View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository FROM STUDENT TO IMMIGRANT: THE DIASPORIZATION OF THE AFRICAN STUDENT IN THE UNITED STATES BY OLANIPEKUN LAOSEBIKAN DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Policy Studies in the Graduate College University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Christopher M. Span, Chair Professor James D. Anderson Associate Professor Yoon K. Pak Assistant Professor Bekisizwe Ndimande ABSTRACT This dissertation examines African student non-return within the larger historical pursuit of higher education in the United States by African students. Non-return by African students as addressed in this study is a process more than two centuries old extending directly across four defined phases of African student migrations. Key primary documents including the autobiographies of African students, correspondence between African students and other primary agents of African student migrations as well as oral interviews from African students turned permanent settlers from the fourth phase of African student migrations to the United States, are utilized in this dissertation. The perspectives of the non-returning African student in this dissertation address three important areas central to analyzing non-return; first, the factors that shaped the choices of non-returning African students to study in the United States; second, the social and cultural experiences encountered as a part of their educational migrations; and last, the decision to non-return. Non-return as articulated through interviews in this dissertation and supported by other primary and secondary source documentation is identified as a fluid process constantly shifting in response to internal and external pressures as well as historical and contemporary forces. ii DEDICATIONS This work is dedicated to Baba Aremu Majolagbe Laosebikan and Mama Kikelomo Laosebikan & Mr. Olumide Ogunsola iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is possible only through the support of numerous people, more than I can list in such a short space. The following however, represents my best attempt to acknowledge some few of the many people who have made this work possible. I want to give thanks to the seven participants who so generously shared the many stories about their lives and experiences in the United States. I gained several lifetimes of knowledge and experience while offering little in return besides this study. I can only hope that my efforts to represent your stories offer some recompense for all that you have given me. I want to thank the members of my committee Dr. Christopher M. Span, Dr. James Anderson, Dr. Yoon Y. Pak and Dr. Bekisizwe Ndimande for their valuable advice and unwavering support during this process. A note of appreciation goes in particular to Dr. Span for his guidance and limitless patience with me through the completion of this project. A note of thanks also goes to the faculty, staff and students of the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. To my friends and peers, Melvin Armstrong, Ishwanziya Rivers, Jonathon Hamilton, Kevin Zayed, Rich Benson, Chamara Kwakye, Rob Ward, Jon Hale, Mirelsie Velasquez, Teresa Ramos, and Tarnjeet Kang, our many study and writing sessions as well as countless debate sessions have been invaluable in both my personal and professional development. Thank you for sharing so many wonderful memories with me. I owe a deep measure of gratitude to the librarians of the University of Illinois’ graduate library, government’s documents library and inter-library loan office who assisted me in uncovering many valuable resources. I would also like to acknowledge another important university office, the Office of Minority Student Affairs, and in particular Dean Michael Jeffries iv and Dean Priscilla Fortier who through the Ronald E. McNair program provided me the opportunity to share in the process of molding many of the future minds of tomorrow. To my McNair family, I learned a lot from all of you and I am a better scholar, mentor and friend for having known you all. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge my greatest supporters my family. To my parents, my sisters, Olanike and Titi, this would have been impossible without you. Thank you for all your love and support. Finally, I am blessed to have had many supportive friends throughout this process including my best friend and fiancée Deven Gibbs. Thank you for being you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................…1 CHAPTER 2: THE ORIGINS OF AFRICAN STUDENTSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES .....26 CHAPTER 3: ARCHITECTS OF AFRICAN STUDENT MIGRATIONS..................................67 CHAPTER 4: THE NON-RETURNING AFRICAN STUDENT AND THE BRAIN DRAIN ...93 CHAPTER 5: IN THEIR OWN WORDS ...................................................................................127 CHAPTER 6: IN SEARCH OF HOME ......................................................................................170 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................177 APPENDIX ..................................................................................................................................188 vi CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION The pursuit of learning beyond the boundaries of one’s own community, nation or culture is as old as learning itself…it reflects the ability of human beings to communicate with each other at varying levels and with varying sophistication across the barriers of social particularities.1 In the fall of 1970, Olumide, a young Nigerian student arrived in the United States, interested in pursuing what Nnamdi Azikiwe the great African statesman, once referred to as the “Golden Fleece.” It represented the promise of American higher education as a panacea to the ills of a troubled nation.2 Nine years after Olumide first arrived in the United States, he returned back to Nigeria, with Golden Fleece in hand, in the form of a Bachelors of Science degree in Chemistry and a Master’s Degree in Economics.3 Olumide’s sojourns abroad however were not completed with his return to his native land. After nineteen years of dedicated service to Nigeria as a civil servant he returned back to the United States in 1998, this time as an immigrant and not a student. In 2009, a decade into what was supposed to be his second brief sojourn in the United States, Olumide now a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United States passed away.4 Interspersed among the many mourners at his funeral, were peers of Olumide, many of them former students like him for whom memories of youthful quests in the pursuit of educational excellence in United States institutions of higher education, three, sometimes four decades past, now had to be balanced against the glaring reality 1 Cora Du Bois, Foreign Students and Higher Education in the United States (New York: Carnegie Center for Endowment for International Peace, 1956), 1. 2 Nnamdi Azikiwe, My Odyssey (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), 13. The notion of higher education in the United States as representative of the ancient Greek myth of the “Golden Fleece” is first alluded to by Nnamdi Azikiwe, former African student at Lincoln University and eventually the 1st president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1960. As Azikiwe describes in his autobiography, his father Chukwuemeka drew from the ancient Greek fables to describe his son’s ensuing journey abroad for higher education in America in 1925 as the pursuit of the “golden fleece of knowledge.” For Chukwumeka, higher education in the United States represented a world of possibilities, particularly an important counter to the colonial system of higher education offered by Britain, which had colonized Nigeria. 3 William Glaser, The Brain Drain: Emigration and Return (Oxford, England: Pergamon Press, 1978) 4 Babatunde, 7 August, 2009. Interview by author: Chicago, Illinois. 1 that what was intended to be a temporary stay had become much more permanent. Olumide’s migrations to the United States are an illustration of the complexities that undergird the study of African student migrations and in particular the process of non-return. Beginning in 1774 with the arrival of two Africans, John Quamine and Bristol Yamma at the Theological Seminary of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) to the present day, thousands of African students have pursued higher educational opportunities in the United States.5 Across this time period, the majority of these students after the completion of their studies returned home. Some students however indefinitely delayed their return to their native lands or did not return at all, while others like Olumide returned to their native lands only to immigrate to the United States at a later period. The issue of non-return since it became the focus of scholarly scrutiny in the late 1950’s has remained one of the most significant topics in international student exchange. Non-return is primarily associated with the decisions made by international students or professionals who arrived in the United States on non-immigrant visas to temporarily or indefinitely delay their return home after the completion of their