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ARE BLACK IMMIGRANTS A MODEL MINORITY?
Race, Ethnicity and Social Inequality in the United States

 

"West Indians in the United States are significant not only because of their overrepresentation among prominent or successful blacks, but also because their very different background makes them a test case of the explanatory importance of color, as such, in analyzing socioeconomic progress in the American economy and society, as compared to the importance of the cultural traditions of the American Negro.” 1978, Thomas Sowell, Three Black Histories, p. 42

 

The study of social inequality in general and racial inequality in particular has been a staple question for American sociology since it’s founding at the close of the nineteenth century (Du Bois 1899: 130-131, Du Bois 1903). However, after a century of debate, there is still very little if any consensus on the reasons for social, political and economic inequality between blacks and whites in the United States. That is, despite the political and judicial gains of the modern civil rights period, ‘black folk’ continue to struggle for parity with their white peers and there is still much debate concerning the reasons for such persistent inequality. Broadly speaking, there are two primary explanations for this relatively asymmetric social positioning: the somewhat changed, but nonetheless unforgiving presence of an anti-black racial animus that is endemic to social thought and public policy in American society (Bonilla-Silva 2001, Feagin 2000) or the presence of a deeply ingrained and seemingly cancerous cultural pathology coursing through the ‘veins’ of black social networks (Cosby and Poussaint 2007, Lewis 1965, McWhorter 2001, Moynihan 1965, Thernstrom and Thernstrom 1997).

According to Thomas Sowell the comparative study of African Americans and black Immigrants from the British West Indies (i.e., Afro Caribbeans) is representative of a naturally occurring scientific experiment whereby the investigator can isolate the degree to which anti-black animus and/or cultural pathology are responsible for racial inequality (Sowell 1978: 42). Indeed, Sowell has argued that since both ethnic groups are black, the greater success of black immigrants implicates African American culture as the key factor in the production of black-white racial inequality. While there is much to learn about the relative roles of color and culture in the production of black-white racial inequality vis-à-vis such a black ethnic comparative, there are systematic limitations associated with presenting such a comparative as a ‘naturally occurring scientific experiment’ whereby levels of anti-black animus are controlled. That is, we might ask: does perceived nativity alter the ways in which black people experience anti-black racial animus in the United States? Posed another way, “Are Black Immigrants a Model Minority?”

The chief contribution of this project will be to revise and push forward thinking on the role that race plays in the production and maintenance of black ethnic inequality in the United States. In short, my thinking on black ethnic inequality is different from the existent explanations because it is deeply informed by those who have worked to theorize the ways in which race structures or organizes societies (Bobo et al. 1997, Bonilla-Silva 1997, Feagin 2000, Goldberg 2002, Kim 1999, Mills 1997, Omi and Winant 1994) as opposed to queries that are more immediately inspired by the literature on immigration and migration (Portes and Zhou 1993), identity politics (Kasinitz 1992, Rogers 2006, Vickerman 1998, Waters 1999) or labor economics (Butcher 1994, Chiswick 1978, Model 1991, Model 1995, Sowell 1978).

Given this entry point, my theoretical background begins with recent scholarship that has noted the racial character of mainstream colorblind explanations for racial inequality where discussions of innate cultural predispositions are often invoked – i.e., the “biologization of culture” (Bobo et al. 1997, Bonilla-Silva 2003a). This discursive shift from use of a biologically deterministic racial logic toward the idea that different human population groups are essentially bound to particular cultural norms has been paralleled by arguments that racial meanings can be – and always have been – assigned to non-phenotypic social characteristics (Blaut 1992, Bonilla-Silva 2004, Gold 2004, Goldberg 1993, Hesse 2001, Omi and Winant 1994). According to the most recent theorization on race, national origin and perceived foreignnessare two social characteristics that are used to assign racial meaning (Kim 1999, Ngai 2004, Tuan 1998).

With these advances in mind, I introduce the concept of differential racialization in order to argue that different racial meanings are assigned to the black body as a result of perceived nativity and national origin. More specifically, I assert that when the black body is known to be of West Indian birth it is accorded racial meanings that are most often associated with the model minority myth and the Asian American body politic (Suzuki 1977, Suzuki 1989, Wu 2001). This racial trope then informs debates concerning black ethnic inequality in that black immigrants from the West Indies are thought to do better than African Americans because they work harder and are less racially paranoid (Jackson 2008, Pierre 2004, Prashad 2000, Suzuki 1977). Given this discursive context, labor market actors are lead to discount the poor work performance and race consciousness that is present among Afro Caribbeans while remaining hypersensitive and vigilant when these same attitudes and behaviors are observed among African Americans (Waters 1999). Afro Caribbeans are also known to identify with the racial meanings associated with their ascribed model minority status (Vickerman 1998, Waters 1999). It is the interplay between discounting, hypersensitivity and self-identification that is responsible for the sense of comfort that has been reported by white employers and black immigrant workers (Waters 1999). In the end the creation of comfort remains complicit with racial inequality in that the ultimate function of differential racialization is the maintenance of the more general position of most blacks toward the bottom of the U.S. racial hierarchy, despite relatively small differentials in socioeconomic mobility between these black ethnic groups (Bonilla-Silva 2004, Kim 1999, Pierre 2004, Rogers 2006, Waters 1999).

In addition to offering a theorization that privileges the role of race in the production of black ethnic inequality, I will also be contributing to the current debate with new data and advances in the use of multivariate statistical modeling. In terms of data, many scholars have been unable to fully address challenges ranging from a heavy reliance on the U.S. Census to an overwhelming focus on blacks living in the north and southeast. Although the U.S. Census is one of the few datasets with a large enough sample of black immigrants from the West Indies to conduct an analysis using multivariate statistical models, it does not include adequate measures of various racial and cultural factors (e.g., Sowell 1978). To the extent that these factors have been considered, it has largely been in ethnographic studies that have been conducted in the northeast (e.g., Kasinitz 1992, Waters 1999). Therefore, in this study I will conduct a secondary analysis of survey data, using a national multi-stage area probability survey that includes whites, and oversamples of both African Americans and black immigrants from the British West Indies. In order to better understand the ways in which the racial and ethnic composition of the metropolitan context might be at play, this survey will be supplemented with data from the U.S. Census (i.e., tokenism and queuing theory, Blalock 1956, Blalock 1957, Kanter 1977).

 

Additional Information:

(full proposal in .pdf)

(table 1 in .pdf)

(table 2 in .pdf)

(appendix in .pdf)

 

Dissertation Comiitee:

Maria Krysan (Co-Chair)

Tyrone Forman (Co-Chair)

Sharon Collins

William Bielby

William Darity, Jr.

Sherri-Ann Butterfield

 

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