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Black Immigrants and the Realities of Racism: Comments and Questions

NANCY FONER

BLACK IMMIGRANTS, AS VIOLET SHOWERS Johnson reminds us, are an important part of the history of immigration to the United States, and they continue to be an important part today. This is especially striking given their growing number—and proportion—in the foreign- born popula- tion. By 2013, according to U.S. Census data, the number of black immi- grants in the country had climbed to nearly 4 million, more than a fourfold increase since 1980; they now represent almost one in ten of all immigrants and 9 percent of the nation’s black population. Currently, about half of black immigrants in the United States are Caribbean- born, and a little over a third are from Africa. Indeed, the rise in the black African- born population is noteworthy, more than doubling between 2000 and 2013, when it had reached 1.4 million.1

The encounter with the American racial system, as Johnson makes clear, is a central component of the black immigrant experience in the United States, regardless of where they were born. This is brought out in Johnson’s focus on three violent incidents in the last thirty years: the 1988 killing of Ethiopian student Mulugeta Seraw in Portland, Oregon, and, in New York City, the 1999 fatal shooting of West African Amadou Diallo, and the 1997 beating and sodomy of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima. This kind of anti- black violence is mercifully rare, but the incidents underscore, tragically and dramatically, some essential features of the role of race for black immigrants in the United States.2 Johnson’s discussion points to many key aspects of the impact of racism. It also provides the basis for some additional comments, and raises questions for further study, on several topics she considers or alludes to: negative encounters with the police, differences between the black foreign- born and the second generation, relations between blacks of immigrant origin and African Americans, and the role of the particular city of settlement in influencing how race and racism are experienced. Although I would not go so far as to characterize New York City as tantamount to a police state, as one of Johnson’s discussions seems to sug- gest, there is no question that blacks, native- and foreign- born alike, often

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experience racial discrimination and harassment from the police. In a large- scale study of young adult members of the second generation in the New York City metropolitan area, West Indians reported the most discrimina- tion (compared to Dominicans, South Americans, Chinese, and Russians), especially in public places on the streets, in stores, and from the police. In an essay drawing on data from the study, Mary Waters makes the point that anonymous encounters with shopkeepers, security guards, and particularly the police in public spaces “are powerful because they are so purely ‘racial.’ In such confrontations class differences do not count. . . . Nor do ethnic differences. . . . A police officer rarely has a basis for knowing if a young man on a public street is African American or West Indian, middle class or poor. If the police officer discriminates, it is on the basis of race alone.”3

Experiences with the police have an especially deep impact on black young men because no matter how unfairly these young men are treated, it is imprudent and even dangerous for them to argue back. Not only are the young men left bitter and frustrated, but relations with the police reinforce a sense of exclusion from the wider society because the police are armed representatives of the state: “Negative treatment by them, in some way, represents negative treatment by the larger society.”4 Waters also notes that because second- generation West Indians spend so much time in segregated neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces, they usually do not experience much discrimination from whites in these settings. The better- off are more likely to find themselves in integrated settings and thus have more “oppor- tunities” to be the victims of this kind of discrimination in these places.5

This discussion of the second generation brings up another topic that Johnson mentions: the different impact of race for the first and second generations. At the end of her article, she refers to a 1.5 generation Haitian American (who came to the United States as a child) who thought of herself as Haitian and black whereas her Haitian- born parents and grandparents “adamantly identify as Haitian and not black.”6 The issue of identity has been explored in a number of studies of Afro- Caribbeans, which reveal a somewhat different picture. True, for those in the first generation, an ethnic or home- country identity is usually their primary group identifica- tion, a pattern reinforced by, among other things, continued ties to their societies of origin, social networks in the United States, and a desire to distinguish themselves from American blacks. Yet, at the same time, the immigrant generation may embrace a racial identity “without contradiction” and move back and forth between ethnic and racial identities depending on the situation.7

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Of particular interest have been the identities that develop among the second generation, who were born and raised in the United States. Ethno- graphic research shows that the second generation, with roots in the Com- monwealth Caribbean, often see themselves as black and as West Indian; whether a racial or ethnic identity is more salient depends on the context, the audience, and the circumstances.8 Nearly all of the second- generation West Indians whom Milton Vickerman interviewed saw themselves as “partially West Indian”—specifically as “West Indian blacks.” They were more con- scious of race as a life- shaping issue than their parents were because they had grown up in the American, rather than the Caribbean, racial system. While they had a strong sense of a shared bond with African Americans, they saw their West Indian identity and cultural values as setting them apart from generalized negative views of blacks.9

