Black immigrants may change the way we talk about black America

Dallas Morning News

If you hear someone say “African-American” these days, you may find yourself asking, “Well, what is she — African or American?”

The catch-all label has long stood out as a misnomer for many foreign-born Americans.

But it’s even more confusing when you look at how black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Central America are changing the face of the black population in the U.S.

The black immigrant population for generations was suppressed by federal immigration policies that favored European nations.

So, it’s not surprising that most of America’s roughly 40 million American blacks can still trace their roots to the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

That narrative, however — which is to say the steadily evolving story of black America — is taking a dramatic turn that probably will play out for decades to come, according to a new report released last week by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center.

The black immigrant population quadrupled from 800,000 in 1980 to roughly 3.8 million in 2013, the Pew study found. And the lion’s share of that growth is from black immigrants from Africa whose population soared nearly 2½ times, or 137 percent, between 2000 and 2013.

Africans now account for more than a third (36 percent) of the total foreign-born black population in the U.S., up from 7 percent in 1980.

The growth is evident in urban hubs like Dallas, where African immigrants in particular are settling into older, established neighborhoods such as Vickery Meadow in northeast Dallas, affecting housing, public schools and other social institutions forced to take note of their growing presence.

That area became the epicenter of last year’s Ebola crisis because that’s where Thomas Eric Duncan — the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. — settled when he arrived from Liberia.

Yet, the black immigrant population is far more diverse than many realize or acknowledge, and it’s spread out across North Texas.

More than half, or 1.9 million, of the total black immigrants in America hail from the Caribbean, mostly Jamaica and Haiti, according to Pew.

We’ve seen a 33 percent spike in voluntary migration from Caribbean nations since 2000.

At the same time, the number of black immigrants from South America shot up 30 percent, and the number from Central America rose 17 percent.

“That’s fascinating,” said Anne Marie Weiss-Armush, president of the DFW International Community Alliance, a nonprofit that bills itself as “the portal to international North Texas.”

In North Texas, she said, “we’re seeing more immigrants from Africa than the Caribbean,” but the growth is steady and across the board.

What’s interesting — and what bears watching for the foreseeable future — is how these new immigrants see themselves in both a social and political context.

Their interests and issues don’t always align with those of other black Americans, whose struggles are more pronounced and historic.

“It’s a totally different culture,” said Weiss-Armush. And, she pointed out, these new immigrants find themselves battling for their own identity. “His identity isn’t recognized so, in a sense, he doesn’t exist.”

To forge their own identity, she said, new arrivals are beginning to use labels such as “black African” and “black American” to distinguish themselves.

That’s happening with other black immigrants, too.

“In the Latin American culture, you don’t notice if someone’s black,” she said. “That doesn’t mean the people are colorblind, but you may go to a Dominican meeting and have a blonde sitting next to a black and they’re both connected by the same language and culture, not by their skin.”

So, in a sense, race becomes the lowest common denominator, trumped by language, nationality and other cultural influences including education and socioeconomics.

This reminds us that we can’t put all blacks or Latinos in a single box. Their communities and stories are far more nuanced and complex.

James Ragland writes on race, culture, education, social services and public health. Follow him at facebook.com/jamesragland61.

AT A GLANCE: Key findings in Pew study

The black immigrant population more than quadrupled from about 800,000 in 1980 to 3.8 million in 2013 and now makes up 8.7 percent of the black population, a figure projected to double by 2060.

The black African immigrant population rose from 570,000 to 1.4 million, a boost of 137 percent. Africans now comprise 36 percent of the overall foreign-born black population, up from 24 percent in 2000. Half of all black immigrants were born in the Caribbean, mostly Jamaica (18 percent) and Haiti (15 percent).

Black immigrants make up a double-digit share of the overall black population in some large metro areas, including Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach (34 percent); New York-New Jersey (28 percent) and Washington, D.C. (15 percent).

Compared with the overall immigrant population in the U.S., foreign-born blacks are less likely to be here illegally, more likely to be U.S. citizens and more likely to speak English.

Overall, black immigrants 25 and older earn college degrees at a slightly lower rate than Americans in general, but the share of foreign-born blacks from Africa with a college degree (35 percent) is higher than the overall rate of the U.S. population.

Foreign-born blacks are older than U.S.-born blacks , with a median age of 42 vs. 29; nearly half of foreign-born blacks 18 years or older (48 percent) are likely to be married,compared with 28 percent of U.S.-born blacks; and black immigrants generally are faring better economically, earning on average $10,000 a year more and less likely to live in poverty than U.S.-born blacks (20 percent vs. 28 percent).