A Black Immigrant’s Experience with Coming to Terms with Race Relations in America
Posted By The Editors | February 2nd, 2010 | Category: Hot Topics | 8 comments
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By Nicole Y. Dennis
I’ve come to believe that many black immigrants coming to the United States don’t really factor the existence of racism into their plan of achieving the American Dream. I think many immigrants overlook it, often seeking success with a tunnel vision. I speak from experience. That’s what I did.
There were times during my first years in America when I was a target of racism. But I never realized it until years later when I would mention the experiences to African-American friends and they would gasp, “No they didn’t!” In those moments I realized that I had been naïve about race relations in this country.
Many immigrants of color, in looking forward to coming to the U.S. and being in the U.S., simply do not recognize that racism will affect them, at least initially. They see racism as something that is limited to U.S.-born blacks (and perhaps Latinos), but not to those who have no “history” here. They’ve drunk the Kool-Aid about that, but to a great extent, we can see that it’s understandable – the optimism that they would succeed as individuals is part of the DNA of the immigrant experience, and I’d bet a dime that most immigrants of color see themselves as “individuals” rather than as part of a “group.”
Of course, I was young and college bound with no desire to read Malcolm X or Marcus Garvey. In my Jamaican household, any form of consciousness was regarded suspiciously as “crazy.” So, although I had experienced class-and color-prejudice in Jamaica, racism was never an issue.
During my teenage years I had crushes on white actors (Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone, the female cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Winnie from Wonder Years), not seeing the barriers or underlying history that bound the minds of many in the United States. I know many of my peers from back home who, as soon as they migrated, married Swedish, German, Australian, white British men, and of course, white Americans. Many of us were told to marry lighter/whiter for our offspring to be of a certain shade. Even if we weren’t told to do so, there was that impression that we got from our own country’s preference for lighter skin. It’s only recently in Jamaica that a major modeling agency, Saints International, has found success in finally representing Jamaican girls with dark skin.
To be honest, my naiveté helped me to get through the first two years of college until, after one class, a professor complimented me by saying, “You’re so not the typical black student. You’re not American, are you?” When I fervently shook my head, he responded, “I knew you weren’t because you’re so ambitious.”
Today, such a remark would provoke a piece of my mind followed by a lawsuit. Then, I didn’t outwardly challenge his assertion; but I began to realize in retrospect that such incidents also made me aware of what African Americans dealt with for years before I came to this country. What if my African-American peers was eavesdropping on that conversation? How would they have felt hearing this from one of their professors?
I wrestled with my thoughts for days. Yes, there was that assumption that many immigrants hold about African Americans underachieving in a country with so many opportunities, but I had encountered enough African Americans in my undergraduate experience to know that what the professor said was not true. I understood the institutional barriers that existed, and I also understood that people cannot be lumped into one heap since there are differences within all races, cultures, and people. Most importantly, I understood that if it weren’t for African Americans, I wouldn’t be here.
Nicole Y. Dennis
I complained about the professor to my resident hall director, an African-American man who began to wonder why I wasn’t leaving for that particular class at the scheduled time anymore. When I told him what was said to me, the look on his face made me realize that this was a fight that seemed eternal, coloring his face red, exposing the veins in his pale skin, flaming the pupils in his eyes then wetting them with the moistness I never expected from a man. “I’m sorry,” I said, and meant every word. He simply shook his head, suddenly renewed by an unseen power, “That’s our story,” he replied, then with a finger he pointed to a motto scrolled on the wall of our residence hall, which read: “A luta continua…the struggle continues.” That was the day I woke up.
I began to operate with eyes wide open, always on the alert for racial indiscretions. In fact, it got to the point where I was overdoing it, wondering if the receptionist was racist because she failed to be pleasant, if the bookstore owner was racist because he didn’t carry Toni Morrison novels, if the woman in line was racist because she stepped on my shoes or skipped me without saying excuse me.
I found that I was expending so much energy being vigilant and contentious, that I had become bitter, angry, and mentally exhausted. It wasn’t until my partner, who is African American and who has had her share of discrimination since birth, told me that it’s far healthier to pick my battles wisely, that I calmed down.
Calming down. That’s the point my resident hall director made when he said, “That’s our story,” and pointed to the motto: “A luta continua . . . the struggle continues.” That saying was the beginning of wisdom for me. When it comes to dealing with issues of race in this country, one has to pick what you will and will not get furious about. This is my future commitment.
Nicole Y. Dennis is a Jamaican-born public health researcher, blogger, and fiction writer. She is currently working on a collection of short stories documenting the livelihood of lesbians in Jamaica while addressing issues of homophobia, classism, immigration, and religiosity.
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Finally a West Indian who gets it. I have had this fight with so many of them about racism and black people. I’ve had too many of them spew the same kind of racism against Afro Americans that whites say about us. They are black just like us! Some of them don’t want to be called black but they are sadly mistaken in this society. Africans too. Just look at what happened to Diallo.