Class, gender, and residential patterns may also make a difference. Middle- class second- generation Afro- Caribbeans, according to one study, seek to avoid identification with poor and working- class African Americans as they struggle to maintain a middle- class identity in the face of persistent negative stereotyping of blacks; second- generation Afro- Caribbean men, another study argues, feel racial exclusion more strongly than women do and thus tend to identify more strongly with African Americans; and a West Indian identity is nurtured and reinforced among the second generation who grow up and continue to live in neighborhoods with a critical mass of Afro- Caribbeans.10 Whether second- generation Africans follow the same patterns is an open question since research on them is sparse given that large- scale African migration to the United States is relatively new. One question is whether they will be less likely than their counterparts with roots in the Commonwealth Caribbean to embrace their “home- country” heritage, and might even seek to hide it, given that the label “African” comes with more negative stereotypes (for example, as “culturally backward” or ”primitive”) than does the “West Indian” label.11

Identity issues are bound up with the question of relations between black immigrants and African Americans. Many ethnographic studies note the attempts by black immigrants to distinguish themselves from—and avoid the stigma associated with—poor African Americans.12 West Indians, for example, often assert an ethnic identity as natives of a particular Caribbean island or as West Indians more generally, in order to make a case that they are culturally different from black Americans, often saying they have a stronger work ethic, are more law- abiding and family- oriented, and place more value on education.13 Waters argues that although this strategy may

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help individual West Indians, it ends up reinforcing stereotypes of blacks as inferior.14

Distancing, however, is only one part of the equation; identification with African Americans on the basis of the shared experience of being black in America, or a linked racial fate outlook, is the other part.15 Both black immigrants and African Americans experience similar episodes of racial discrimination and perceive important social institutions as being biased against blacks. To be sure, as Johnson suggests, Afro- Caribbean and African immigrants have carved out strong ethnic communities and organizations, and, in places where their numbers are sufficient, they and their children have often served as ethnic voting blocs, with politicians playing the “eth- nic card” to gain their support. Yet there is also intermingling with African Americans in neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools and, as examples in Johnson’s article indicate, there is sometimes joint, even if often fragile, coalition- building. In New York, as political scientists have observed, West Indians vote like African Americans in most instances, and only when one of their own is competing with an African American incumbent do they part ways.16

An example of the tangle of cooperation and conflict in black immigrants’ relations with African Americans comes from a recent study of Liberians in New York City in the borough of Staten Island. On the one hand, both Liberians and African Americans sought to distance themselves from each other—each, interestingly, claiming superiority over the other—and tensions arose over competition for jobs and housing. On the other hand, Liberian community leaders embraced strategies to work with African Americans and used African American organizations to advance their own group’s causes, including coming together to elect black American candidates for office who spoke for “black interests.” On a more personal level, close friendships, and occasionally more intimate and romantic relationships, developed between some Liberians and African Americans in the neighborhood.17

Finally, Johnson’s article raises questions about the impact of the particu- lar urban context on black immigrants’ racial encounters and reactions. It is not surprising that two of the incidents in Johnson’s account occurred in New York City, which has long been home to the largest black immigrant popula- tion in the United States. (As of 2013, 27 percent of the nation’s foreign- born black population lived in the New York- Newark- Jersey City metropolitan area, with the Miami- Fort Lauderdale- West Palm Beach metropolitan area in second place with 12 percent.18) Already, by the time of the Diallo and Louima incidents, New York City had become a majority minority city with

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a sizeable black immigrant presence. In 2000, foreign- born blacks (the majority Afro- Caribbean) numbered a little over half a million, or about a quarter of the city’s non- Hispanic black population; by 2010, with continued inflows, about a third of the city’s non- Hispanic blacks were foreign- born, many of them then, as in the previous four decades, working in low- level service jobs.19 This is a striking contrast to the other city Johnson considers, Portland, Oregon. In 1988, when the attack on Mulugeta Seraw took place, Portland had a small black population, and only a few hundred Ethiopians, most of them students; currently, Portland has the distinction of being one of the whitest cities in America.20

