Black Sojourners Leveraging Social Capital through Kinship

• In Event: 324 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. RGC, Immigration, and Integration

Abstract

As the number of immigrants to the United States increases, African immigrants, including refugees, are counted as part of the “changing face of immigration.” This ethnographic study will develop a cultural portrait of how economic attainment works for a group of Sudanese refugee women in a Midwestern state. The study serves as pilot research for a dissertation on the socioeconomic status and network support of black women in the United States with regard to immigration status. I will explore the attainment of basic resources needed to care for and acculturate families in a new nation. The central question guiding this research is: How does economic attainment work for this group of Sudanese refugee women? This study will highlight current living conditions of South Sudanese women, currently living in Nebraska. These conditions are explored by addressing several sub-questions: What are the women’s experiences with transition and assimilation? How have they sought economic resources such as jobs, comfortable housing and transportation? This study also highlights the gendered ways in which economic attainment is sought for black female refugees. By focusing on the female economic attainment process, we can better understand their transition and adjustment to American living while still acknowledging and respecting their collective cultural values. As I relate these findings to the larger black female population, I will explore whether Sudanese female immigrants provide a key contrast for understanding kinship and economic attainment for black women according to ethno-historical entry into the U.S.

Author

• Lesa Annette Johnson, University of Nebraska-Lincoln