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African Migrants Abandon the American Dream ... We Leaving America in Groves ?
5 April 2011 Last updated at 20:19 ET
African migrants abandon the American dream
By Leslie Goffe Focus on Africa Magazine
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12810828
Sammy Maina says the ten years he spent in the US would have been more profitable at home in Africa
The American dream is not all it is cut out to be and some Africans are turning their backs on life in the US.
Frustrated by tough economic times in the United States, Sammy Maina is packed, ready and waiting to return to Kenya.
"I'm fed up and finished with the US," declares Mr Maina, 33, owner of a prepaid calling card firm, Myaatel, and a money transfer company, Doubles Xpress, that caters for African immigrants.
But with money scarce because of the recession, fewer and fewer immigrants can afford to purchase his international phone cards or pay to use his money transfer services.
"People here don't have money any more," complains Mr Maina, who says the "American Dream" of a big house, flashy car and piles of money was unrealistic.
Instead he found long hours, little pay and limited joy.
Life in America is so demanding, says Mr Maina, that it has cost several of his African friends their marriages and even led some to commit suicide.
"It is very difficult right now and so many people are packing and going back to Kenya in big, big numbers."
'Little Senegal'
There are an estimated one million Africans in the US.
According to the homeland security department, 130,000 Africans migrate legally to the US each year.
It is impossible to say how many returnees there are, as the evidence is anecdotal but representatives of African community associations in New York, Atlanta and Boston all say they know of large numbers of expatriates making plans to leave the US.
The reason: they cannot find jobs and have become desperate about their future here.
New York's Association of Senegalese in America has been inundated with requests from expatriates who have lost their jobs, are facing homelessness, and who want financial help to return home.
Dame Sy, a volunteer with the association, says members donate money to buy aeroplane tickets to send home Senegalese who are down on their luck in New York.
"We just sent one home in January and before that we sent between 12 and 15 last year," explains Mr Sy. "Everyday, people are talking about it."
At the association's offices in the "Little Senegal" section of Harlem, in New York, I was introduced to a 41-year-old illegal immigrant called Ndoum.
She has been having a very difficult time in the US, she says, and would happily go home to Dakar if she could find the money for a plane ticket.
Before the recession it was possible for an undocumented immigrant like her to find a menial job in a factory. Unable now to find work, and in constant fear of being seized by immigration police, Ndoum does not know what to do.
"I tell people: 'Don't come to the US now'," she says tearfully.
'Sweet Liberia'
Kenyan Irene Onyango is a 37-year-old nurse living in Delaware, near Washington DC. Her income sometimes barely covers her bills. She is also concerned that working a 16-hour day is damaging her health.
"Africans in the US will leave in record numbers." predicts pastor Shadrach Deline
When she goes to Kenya on holiday, her friends refuse to let her pay for anything because they say she has to slave to earn her money in the US.
Now that the Kenyan constitution has been amended to allow dual citizenship, Ms Onyango says she can go home and not worry that should she need to return to the US one day, she will be stopped.
"Believe me," she says, "the next plane that goes to Jomo Kenyatta airport will have me on it."
But migration expert Kathleen Newland, a director of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington DC, says what Ms Onyango and other Africans resident in the US are doing when they return to Africa, is not reverse migration.
Ms Newland says this is better described as "the formation of transnational populations" - people who keep a foot on two continents.
"I think you are very unlikely to find Africans who have settled in the US giving up the insurance policy of a green card or US citizenship to completely transfer their lives back to Africa," Ms Newland says.
What transnational people like Ms Onyango will do, she adds, is divide their lives between two places.
"What it does tell us about Africa is there is a lot more hope and optimism about the economic prospects," she says.
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Liberian singer and pastor Shadrach Deline is one of several African expatriates in the US to recently release a song expressing a longing for Africa.
In Tomorrow I Am Going Home, Deline, a pastor of the Nation of Christ Believers' Fellowship Center in Atlanta, Georgia, sings he has "sweated hard" in the US. Now it is time for him to "sell his house, sell his car, sell his boat" and go home to "sweet, sweet Liberia".
In the video, Deline removes his Western-style three-piece suit and puts on an African robed garment.
Deline says the song's message resonates with African expatriates because no matter how comfortable an exile they enjoy, an African will always yearn for home.
"There will come a time," he says "when Africans will not even bother coming to the US because life will be so beautiful back in Africa. There will be no need to ever leave."
Leslie Goffe is a freelance journalist based in New York
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Avid Follower on -
Well, that blows a h*** in the old mantra: America is still and always will be the best place to live compared to other countries.
