What Does it Mean to Be a Black Immigrant in the United States?
June is Immigrant Heritage Month. It’s a time for Americans who are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants to reflect on and celebrate their cultural heritages. Coincidentally, June 19th, or Juneteenth, is the day that many African-Americans mark the end of slavery in the United States. For them, the idea of immigrant heritage can be a painful reminder that their heritage was erased when their ancestors were enslaved and brought to this country. More recent Black migrants may know and be proud of their heritage, but the United States’ legacy of slavery means they face challenges that non-Black immigrants do not. Their immigrant status means they also face challenges that U.S.-born Black Americans do not. Ultimately, like all immigrant groups, Black immigrants from around the world find both challenges and opportunities for themselves and contribute to a stronger United States.
I came here as a refugee but not as a white refugee. My permanent home is the U.S. and my permanent color is Black.
–Tiha Jibi, refugee from South Sudan
The Invisible Intersection
In 1970, one in 100 Black Americans was an immigrant. Today, they are one in 10.
The presence of Black immigrants is growing in the United States, including regional concentrations such as refugees from Somali and Sudan in Minnesota, Ohio, Washington, Maine, etc., and “Little Haiti” enclaves in Miami, Brooklyn, Atlanta and other cities. Yet Black immigrants seem to be missing from the public consciousness. “Black” and “immigrant” are seen as separate identities. The public discussion of immigration in the United States focuses almost entirely on Latinx immigration, overlooking the 4.2 million Black immigrants currently in the country and ignoring the existence of Black, Latinx immigrants all together. Given this invisible intersection, how do Black immigrants connect to the wider community?
Black vs & Immigrant
The longstanding racial inequities in the United States combined with a history of blaming immigrants for so many societal problems have too often led to Black American and immigrant American communities being pitted against each other. Although there is little evidence to support it, some Black Americans have been led to believe that immigrants are to blame for Black communities’ economic struggles. On the other hand, the discrimination and marginalization that U.S.-born Black communities face can lead some Black immigrants to hold U.S.-born Black communities at arm’s length. In an interview with the Minnesota Digital Library, Somalian refugee Mohamed Jama describes being “warned against mixing with [B]lack Americans,” and first-generation Caribbean immigrant and professor Pedro Noguera writes in an essay that his parents “wanted to be distinguished from [B]lack Americans” to the point of telling him he wasn’t Black.
In reality, we all benefit more from focusing on our shared experiences, values and goals than on our differences. Black, immigrant and Black-immigrant communities have significant shared interests and a long history of collaboration. Many immigrants are aware of and respect the long struggle for civil rights in the Black community and how it relates to their own struggles. As Haitian-American college student Deborah Alexis put it, “I wouldn’t be able to be at this institution today without the work of African Americans who have laid the foundations for me.”
Economic Disadvantage
Common sense says that economic success is tied to the ability to speak English in the United States. There is plenty of research to back that up. The better a person’s English ability, the more likely they are to be employed and the higher their income. Why is it that Black immigrants have far better English skills yet much lower income than other immigrants? Black immigrant households make $8,000 less than the average U.S. household and $4,200 less than the average immigrant household. They are also more likely to live under the federal poverty line.
The answer does not lie in education. Black immigrants have similar levels of education as all immigrants on average, and sub-Saharan African immigrants are the best educated of any immigrant group. A partial explanation is that highly-educated immigrants can have difficulty finding work in their field because of barriers to transferring skills and accreditation from their home country. Given that Black people in the United States make less money on average than White people, even while working the same jobs at the same skill level, a more complete answer involves taking a look at the role of racial as well as anti-immigrant bias.
Becoming a Minority
Immigrants must often adjust to becoming an ethnic minority for the first time when they come to the United States. For many, it is the first time in their lives they face discrimination based simply on their features or skin color, and it can be traumatic. Most Black immigrants come from countries of origin in Africa or the Caribbean, where they are in the racial majority. This can be particularly noticeable in social settings such as school. Many Black immigrant students report struggling with becoming the “other” for the first time. Black immigrants arriving from majority-Black countries may find that U.S.-born Black Americans can help them navigate the new experience of being considered a “minority.”
Being around everybody that’s White, predominantly, and you’re the only person of some type of color in there … I’ve never really done it, so that’s one thing I’ll be kinda nervous about.
–Robert, a college student from Trinidad and Tobago
Bias in Education
As a group, Black immigrants have a better than average knowledge of English, but four in ten still need help learning the language. The disproportionate focus on Latinx immigrants in media creates a stereotype of English language learners that Black immigrants don’t match, which can make it harder for them to access the resources they need. As an example, an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teacher described in an interview with Colorín Colorado, another teacher thinking her Black, English language learners were “in the wrong room.”
Research shows that teacher expectations can have a meaningful impact on student performance. Too often, implicit racial bias leads teachers to set lower expectations for Black students. The same is true for bias against students who are not native English speakers. Black immigrant students who don’t speak English well face a double bind of lowered expectations. A report on Black immigrant students found that even high-achieving students were deemed to be “academically inferior” if they were also English language learners. This can translate into measurable differences.
A report from the U.S. Department of Education shows that Black, English language learners (ELLs) perform worse on reading and math exams than either non-Black ELLs or Black native speakers. Bias in schools can have even more serious consequences. Black students are more likely than non-Black students to be arrested for the same behaviors, which in turn funnels them into the criminal justice system.
Bias in Criminal Justice
When the vulnerabilities of race and immigration status intersect, they form a “prison to deportation pipeline,” a term used to describe a system that works to funnel Black and Latinx immigrants from the criminal court system into Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) custody. Black immigrants are more likely to be detained, returned to their home country and prevented from returning than immigrants of other races or ethnicities, which is not surprising when you consider the experience of Black, U.S.-born people in at the United States. Black people are equally likely as other Americans to commit crimes, but they are significantly more likely to be stopped, questioned, arrested, charged, denied bail, convicted and serve longer sentences.
Immigrants are actually less likely than U.S.-born people to commit a crime, but immigrants of color are still more likely to become involved with the criminal justice system. Black and Latinx residents in the United States are more likely to be stopped by police than white residents, and when stopped, police are twice as likely to threaten or use force against them.
Although they both face increased undue attention from police, the stakes are higher for Black immigrants than those born here or non-Black immigrants. Black immigrants make up one in five non-citizens facing deportation on criminal grounds, which is close to three times their share of the non-citizen population. Even a minor criminal charge can derail an immigration process or end in deportation. In fact, offenses that are treated as misdemeanors in criminal courts can be cause for automatic deportation in immigration court.