African families in New York City and the United States are one of the fastest growing mosaic groups coping with the benefits and challenges of raising first- and second-generation children in America.
New York City has the largest (continental) African population in the United States, with over 150,000 residents. Since 2000, the Bronx African population has more than doubled to over 60,000. The issues confronting these newly arriving families are numerous and include lack of jobs, limited English proficiency, immigration problems and the inability to acquire much needed social services. However, the number one concern is that of raising their children in a safe and culturally relevant environment.
In 1990, there were slightly over 300,000 continental Africans in the United States. Today, the number is over 1.4 million and growing. According to the Migration Information Source, over 75 percent of the African foreign-born in the United States has arrived since 1990.
Influenced by customs and language in their new home, young immigrants too often lose their ability to communicate in their parent's native tongue and begin to turn away from cultural traditions. Added issues for new immigrants are misinterpretations and misunderstandings of expectations between themselves and their African-American neighbors.
To help encourage better understanding and communication, Bronx Community College
(BCC) and the Amadou Diallo Foundation (ADF) sponsored a standing-room-only panel discussion for African parents, students and community activists on November 5. The panel, titled "Challenges in Raising African Children in America the African Way," attracted over 60 participants from Nigeria, Guinea, Ghana, Senegal and other African countries.
"Africans make up approximately 10 percent of our almost 11,500 students at BCC, largely due to our popular STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), business and digital design, and nursing programs," said Gene Adams, director of collaborative education, whose office co-sponsored the panel discussion with Kadiatou Diallo, president of the ADF.
Adams attributes the rise in student numbers at BCC to Africans choosing to settle in the borough. "We have close to 1,100 African students as a result of the large influx of mostly West Africans into the Bronx."
"I was born and raised here by hardworking Nigerian immigrant parents," says FitzGerald Ajoku, a University of Old Westbury graduate and author. His new book, Continental Drift: The African African-American Experience, chronicles his life as a first-generation child of Nigerian parents growing up in New York. Ajoku spoke as a panelist to the gathering about the often-conflicting experience of being raised by traditional African parents and the needs of a child to fit in with non-African peers who didn't understand his culture. "Kids made fun of my name and used insults by saying things such as 'African booty scratcher,'" says Ajoku. He believes that his experience offers him a unique point of view for understanding the need to retain cultural traditions and self-acceptance as a first-generation African African-American.
Ibrahima Fey, a Senegalese, is a new father of boy triplets. Fey came to the United States in the 1980s and attended Hunter College. Today, he is a Bronx high school teacher and coordinates a science program at the College of Staten Island. Fey told the audience that the education of their children is most important to African parents. "We have to expand our understanding about how things work in the United States. For starters, we must become more involved with our children's education and attend parent conferences and other programs at their schools," Fey said. With two out of every five Africans living in the United States attaining a bachelor's degree, educational attainment is a large community value.
Others in the audience spoke about what they see as the weakening of ethnic languages and customs in African children growing up in America. Often, these young people lose the ability to communicate in their parent's native tongue and fail to grasp the intricate expectations within cultural traditions.
Lack of understanding and communication with their African-American neighbors was also seen as an area where effort and awareness needs to be focused. In recent weeks, newspaper articles have appeared highlighting the rising conflicts between newly arrived Africans and African- Americans, possibly reflecting a forced competition for limited resources, such as jobs and living space. Also fueling the conflicts are stereotypes held by each group based on decades of misinformation and negative media portrayals.
BCC student and mother Bola Okezie spoke about the challenges of raising four children all under the age of 10 in the Bronx. "I feel the schools place too much attention on prying into the lives of families. Parenting differences between African and American cultures have placed many African parents on the defense and fearful of being labeled abusive or bad parents. Instead of supporting parents, they create barriers that make being a parent and student almost impossible," Okezie said.
Representing the African hip-hop generation was Untouchable Records recording artist MysterE. Born to immigrant Ibo parents, MysterE uses his knowledge of his parents' culture and combines it with his experience as a first-generation-born African in the United States. "I want to bring young people together using hip-hop to talk about the values that uplift our community. While there are not enough African artists being represented in hip-hop, more are coming into the industry."
Adams says that the panel was part of a larger effort by BCC to create a greater dialogue and engagement with its African students and help the college develop a better understanding of the diversity, interests and needs of the growing African population in the Bronx.
