Reid: An Alternative Approach to Immigrant Studies in Sociology” (Paper delivered at the Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Boston, 25-28 Mar. 1993).

idem , “Black Immigrants” (1973).

10.

Tekle Woldemikael , Becoming Black American: Haitians and American Institutions in Evanston, Illinois (New York: AMS Press, 1989).

11.

11. Bryce-Laporte , Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor...?

12.

12. U.S., Department of Justice , Statistical Yearbook (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1991), tab. 3, pp. 32-33.

13.

13. U.S., Department of Commerce , 1990 Census of Population, Supplementary Reports: Detailed Ancestry Groups for States (Washington, DC: Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Oct. 1992), tab. D, pp. III 5-6; tab. 2, pp. 4-5.

14.

idem , The Truly Disadvantaged (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).

15.

15. Carlos C. Russell E. , “Silenciosamente,” Revista nacional de cultura, pp. 1-5 (Oct.-Dec. 1976); English translation by R. S. Bryce-Laporte.

16.

16. Lourdes Casals , “Para Ana Velford,” Areíto, 3(1):52 (Summer 1976); English translation by R. S. Bryce-Laporte.

17.

17. See, for example, Piri Thomas , Down These Mean Streets (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), pp. xi-xii.

18.

18. Gordon K. Lewis , “Foreword,” in In Search of a Better Life: Perspectives on Migration from the Caribbean, ed. Ransford W. Palmer (New York: Praeger, 1990), p. xiii.

19.

Michael Omi and Howard Winant , Racial Formation in the United States (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986).