As a result of more racially inclusive immigration policies in the U.S., the African and Caribbean population has increased. Thus far, scholarly inquiry on Black immigrants have focused on their incorporation into the racial hierarchy, their experiences with racism, and their relationships with African Americans. While beneficial, these studies overlook the impact of ethnic discrimination for Black immigrants. Although all individuals of African descent share similar racialized experiences in the U.S., I hypothesize that diverse Black immigrant groups endure unique discriminatory experiences because of their ethnic identities. Thus, through in-depth interviews with 27 Nigerian and 20 Jamaican respondents, this paper explores Black immigrants’ experiences with racial and ethnic discrimination. I found that, regardless of ethnic background, 80% of my Nigerian and Jamaican respondents encountered racism. In contrast, ethnic discrimination varied between my Nigerian and Jamaican respondents. My Nigerian respondents were more likely to report their encounters with ethnic discrimination. These experiences ranged from being accused of internet scamming to being mocked for having an accent. On the other hand, not only were my Jamaican respondents less likely to report ethnic discrimination, but they were also more likely to see their ethnicity as an advantage.
ArthurJ. A. (2000). Invisible sojourners: African immigrant diaspora in the United States. Praeger Publishers.
2.
ArthurJ. A. (2008). The African diaspora in the United States and Europe: The Ghanaian experience. Ashgate Publishing.
3.
BashiV. (2007). Survival of the knitted: Immigrant social networks in a stratified world. Stanford University Press.
4.
BobbV.ClarkeA. (2001). Experiencing success: Structuring the perception of opportunities for West Indians. In FonerN. (Ed.), Islands in the city: West Indian migration to New York (pp. 216–236). University of California Press.
5.
ButcherK. F. (1994). Black immigrants in the United States: A comparison with native Blacks and other immigrants. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 47, 265–285.
6.
ButterfieldS. P. (2004). Challenging American conceptions of race and ethnicity: Second-generation West Indian immigrants. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 24(7), 75–102.
7.
CampbellJ. (2011). Nigeria dancing on the brink. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
8.
CappsR.FixM.NwosuC. (2015). A profile of immigrants in Houston, the nation’s most diverse metropolitan area. Migration Policy Institute.
9.
CappsR.McCabeK.FixM. (2012). New streams: diverse streams: African migration to the United States. Migration Policy Institute.
10.
DodooN. F. (1997). Assimilation differences among Africans in America. Social Forces, 76(2), 527–546.
11.
FonerN. (1985). Race and color: Jamaican migrants in London and New York. International Migration Review, 19, 708–727.
12.
FonerN. (1987). The Jamaicans: Race and ethnicity among migrants in New York City. In FonerN. (Ed.), New immigrants in New York. Columbia University Press.
13.
FalolaT. (1999). The history of Nigeria. Greenwood Press.
14.
GomezM. (2020). Reversing sail: A history of the African diaspora (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
15.
GuentherK. M.PendazS.MakeneF. S. (2011). The impact of intersecting dimensions of inequality and identity on the racial status of eastern African immigrants. Sociological Forum, 26(1), 98–117.
16.
HabeckerS. (2011). Not black, but habasha: Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants in American society. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(7), 1200–1219.
17.
HalterM.JohnsonV. S. (2014). African and America: West Africans in post-civil rights America. New York University Press.
18.
HintzenP. C. (2001). West Indian in the West: Self-reflection in an immigrant community. New York University Press.
19.
ImoageneO. (2017). Beyond expectations: Second-generation Nigerians in the United States and Britain. University of California Press.
20.
JohnsonS. V. (2006). The other Black bostonians: West Indians in Boston 1900–1950. Indiana University Press.
21.
JonesC.ErvingC. L. (2015). Structural constraints and lived realities: Negotiating racial and ethnic identities for African Caribbeans in the United States. Journal of Black Studies, 46(5).
22.
JonesT. (2008). Jamaican immigrants in the United States and Canada: Race, transnationalism, and social capital. LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC.
23.
KasinitzP. (1992). Caribbean New York: Black immigrants and the politics of race. Cornell University Press.
24.
KentM. (2007). Immigration and America’s Black population. Population Bulletin, 62(4), 1–16.
25.
KollehlonK.EuleE. (2003). The socioeconomic attainment patterns of Africans in the United States. International Migration Review, 37(4), 1163–1190.
26.
KusowM. A. (2009). Migration and racial formations among Somali immigrants in North America. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32(3), 533–551.
27.
LacyR. K. (2007). Blue-Chip Black: Race, class, and status in the New Middle Class. University of California Press.
ModelS. (2008). West Indian immigrants: A Black success story?Russell Sage Foundation.
30.
NettlefordM. R. (1972). Identity, race and protest in Jamaica. William Morrow and Company, Inc.
31.
OsirimM. (2008). African women in the new diaspora: Transnationalism and the (re)creation of home. African and Asian Studies, 7(4), 367–394.
32.
OgbaaK. (2003). The Nigerian Americans. Greenwood Press.
33.
PaulA. (2009). No space for race? The Bleaching of the Nation in Postcolonial Jamaica. In LevyH. (Ed.), The African-Caribbean worldview and the making of Caribbean society. University of West Indies Press.
34.
SegalR. (1995). The black diaspora: Five centuries of the black experience outside of Africa. Faber and Faber.
35.
Shaw-TaylorY. (2007). The intersection of assimilation, race, presentation of self, and transnationalism in America. In Shaw-TaylorY.TuchS. (Eds.), The other African Americans: Contemporary African and Caribbean immigrants in the United States (pp. 1–48), Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
36.
ShowersF. (2015) Being black, foreign and woman: African immigrant identities in the United States. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(10), 1815–1830.
37.
SowellT. (1978). Three black histories. In SowellT.CollinsL. D. (Eds.), Essays and data on American ethnic groups (pp. 7–64). The Urban Institute.
38.
TakougangJ.TidjaniB. (2009). Settlement patterns and organization among African immigrants in the United States. Journal of Third World Studies, 26(1), 31–40.
39.
ThomasA. D. (2004). Modern blackness: Nationalism, globalization, and the politics of culture in Jamaica. Duke University Press.
