Black Immigrant Student Youth Literacies in Higher Education

• In Event: Clarifying the Role of Race in the Literacies and Englishes of Black Immigrant Youth

Abstract

Many studies have found that young Black immigrants are overrepresented in U.S. higher educational institutions relative to their African American born counterparts (Bennett & Lutz, 2009; Kim, 2014; McCleary-Gaddy & Miller, 2018; Tesfazion & Su, 2019). From 2011 to present, U.S. colleges and universities have experienced a 7 per cent increase in the student population that is African-born, totalling about 38,000 (Jaschik, 2018). What is less understood is how these Black immigrant youth navigate their literacies and identities within predominantly white higher educational institutions in the United States. This paper presents findings from a larger dissertation study about Black youth at a U.S. university. The paper focuses on in-depth narratives of eight (8) Black immigrant youth. Their countries of origin included Jamaica, Tanzania, Nigeria, Grenada, Trinidad, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe.

The theoretical perspectives considered within this paper are intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991), racial identity development theories (Cross, 1978; Sellers, 1998), and assimilation and acculturation theories (Berry, 2001, Ogbu, 1987; Portes and Zhou, 1993). This paper also draws on Hall's (1990) cultural theory about diasporic Black identity and racial identity formation theories. Hall (1990) recognized that identity is formed through political and historical influences. Hall (1990) contended that diasporic Black identities often tend to be marginalized within a societal racial and ethnic hierarchy.

Coding through inductive analysis revealed three main themes that were common to each of the eight narratives: linguistic code-switching, embracing their ethnic/national identities, and minimizing racism. Linguistic code-switching was described by participants who felt compelled to speak ‘standard’ or ‘British’ English in the classroom environment and spoke in their dialects or ethnic languages with their Black immigrant peers. This created additional stress for the participants, and some were self-conscious about their accented English. Embracing their ethnic or national identities refers mainly to the foreign-born students who chose to emphasize their ethnic or national identities rather than identify racially as ‘African-American’ or ‘Black.’ Minimizing racism was coded for participant statements that denied the significance of racist incident or microaggressions. Participants argued that claims of racism by their African-American peers on campus were false or greatly exaggerated. Participants described experiences that were identified as racial microaggressions by the researcher, but the students were vocal about not wishing to label them as racial incidents. They tended to see racism as a phenomenon of U.S. social relations.

Despite the limitation of the small sample size, this work extends the literature on Black student experiences in higher education in several broad areas. One is to demonstrate that there is a need to avoid essentialist understandings of Black immigrant student literacies and recognize that they are mediated by intersecting social identities. Another is to study how the U.S. context of race relations can become internalized by institutional members in ways that have a
profound effect on their subjectivities. This paper provides some insights into the complexities that may shape Black student experiences at predominantly white universities.

Author

• Alana C. Butler, Queen's University