Americanized Africans: An Autoethnographic Approach to Examining the Experiences of First- and Second-Generation Black Immigrant Women in Doctoral Education Programs

• In Event: Moving Toward Complexity: Examining Constructions of Diverse Identities Within African, Caribbean, and U.S. Academic Institutions

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand the experience of first and second-generation Black immigrant women seeking secondary and higher education in the United States. To collect data for this auto-ethnography, authors compiled journal entries to understand a shared culture—namely, the culture of educational attainment for first and second-generation African immigrant women in the U.S. (Creswell, 2012). The culture-sharing group emerges because the researchers (who are also the subjects) live in the intersection of multiple identities, including: woman, immigrant, Black, and doctoral student. This research is important because Black students in America have often been researched as a monolithic group, with little attention paid to how group differences impact identity, achievement and resiliency (Mwangi, 2014; Kim, 2014).

Authors

• Meseret Hailu, University of Denver

• Maima Chea, Georgia State University