Fast growing in population, African immigrants in the United States have become a significant force, to the point that the idea of a new African diaspora is now a reality. This thriving community has opened new arenas of scholarly discourse on Black Atlantic history beyond the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its legacies. This book investigates the complex dynamic forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, this new diaspora. In eleven original essays, the volume examines pertinent themes, such as: immigration, integration dilemmas, identity construction, brain drain, remittances, expanding African religious space, and how these dynamics impact and intersect with the African homeland. With contributors from both sides of the Atlantic that represent a diverse range of academic disciplines, this book offers a broad perspective on emerging themes in contemporary African diasporan experiences. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of African and African-American Studies, Sociology, and History.

Fast growing in population, African immigrants in the United States have become a significant force, to the point that the idea of a new African diaspora is now a reality. This thriving community has opened new arenas of scholarly discourse on Black Atlantic history beyond the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its legacies. This book investigates the complex dynamic forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, this new diaspora. In eleven original essays, the volume examines pertinent themes, such as: immigration, integration dilemmas, identity construction, brain drain, remittances, expanding African religious space, and how these dynamics impact and intersect with the African homeland. With contributors from both sides of the Atlantic that represent a diverse range of academic disciplines, this book offers a broad perspective on emerging themes in contemporary African diasporan experiences. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of African and African-American Studies, Sociology, and History.

The New York Times reports that since 1990 more Africans have voluntarily relocated to the United States and Canada than had been forcibly brought here before the slave trade ended in 1807. The key reason for these migrations has been the collapse of social, political, economic, and educational structures in their home countries, which has driven Africans to seek security and self-realization in the West. This lively and timely collection of essays takes a look at the new immigrant experience. It traces the immigrants' progress from expatriation to arrival and covers the successes as well as problems they have encountered as they establish their lives in a new country. The contributors, most immigrants themselves, use their firsthand experiences to add clarity, honesty, and sensitivity to their discussions of the new African diaspora.

The New African Diaspora in North America brings together sociologists, social workers, geographers, economists, anthropologists and others to explore the African immigrant experience from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The contributors shed light on the factors behind the increasing wave in African immigration to the U.S. and Canada, the socio-economic characteristics of African immigrants, their spatial distribution, obstacles, and contributions. Despite their increasing presence, African immigrant groups in the U.S. and Canada have engendered relatively little scholarly research on their pre- and post-migration experience. This collection helps fill that void, and will be valuable reading for anyone interested in African Diaspora studies.

This book systematically documents the experiences of Ghanaian communities in North America as a case study of the new African migration. The rapid increase in the number of Ghanaians lawfully admitted as permanent residents since 1980 offers an opportunity to investigate their immigrant journeys, their membership in the larger society and the expression of their individual and collective social identities. Using original empirical data from the US and Canada as well as comparative material from the UK and the Netherlands, the author also investigates the relationship between these new African migrants and the native-born black diaspora in the US. This study balances theoretical insight with policy implications, using the case-study as a lens not just on African migration but also on significant conceptual themes in migration studies including transnationalism, identity, social networks, remittances, economic integration and citizenship.

Offers important new perspectives on the African diaspora in North America. Drawing on the work of social scientists from geographic, historical, sociological, and political science perspectives, this volume offers new perspectives on the African diaspora in the United States and Canada. It has been approximately four centuries since the first Africans set foot in North America, and although it is impossible for any text to capture the complete Black experience on the continent, the persistent legacy of Black inequality and the winds of dramatic change are inseparable parts of the current African diaspora experience. In addition to comparing and contrasting the experiences and geographic patterns of the African diaspora in the United States and Canada, the book also explores important distinctions between the experiences of African Americans and those of more recent African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants.

When one thinks of African diasporas, it is likely that their mind will automatically drift to locations such as Europe and America. But how much is known about the African diaspora in East Asia and, in particular, within China, where race is such a politically sensitive topic? Based on multi-sited ethnographic research in China and Nigeria, Mapping the New African Diaspora in China explores a new wave of African migration to South China in the context of the expansion of Sino/African trade relations and the global circulation of racial knowledge. Indeed, grassroots perspectives of China/Africa trade relations are foregrounded through the examination of daily interactions between Africans and rural-to-urban Chinese migrants in various informal trade spaces in Guangzhou. These Afro-Chinese encounters have the potential to not only help reveal the negotiated process of mutual racial learning, but also to subvert hegemonic discourses such as Sino/African friendship and white supremacy in subtle ways. However, as Lan demonstrates within this enlightening volume, the transformative power of such cross-cultural interactions is severely limited by language barrier, cultural differences, and the Chinese state’s stringent immigration control policies. This book will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of China/Africa relations, race and ethnic studies, globalization and transnational migration, and urban China studies, as well as those from other social science disciplines such as political science, international relations, urban geography, Asian Studies, African studies, sociology, development studies, and cross-cultural communication studies. It may also appeal to policymakers and non-profit organizations involved in providing services and assistance to migrant populations.