THE SEMIANNUAL NEWSLETTER OF THE ROBERT PENN WARREN CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES VOL. 18, NO. 2 • SPRING 2010 • VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY Racial Americanization: Conceptualizing African Immigrants in the U.S. Jemima Pierre n October 2008, while in Washington, loyalty is to domestic over foreign policy, D.C., I attended a networking event spon - insisting, as one woman did, that “a lot of us Isored by the group, African Diaspora for are African, but a lot of us are also Ameri - Obama (ADO). Billed as a “happy hour cock - cans.” The duality of the “African” and tail” party, it was a place for young African “American” identities clearly emerges in the immigrants and “Diaspora Africans,” and pre - group’s recognition of its positioning along - sumably supporters of Barrack Obama’s can - side, and its overlapping experiences with, didacy for president of the United States, to members of the broader U.S. Black commu - come together to meet, mingle, and learn nity. For example, within its corpus of politi - more about the organization’s cultural and cal activities are also cultural events dedicated political goals. When I arrived at the venue— to understanding the Black experience in the a restaurant-bar in the Northwest, D. C. U.S., including celebrations of Black History area—I quickly found myself surrounded by a Month, town hall conversations about lively group of young professionals with cul - African-African diaspora relations, and pro - turally diverse backgrounds spanning histories grams to address stereotypes about Africa and from North America, the Caribbean, and people of African descent in the U.S. In my Africa. This was modern-day African Amer - research, I am interested in the implications of ica: a group of Black people who self-identi - ADO’s activities for understanding the poli - fied simultaneously as native to the U.S., as tics and dynamics of both African immigrant second- and third- and first- generation immi - identity formations, and U.S. social, cultural, grants, and as recent migrants. Yet, the diver - and political structures of incorporation. Jemima Pierre sity found in this type of gathering—a social While political organizing among immi - issues that emerge are not only on what it means networking event among young Black profes - grants is not new, ADO’s activities provide to be simultaneously African, American, and sionals in a large U.S. city—is not altogether scholars with insights into a distinct, if immigrant in a race-conscious society, but also remarkable, even while it is rarely acknowl - unknown, world of postcolonial African immi - how young Black immigrants are deliberately edged. Its recognition is crucial, I argue, when grant communities in the U.S. To be sure, a look constructing community and identity and, in considering African immigrant community around U.S. public life and culture reveals the and identity formation in the U.S. Neverthe - very bold if commonplace (albeit unacknowl - less, ADO’s self-conscious deployment of a edged) presence of Black immigrants in U.S. particular African immigrant and diasporic society—from popular culture figures such as Inside condition in the U.S. as both identity and rap artists Akon, Chamillionaire, and Wale, to Racial Americanization: Conceptualizing constituency for domestic political organizing the growing number of prominent NCAA col - African Immigrants in the U.S. ........................1-4 is a significant development. lege athletes who are first generation immi - Warren Center Graduate Student Fellows According to its website, ADO organizers grants, to well-known movie stars such as Idris Program Expands to Include Visiting considered African (immigrant) communities Elba and Chiwetel Ejiofor, to politicians and Student from Belfast ............................................4 in the U.S. as a “unique and an important even academics. Yet, I am suggesting that the voting block,” and sought to tap its human experiences and activities of ADO and other Representing the United States: resources through a series of programs and organizations of young first- and second- gen - A Transatlantic Journey ......................................5-9 events that ranged from voter registration dri - eration African immigrants may offer a qualita - What We Are Writing .......................................9 ves and community forums to campaign tive shift in the ways that scholars have External Grants and Fellowships ........................10 fundraisers. As citizens and residents, these understood the complex process of (Black) young people made clear that their primary immigrant incorporation. Specifically, the key Letters • Spring 2010 • 1 Letters • Spring 2010 • 2 Letters • Spring 2010 • 3 turn, inevitably forcing the reshaping of the experience. I am spending my residence year immigrants. This Act also numerically miti - structural and historical differences between tendency to compare Black immigrant groups questions that aim to explore the issues of national and international terrain. For me, the at the Robert Penn Warren Center engaging gated the flow of immigrants from North and subordinated racial groups and Euro-Ameri - solely to native Blacks, o ften with the sugge - immigrant incorporation vivid in the migra - starting point of any analysis of postcolonial directly with these ongoing discussions of South America and the Caribbean. In turn, cans. What was lost in the fray was the reality stion that it is immigrants’ cultural distinctive - tion scholarship: How and when do African African immigrants in the U.S. should begin race, migration, (U.S.) national identity for - preference was given to highly-skilled profes - that European migration in the early 1900s ness—particularly their choice not to immigrants become aware of the assimilation with the following baseline understanding of: mation, and diasporic belonging. sionals primarily to Asia, but also to Africa. could not compare to the forced migration assimilate into African American culture— or incorporation “options” available to them? (1) the inextricable relationship between racial - This project provides an important response This change in U.S. immigration policy dras - through military conquest, violent enslavement, that determines economic success (Kasinitz Do African immigrants have differing concep - ization and “Americanization”; and (2) the to the dearth of critical investigation into the tically shifted the racial and cultural composi - and the combined subjugation of people of 1992; Stafford 1987; Vickerman 1999; Waters tions of race and identity? How do Black recognition that U.S. Black populations have experiences of postcolonial Africans in the U.S. tion of immigrants. African immigrants color. The celebration of ethnicity blurred these 1994; 1999). A prominent feature of this immigrant experiences with race interact with always been ethnically and culturally diverse. who, along with Caribbean immigrants, cur - indeed benefited from this liberalization of crucial differences and entailed blindness to scholarship is the comparison of Black immi - other identities such as nation, gender, class, My book project, which is tentatively rently constitutes the largest flow of foreign- U.S. immigration policy, although those from both structural racism and the reality that “eth - grants and Black Americans often with the and sexuality? How do we compare the titled, “Racial Americanization: Conceptualiz - born Blacks to the U.S. (Dodoo 1997; Dodoo the Caribbean saw the largest increase in nic” identity is circumscribed within processes assumption that the relative educational and migration experiences of continental Africans ing African Immigrants in the U.S.,” is an and Takyi 2002). Although there has been vol - numbers beginning in the late 1970s because of racial formation. Also missing in the expla - economic “success” of Black immigrants can and other Blacks from the Caribbean? How ethnographic examination of how postcolonial untary migration of Black people to the U.S. of natural growth and family reunification nations of immigrant incorporation was the be used to measure the significance of race in do the children of these migrants negotiate life Africans, as Black immigrants, are negotiating since the end of the slave trade, Black immi - laws. In the past two decades, however, the recognition that the ability of European immi - the U.S. In other words, if race is considered as both “Black American” and second- and the dynamics of life in a society structured by grants have only recently begun to receive schol - number of postcolonial African immigrants grants to become incorporated into United to be the great impediment to the full incor - third- generation Black immigrant? Given the changing processes of racialization. By racial - arly attention. I believe that this relative lack of has outpaced those from the Caribbean, grow - States society was directly linked to the group’s poration of native Blacks into the U.S. nation, racial categorization of Africans as “Black,” ization I mean the historical processes that attention has two sources. First, more than any ing exponentially with estimates in population ability to “become white” (or assert whiteness) then how do we explain the relative success of how do we analyze the ways this categoriza - give race its social, cultural, and political other factor , there are the political and cultural now in the range of more than 1.4 million in a white supremacist society (Allen 1994; racialized Black immigrant? Following the tion come