African Minorities in the New World
Edited by Toyin Falola, Niyi Afolabi
Routledge – 2008 – 290 pages
Series: African Studies
This book uncovers the reality that new African immigrants now represent a significant force in the configuration of American polity and identity especially in the last forty years. Despite their minority status, African immigrants are making their marks in various areas of human endeavor and accomplishments—from academic, to business, to even scientific inventions. The demographic shift is both welcome news as well as a matter for concern given the consequences of displacement and the paradoxes of exile in the new location. By its very connection to the ‘Old African Diaspora,’ the notion of a ‘New African Diaspora’ marks a clear indication of a historical progression reconnecting continental Africa with the New World without the stigma of slavery. Yet, the notion of trans-Atlantic slavery is never erased when the African diaspora is mentioned whether in the old or new world. Within this paradoxical dispensation, the new African diaspora must be conceived as the aftermath of a global migration crisis.
1. Introduction: Voluntarily Singing the Lord’s Song… Part 1: Negotiating Citizenship and Cultural Identities 2. Nationalist Myth-Making, Cultural Identity and Nation Building: African Minorities in the U.S. and Latin America 3. African Immigrants’ Experiences in Urban America: Religion and the Construction of Social Identity in St. Louis 4. Ethnography of Religion and Spirituality Among St. Louisan African Immigrants 5. ‘Born in the USA’: Dislocation, Disrupted Kinship Networks, and the Transformative Power of Music and Dance in African Immigrant Baby Naming Ceremonies 6. A Viagem da Minha Vida/The Voyage of My Life: Identity Formation and Resettlement among Angolan Women of Color in Toronto Part 2: African Refugees and Policy Implications 7. The Making of a Modern Diaspora: The Resettlement Process of the Somali Bantu Refugees in the United States 8. Voluntary Trans-Atlantic Migration: The Nigerians’ Attitudes to the American Visa Lottery 9. Managing the Migration of Health-Care Workers toward the Transfer of Knowledge, Skill and Professionalism 10. African Immigrants’ Families and the American Educational System. Conclusion: The New African Diaspora Waves: Shifting Diversity of American Culture