A BLACK IMMIGRANT’S EXPERIENCE WITH COMING TO TERMS WITH RACE RELATIONS IN AMERICA

Posted By The Editors | February 2nd, 2010

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.

 SOURCE  (The Defender’s Online – A Civil Rights Blog)