Race, National Origins, and Intergenerational Mobility among African Immigrants in the Post-Civil Right Era United States

• In Event: 061 - Regular Session. Immigration to the United States: Trajectories of Incorporation/Classification

Abstract

Studies of the immigrant second generation have left us with the impression that most groups experience significant socioeconomic advancement with the passing of generations. However, findings are more mixed for immigrants who come to be seen as “Black” or “Brown.” There is mounting evidence that contemporary “color lines” bear negatively on their socioeconomic trajectories. The experiences of African immigrants are poignant given the racial diversity among them. The earliest waves of voluntary immigrants from Africa were disproportionately White South Africans, Black Nigerians, and more racially ambiguous (by U.S. standards) Egyptians and Ethiopians. In this paper, I take a sweeping look at patterns of socioeconomic achievement among those African immigrants in 1990 and the U.S. born adult children of such immigrants 20 years later to see if African second generation cohorts outperform African immigrant cohorts—and to see if patterns of upward mobility are any more pronounced in some groups of African immigrants than others. Finally, I assess the relative importance of racial identity and national origins on intergenerational mobility as I try to answer the question, does it matter more that your parents came from Nigeria or that you are identified as “Black.”

Author

• Amon S. Emeka, Skidmore College