Given the realities of race and racism in urban America, wherever black immigrants settle in any number, they are likely to encounter prejudice and discrimination from some sections of the majority population, yet how these (and other) dynamics of the black immigrant experience unfold varies from one location to another. Undoubtedly, the number and proportion of black immigrants, as well as African Americans, in the population matter. A broad range of additional features may also be relevant. These include the city’s history as a receiving area for immigrants generally (and black immigrants specifically), the particular configuration and diversity of immi- grant groups and native minorities, the spatial distribution of immigrants and native minorities, and the structure of the labor market and political system. Then, too, there are the characteristics of the black immigrant streams to different cities—their national origin makeup as well as their educational, occupational, gender, and age composition. As yet, there has been little attempt to systematically analyze the differ- ences in the black immigrant experience across cities and to weigh just how significant they are compared to the overwhelming importance of being black in America. Given the prominence of New York City and Miami as areas of settlement, a comparison of these two cities would seem particularly relevant. There are some marked contrasts. Black immigrants have been a notable presence in New York since the early twentieth century, whereas in South Florida, legal segregation made the region unattractive to large- scale black immigrant inflows until the Civil Rights Movement and legislation (as well as a growing economy) had an impact. Unlike in New York City, Miami’s blacks now live in a Latino- dominated city and county, overtaken demographically, politically, and economically by the Hispanic majority, especially the large Cuban community, who have transformed the cultural and linguistic character of the region.21 Haitians, who are a particularly large group in the Miami area, appear to be more highly stigmatized and visible

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there than they are in New York City, where they do not stand out as much in the public eye, perhaps, in part, because of the significant number of “boat people” who arrived in Miami in the 1970s and 1980s.22 Also in contrast to New York City, where Haitians generally live in the same neighborhoods as do English- speaking West Indians, Haitians have their own distinctive neighborhood in Miami, Little Haiti, which has been home to many poorer Haitians. Just how, and to what extent, these and other features particular to each city make a difference—to black immigrants’ identities, for example, experi- ences with racial discrimination, relations with other ethnic minorities and African Americans, and political clout and representation in elected posi- tions—is a subject that requires systematic comparative study. Cross- city comparisons, moreover, need to go beyond New York and Miami to other urban areas where the black foreign- born are now a significant presence, including Atlanta; Washington, D.C.; and Minneapolis. Both across cities, and within each one, we also need research that compares the experiences of black immigrants from different countries and regions, particularly those from Africa as compared to Afro- Caribbeans, something that is especially pressing given the sharp climb in the African immigrant population in recent years. It is a tribute to Johnson’s article that it raises so many issues and ques- tions. As black immigrants continue to grow in number, and as their children and grandchildren come of age and make their place in metropolitan areas around the country, we have much to learn about how they are faring and, most relevant to the concerns here, how they are confronting and dealing with the realities of race and racism in twenty- first- century America.

NOTES

1. The three largest source countries for black immigrants are Jamaica (18 percent), Haiti (15 percent), and Nigeria (6 percent). These, and the other, figures provided in the paragraph are from Monica Anderson, “A Rising Share of the U.S. Black Population Is Foreign Born: 9 Percent Are Immigrants; and While Most Are from the Caribbean, Africans Drive Recent Growth,” Pew Research Center, April 9, 2015, http://www.pewsocialtrends .org/files/2015/04/2015–04–09_black- immigrants_FINAL.pdf. “Black immigrants” and “foreign- born blacks” in that report refer to those born outside the United States, Puerto Rico, or other U.S. territories, whose race is black or mixed- race black, regardless of Hispanic origin, in 2000 and later U.S. Census Bureau surveys. For the 1980 and 1990 Census years, when respondents could make only one selection in the race question, “black immigrants” or “foreign- born blacks” refer to those born outside the United States, Puerto Rico, or other U.S. territories, whose race is black, regardless of Hispanic origin.

