Out of Africa: more Africans are now coming to the United States as immigrants than in the days of slavery.

BACKGROUND

For the first time, the number of African immigrants to the U.S. has surpassed the number of Africans who came to America during the slave trade. The influx is changing what it means to be African-American and affecting the debate over affirmative action and other programs meant to redress slavery's legacy.

For the first time in history, more blacks are coming to the United States from Africa than during the slave trade: Since 1990, according to immigration figures, more Africans have arrived voluntarily than the total who disembarked in chains before the United States outlawed international slave trafficking in 1807.

More have been coming here annually--an average of 62,000 legal immigrants over the last five years--than in any of the peak years of the slave trade, and more have migrated here from Africa since 1990 than in nearly the entire preceding two centuries.

African immigration is still a trickle compared with the number of newcomers from Latin America and Asia, but in some ways it is redefining what it means to be African-American: As a result of immigration from Africa and the Caribbean (about 30,000 black immigrants come to the U.S. annually from the Caribbean), the proportion of blacks in the U.S. who are foreign-born has risen to 7.7 percent, from 4.9 percent in the 1990s. In New York City, about 1 in 3 blacks are foreign born.

ETHIOPIA & SOMALIA

The increased flow of immigrants from Africa began in the 1970s, mostly with refugees from Ethiopia and Somalia, and escalated in the 1990s, when the number of blacks in the U.S. born in sub-Saharan Africa nearly tripled.

The increase coincided with changes in American law and culture that made the U.S. a more appealing destination: The 1965 immigration law made it easier for Africans, along with Latin Americans and Asians, to come to the U.S.; and the passage of civil-rights laws in the 1960s, which aimed to correct historic racial injustices, changed the climate for blacks and other minorities in the United States.

Today, with Europe increasingly inhospitable to immigrants and much of Africa suffering from the ravages of drought, the AIDS epidemic, and severe economic problems, the number of Africans migrating to the United States continues to grow, despite the reluctance of some Africans to come face-to-face with the effects of centuries of discrimination.

In the 1960s, about 29,000 legal immigrants were admitted from all of Africa, a figure that rose to 355,000 in the 1990s. In 2005 alone, 85,000 African immigrants were legally admitted, including about 11,000 from Nigeria, 11,000 from Ethiopia, 6,000 from Somalia, 6,000 from Ghana, and 5,000 from Kenya.

Many of the legal immigrants who come from Africa already speak English, and were raised in large cities and capitalist economies, preparing them for life in the U.S.

And while in Africa the current outflow of immigrants is contributing to a brain drain, African-born residents of the U.S. are sharing their relative prosperity here by sending more than $1 billion annually back to their families and friends.

There is no official count of the many other Africans who entered the United States illegally or have overstayed their visas and who are likely to be less well off. Kim Nichols of the African Services Committee estimates that the number of illegal African immigrants dwarfs the legal ones. "We think it's a multiple of at least four," she says.

WHY THEY COME

Africans' reasons for coming to America echo the aspirations of earlier immigrants.

"Senegal became too small," says Marie Lopy, who arrived as a student in 1996, worked as a book keeper in a restaurant, earned an associate degree in biology from the City University of New York, and now works as a medical interpreter.

After winning a place in an American immigration lottery, Daouda Ndiaye recalls being persuaded by his six children to leave Senegal, where he was working as a financial manager.

"I said, 'I'm 45, I'd have to build a whole new life, I'd have to go to school to learn English,'" he recalls. "They said, 'We want you to go, and we want you to send for us because there's more opportunity in the U.S. than here.'"

His wife and two of his children have joined him in the United States, where he has worked as a sporting-goods store manager and is now a translator.

As with other immigrants, African immigrants can be surprised by what they find when they arrive: They come from countries where blacks are a majority at every level of society, only to discover that whether they are professors or peddlers, they may be lumped together here by whites and even by American-born blacks.

"You have the positive impact that race is not seen to be an absolute definer of people's opportunities," says Kathleen Newland of the Migration Policy Institute, "but that begs the larger question of what does it mean to have a black skin in the United States."

Agba Mangalabou, who arrived from Togo in 2002, recalls his surprise when he moved here from Europe.

"In Germany, everyone knew I was African," he said. "Here, nobody knows if I'm African or American."

The steady decline in the percentage of blacks with ancestors who suffered through the Middle Passage (the slave-ship voyage from Africa) and the Jim Crow era is also affecting the debate over affirmative action and other initiatives intended to redress the legacy of slavery.

"I think there is a legitimate set of specific claims by persons born in the United States that don't necessarily apply to Caribbean or African populations that have come here subsequently," says Howard Dodson, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York.

But Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, argues that African immigrants should be entitled to the benefits of affirmative action.

"The issue is not origin, but social practices," he says. "It matters in American society whether you grow up black or white. It's that differential effect that really is the basis for affirmative action."