Thank you so much for your honesty Nicole. As an African American with exposure to sooo many people of the African diaspora, I have come to an understanding that coming to the US doesn’t automatically equate with a full comprehension of the African American experience. I think I got frustrated in the past, but I believe your article speaks to why that is. However, you bring up a very strong and crucial point, that although they may not understand what it is like to be an African American, it is important to begin to identify the structural barriers (racism, classism, many other -isms, and even internalized -isms) that African Americans encounter on a daily basis. Once they identify these -isms, then no longer should their “naivete,” as you refer to it, prevail.
I would like to respond Ella R’s comment, because I don’t want this to spiral into a sparring match where it’s African Americans versus West Indian American’s. The West Indian immigrant community is diverse in many ways including thought, just as the African American community is. To say things like “They don’t want to be called black” ignores the many experiences that shape the views of immigrant Blacks when they come to the United States. Perhaps you should try to understand their experiences more. I will leave it at that and hope others contribute more to the discussion.
Kam, you’re right. I shouldn’t speak in generalizations. In my own personal experiences interacting with a lot of West Indians I find that many of them don’t want to be called black Americans or be associated with black Americans. Some turn their noses up at us. Sometimes they say some of the same kinds of racist things about black Americans that white people say. They make these statements without trying to understand the experiences of black Americans who have been here longer and made it possible for West Indians and other black immigrants to be here and enjoy the liberties they have. So that’s why Ms. Dennis’s piece is so refreshing. She gets it. The reality is that this society is still so racist in the end it really doesn’t matter if you are from Africa, the West Indies or Mississippi. You are still a second class citizen, no better and no worse than the black Americans who have been despised the longest.
Thanks for your reply. I was raised in New York to West Indian parents so I see both sides as well. In terms of what to be called. Many might not like terms such as Black or Black American because they see these as cultural terms associated with being American, which they do not feel culturally. It has nothing to do with race since it’s obvious what race they are since they look in the mirror. While there is a larger West Indian identity, each island has it’s own unique history and culture. So a Trinidadian might see themselves as different to someone from Grenada.
I know the racist sentiments you are talking about but look at it from the other side. My dad comes from a country where Black people run things. They run everything. Still he grew up very very poor. At one point he was eating one meal a day, a lunch at school that was given through U.S. aid. His mother instilled in him the notion that in order for him to succeed he needed to be educated and work hard throughout all the hardships. Arriving in the United States, he saw racism as simply just one of those hardships that you had to overcome, the same as not having anything to eat. He filed racism in the “stuff that sucks about life” folder in his head and worked ways to get around it just like any other problem. It’s not that he’s not aware of it, in fact he is very much so, but he sees it as problem that can be tangibly overcome. So to him instead of being angry about racism, just find another way.
I can’t say I agree with all his views but I do recognize his views as a legitimate and one that many West Indians have in terms of racism. I find that in these discussions between Black Americans and West Indians, the experiences that we have in our own countries aren’t even considered. I hope we can include that in these conversations now.
Nicole Y. Dennis:
I read your history of coming to terms with the way we live in America…I honor your insights and perceptions because as you know many West Indians, Africans,
East Indians go thru decades based on some white person’s praise that they are superior to the local Blacks. East Indians forget that for over 100years they were called “Blacks” by the white British colonialist society. West Indians should know that African Americans stationed in England were constantly whispered to by whites that we are “superior” to their british blacks from the Indies: our
music,sports, education, even our lighter color and grooming is “superior” Sadly many US blacks stationed in England are naive and believe the insinuations, they avoid contact with dark Britons and similar bad feelings develop.
Divide and conquer has always been an inborn tactic of “the other”
The trap of being chosen to be an “Honorary White” snaps shut the instant the naive person “misbehaves: moves into a white neighborhood, acts like OJ Simpson, Tiger Woods, Michael Jackson, etc.
Nicole, read the first chapters of Colin Powell’s biography, you’ll see how his biographer (white female)thickly praises his Jamaican origins, his parents aversion to US Blacks,dark people,and slyly insults the millions of us by suggesting he is superior by virtue of Jamaican blood.
I’ve found the best way to put down the divide and conquer racist is to advise that modern science proves that the white race and all others are environmental mutations from African peoples migrations.
@Kam,
I find it interesting that you say “I find that in these discussions between Black Americans and West Indians, the experiences that we have in our own countries aren’t even considered.” I find West Indians guilty of the same. They don’t always take into account that Black Americans are a diverse people with different values and experiences.
It burns me up when I hear some West Indians crack their lips to say that “Black Americans are lazy.” Black Americans are this. Black Americans are that. Just because we don’t want to work as mammies to white babies and clean their houses doesn’t mean we are lazy. We are not just angry people when it comes to racism. We know the white man in this country and his ways better than you. It makes me sick sometimes to see SOME West Indian people kiss white people’s butts and disrespect African Americans. Had it not been for the blood and sacrifices of African Americans, black immigrants would not be able to be in this country or enjoy some of the rights that were won off of our backs. It’s time that ALL black immigrants pay their debt of respect to African Americans. Think of where you’d be today if it wasn’t for us! We built the ground you [stand] upon, literally.
Black in America=14% or so (percent of population)
Blacks in American Jails=48% or so (percent of prison population)
Our fighting forefathers are probally turning over in their graves!!
The only thing that stopped crime for a few days in DC, was the snow!!