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2. In one of my own publications, I use the Howard Beach 1988 incident in New York City this way, in which a Trinidadian immigrant was beaten by a mob of white youth and chased onto a major highway where he was killed. See Nancy Foner, “Black West Indian Americans,” in Immigrant Struggles, Immigrant Gifts, ed. Diane Portnoy, Barry Portnoy, and Charlie Riggs (Fairfax, VA: GMU Press, 2012), 177–92. 3. Mary C. Waters, “Nativism, Racism, and Immigration in New York City,” in New York and Amsterdam: Immigration and the New Urban Landscape, ed. Nancy Foner et al. (New York: NYU Press, 2014), 159. For a fuller account of the results of the study, see Philip Kasinitz et al., Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 4. Waters, “Nativism, Racism, and Immigration,” 158. 5. Ibid., 161. 6. Violet Showers Johnson, “When Blackness Stings: African and Afro- Caribbean Immi- grants, Race, and Racism in Late Twentieth- Century America,” Journal of American Ethnic History 36, no. 1 (Fall 2016): 56; quote refers to Barbara Ceptus, “Growing Up Haitian, Growing Up Black,” ColorLines 8, no. 3 (Fall 2005). 7. See, for example, Nancy Foner, “The Jamaicans: Race and Ethnicity among Migrants in New York City,” in New Immigrants in New York, ed. Nancy Foner (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 195–218; Nancy Foner, “West Indian Migration to New York: An Overview,” in Islands in the City: West Indian Migration to New York, ed. Nancy Foner (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001), 1–22; Reuel R. Rogers, Afro- Caribbean Immigrants and the Politics of Incorporation: Ethnicity, Exception, or Exit (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Mary C. Waters, Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 8. Sherri- Ann Butterfield, “‘We’re Just Black:’ The Racial and Ethnic Identities of Second- Generation West Indians in New York,” in Becoming New Yorkers: Ethnographies of the New Second Generation, ed. Philip Kasinitz, John Mollenkopf, and Mary C. Waters (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004), 288–312; see also Alex Stepick et al., “Shifting Identities and Intergenerational Conflict: Growing Up Haitian in Miami,” in Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, ed. Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001), 229–66. 9. Milton Vickerman, “Tweaking a Monolith: The West Indian Immigrant Encounter with ‘Blackness,’” in Islands in the City, ed. Foner, 237–56. 10. Butterfield, “We’re Just Black”; Mary C. Waters, “Growing Up West Indian and African American: Gender and Class Differences in the Second Generation,” in Islands in the City, ed. Foner, 193–215; Nancy Foner, “Black Identities and the Second Generation: Afro- Caribbeans in Britain and the United States,” in The Next Generation: Immigrant Youth in a Comparative Perspective, ed. Richard Alba and Mary C. Waters (New York: NYU Press, 2011), 256. 11. See, for example, JoAnn D’Alisera, “Images of a Wounded Homeland: Sierra Leonean Children and the New Heart of Darkness,” in Across Generations: Immigrant Families in America, ed. Nancy Foner (New York: NYU Press, 2009), 114–34; and Bernadette Ludwig, “Liberians: Struggles for Refugee Families,” in One Out of Three: Immigrant New York in the Twenty- First Century, ed. Nancy Foner (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 200–22.

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12. See, for example, Foner, Islands in the City; Milton Vickerman, Crosscurrents: West Indian Immigrants and Race (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Waters, Black Identities; Bernadette Ludwig, “America Is Not the Home We Dream Of: Race, Gender, and Refugee Status among Liberians in Staten Island” (PhD thesis, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 2014); Katja M. Guenther, Sadie Pendaz, and Fortunata Songora Makene, “The Impact of Intersecting Dimensions of Inequality and Identity on the Racial Status of East African Immigrants,” Sociological Forum 26, no. 1 (March 2011): 98–120. 13. Milton Vickerman, “Jamaicans: Balancing Race and Ethnicity,” in One Out of Three, ed. Foner, 176–99. 14. Waters, “Growing Up West Indian and African American,” 212. 15. Vickerman, “Jamaicans.” 16. John Mollenkopf, “The Rise of Immigrant Influence in New York City Politics,” in New York and Amsterdam, ed. Foner et al., 216; Rogers, Afro- Caribbean Immigrants; see also Cristina M. Greer, Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 17. Ludwig, “America Is Not the Home We Dream Of.” 18. Anderson, “A Rising Share.” 19. John Mollenkopf, David Olson, and Timothy Ross, “Immigrant Political Participa- tion in New York and Los Angeles,” in Governing American Cities: Inter- Ethnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict, ed. Michael Jones- Correa (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001), 32; Nancy Foner, “Introduction: Immigrants in New York in the New Millennium,” in One Out of Three, ed. Foner, 1–34. 20. In 2010, 76 percent of Portland’s population was non- Hispanic white, with blacks comprising 6 percent. Steve Dotterrer and Uma Krishnan, “Briefing on Race, Ethnicity, Mobility, Income, & Poverty in Portland,” Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, August 9, 2011, https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/article/360870. 21. In 1960, blacks greatly outnumbered Hispanics in Miami- Dade; by 1990, there were more than twice as many Hispanics as non- Hispanic blacks in Dade County. Guillermo Grenier and Max Castro, “Blacks and Cubans in Miami: The Negative Consequences of the Cuban Enclave on Ethnic Relations,” in Governing American Cities, ed. Jones- Correa, 143. 22. The Miami metropolitan area has the nation’s largest black Haitian immigrant com- munity—more than 211,000 black Haitian immigrants, equal to 36 percent of its population in the United States (Anderson, “A Rising Share”). For beginning attempts at comparisons of Afro- Caribbean populations of New York and Miami, see Nancy Foner, In a New Land: A Comparative View of Immigration (New York: NYU Press, 2005); and Philip Kasinitz, Juan Battle, and Ines Miyares, “Fade to Black? The Children of West Indian Immigrants in South Florida,” in Ethnicities, ed. Rumbaut and Portes, 267–300. A doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center, Vadricka Etienne, is currently conducting research in New York and Miami for a comparative study of Haitian ethnicity in the two areas, including how members of the second generation are raising their third- generation children.

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