'PATTERNS OF STRUGGLE'

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the son of a native Kenyan, says black descendants of slaves share more similarities than differences with black immigrants and their children. He says his grandfather worked as a servant in Kenya and was described as a "house boy" by whites even when he was a middle-aged man.

"Some of the patterns of struggle that blacks here in the United States experienced aren't that different from the colonial experience in the Caribbean or the African continent," Obama told The Times" last year.

Immigration may also shift some of the nation's focus from racial distinctions to ethnic ones. How long might those distinctions between Africans and African-Americans last?

"I guess one of the questions will have to be what happens in the next generation or two," says Professor Eric Foner, a Columbia historian. "In America, marriage is the great solvent. Are they going to melt into the African-American population? Most likely, yes."

CRITICAL THINKING

* The article says African immigrants, whether they are professors or peddlers, may be Lumped together by both American whites and American blacks. Is there a tendency for one group to view members of other groups as all the same? Are all Irish, Italians, or Jews the same? How does stereotyping people change our understanding of them? Is this similar to the way Ghanaians regard American blacks?

DEBATE

* Many Americans argue that the U.S. should reduce the number of immigrants allowed in the country. Others argue that as a nation of immigrants, America should continue to welcome the social and economic diversity that immigration brings. Split the class in two and ask students to defend or oppose continued immigration.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* The article says the migration of Africans to the U.S. is creating a "brain drain." What is a brain drain? How might it affect Africans' countries of origin?

* What does Prof. Eric Foner mean when he says that in America marriage is "the great solvent"?

FAST FACTS

* In October, the U.S. announced it would accept 10,000 refugees from the central African nation of Burundi, which had seen many years of civil war.

* Almost half of African immigrants have bachelor's or advanced degrees, compared with 23 percent of native-born Americans.

WEB WATCH

www.inmotionaame.org /home.cfm The Schomburg Center presents background on early African immigration and the diversity of blacks in America. Look for the links at the top left.

QUIZ 2

1. African immigration to the U.S., at about 62,000 Legal immigrants a year, is still a trickle compared with immigration from

a Eastern and Northern Europe.

b Western and Northern Europe.

c Latin America and Asia.

d the Middle East.

2. The American city with the Largest number of African immigrants is

a Miami.

b Dallas/Fort Worth.

c Detroit.

d Washington, D.C.

3. More Africans are choosing the U.S. over Europe as a destination because Europe

a is too expensive.

b is increasingly inhospitable to immigrants.

c does not offer as much advanced education.

d has too many languages.

4. What legislation of the 1960s aimed to correct historic racial injustices and changed the climate for blacks and other minorities in the United States?--

5. The flow of African immigrants to the U.S. began in the 1970s with people who

a had won places in an immigration lottery.

b were refugees.

c had close relatives in the U.S.

d were able to show that they had enough money to support themselves.

6. The article says African immigrants in the United States are sharing their prosperity. Briefly explain hew these immigrants are sharing their prosperity.--

IN-DEPTH QUESTIONS

1. Explain why you think the decline in the percentage of blacks whose ancestors suffered directly from slavery and discriminatory Laws should or should not influence affirmative action and racial diversity programs.

2. Why do you think people in Ghana refer to aLL tourists, including black American visitors, as "white foreigners"?

ANSWER KEY

QUIZ 2

1. [c] Latin America and Asia.

2. [d] Washington, D.C.

3. [b] is increasingly inhospitable to immigrants.

4. The passage of civil rights laws. (Similar wording is acceptable).

5. [b] were refugees.

6. They are sending money back home. (Similar wording is acceptable.)

STATEMENT TO READ

OUT OF AFRICA

1.  Most native Africans in the U.S. were born   What is Nigeria?
    in this nation.
2.  Middle blank, name given to the slave-       What was Passage?
    ship voyages from Africa.
3.  Affirmative blank programs.                  What is action?
4.  Epidemic ravaging much of Africa.            What is AIDS?
5.  Where Barack Obama's father was born.        What is Kenya?

Sam Roberts is urban affairs correspondent for The New York Times; additional reporting by Rachel L. Swarns of The Times; and Patricia Smith.

Largest black African-born populations in
the United States by country of birth

              2000

NIGERIA    109,198
GHANA       50,649
ETHIOPIA    47,791
LIBERIA     30,577
SOMALIA     22,646
KENYA       21,576

SOURCE: 2000 U.S. CENSUS

CITIES WITH THE MOST AFRICANS

Number of African-born residents,
including surrounding metropolitan areas.

WASHINGTON, D.C.      80,300
NEW YORK              73,900
ATLANTA               34,300
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL  27,600
LOS ANGELES           25,800
BOSTON                24,200
HOUSTON               22,600
CHICAGO               19,400
DALLAS                19,100

SOURCE: 2000 CENSUS (FIGURES ROUNDED)