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Permalink Reply by Saleem Shah on -
That is good. Africa for the Africans was Marcus Garvey's cry. You should not have come here in the first place. As much hell as the ex-slave gets here what made you Africans think that you could come here and do better? You do not believe that the American ex-slave master still has the same mentality. America is a doomed place. She is falling fast and her fall cannot be stopped. Your mistake, Africans, was that you abandoned your homeland to take your skills and talents and come to make some place else better than your own.You came to serve a people who hate your black skin. That attitude of the white American is imbedded in the psyche of this country. It was born out of slavery. You should remember that - especially since you had a hand in getting us over here in the first place! You deserve the hard and rude awakening you all are now experiencing. You are traitors to your own land and people. You see the reality now and you want to return home....but you are returning with your tail between your legs....not as a Prodigal Son - to be welcomed home with feast and celebration after a sojour to a cruel, wicked foreign land. Hurry up and get out of here for your life's sake and build up your own country. At least you know where you are from. We here, don't. We can only figure out where we are from by who we look like over there. How come your country does not offer dual citizenship to the ex-slave from America? Only Ghana, to my knowledge, has offered. You can go home as times get hard. At least you have some place to go. Poor ex-slave with no where to go and no one to welcome us to their home. Go home and stay there! Do for your own people. You did nothing for us while you were here anyway. You got sucked in to the scam of the American dream. \For Black - it is the American Scream!....Peace
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Permalink Reply by Pianki on -
Well said.
Saleem Shah said:That is good. Africa for the Africans was Marcus Garvey's cry. You should not have come here in the first place. As much hell as the ex-slave gets here what made you Africans think that you could come here and do better? You do not believe that the American ex-slave master still has the same mentality. America is a doomed place. She is falling fast and her fall cannot be stopped. Your mistake, Africans, was that you abandoned your homeland to take your skills and talents and come to make some place else better than your own.You came to serve a people who hate your black skin. That attitude of the white American is imbedded in the psyche of this country. It was born out of slavery. You should remember that - especially since you had a hand in getting us over here in the first place! You deserve the hard and rude awakening you all are now experiencing. You are traitors to your own land and people. You see the reality now and you want to return home....but you are returning with your tail between your legs....not as a Prodigal Son - to be welcomed home with feast and celebration after a sojour to a cruel, wicked foreign land. Hurry up and get out of here for your life's sake and build up your own country. At least you know where you are from. We here, don't. We can only figure out where we are from by who we look like over there. How come your country does not offer dual citizenship to the ex-slave from America? Only Ghana, to my knowledge, has offered. You can go home as times get hard. At least you have some place to go. Poor ex-slave with no where to go and no one to welcome us to their home. Go home and stay there! Do for your own people. You did nothing for us while you were here anyway. You got sucked in to the scam of the American dream. \For Black - it is the American Scream!....Peace
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Permalink Reply by Penguin Board of Directors on -
Folks,
These are some stupid "Tales from the Arabian Nights" told by many trying to vent their spleens on Uncle Sam for ridiculous reasons. No one forced them to come; and for as long as they keep their nose clean, no one is interested in forcing them to leave. However, they are free to leave for keeps whenever they feel so inclined. Only true Americans need worry about whether or not America is falling and brace up themselves to doing something about it. Others can save the crocodile tears.
Keith was right when he said there were many more foreigners willing to come to America than leaving it. Go to virtually all US embassies abroad, especially in Africa, and see how many are lining up (virtually cap in hand) to come to the United States. Call their yearning a product of ignorance of what awaits them in America (the grass is always greener on the other side); call it the euphoria of trying something exotic and different from the familiar; call it blinding romanticism with the fantasy oozing out of Hollywood in movies and the rest of the make-believe world; call it unfounded belief that dollars grow on freeways like fruits on trees or weed in the bush; call it whatever you may, the fact remains that the longing for God's Own Country by foreigners is irreconcilable with this garbage few are spreading. Of course, some smart folks will genuinely reflect on their situation in America and say they are better off returning to wherever they come from. By the way, many of these folks are illegal aliens in the first place. So, their lives are predictably miserable as they remain mere statistics, especially in resurgent periods of tightened policies on immigration.
Before now, many American corporations, especially banks, abused temporary foreign-worker provisions in the old INS rules; bringing in foreigners too eager to sell their labor cheap. When that route began to close relatively, these corporations resorted to outsourcing jobs and/or building overseas affiliates and maintaining call centers in India and the Philippines. When the US government is serious enough, it will take known tax measures to contain outsourcing and these other nefarious, anti-American practices that many corporations canvass as business strategies.
People like Maina should ensure they turn in their green cards permanently when they leave; not try and hold on to them as life-lines for when they start facing some new realities. Many folks make comments on things they know very little about; talking or writing because they want to join the chorus. How smart that is anyone's guess. If Africans are leaving America in droves, many more are struggling to take their places in greater numbers.
Pianki said:
Well said.
Saleem Shah said:That is good. Africa for the Africans was Marcus Garvey's cry. You should not have come here in the first place. As much hell as the ex-slave gets here what made you Africans think that you could come here and do better? You do not believe that the American ex-slave master still has the same mentality. America is a doomed place. She is falling fast and her fall cannot be stopped. Your mistake, Africans, was that you abandoned your homeland to take your skills and talents and come to make some place else better than your own.You came to serve a people who hate your black skin. That attitude of the white American is imbedded in the psyche of this country. It was born out of slavery. You should remember that - especially since you had a hand in getting us over here in the first place! You deserve the hard and rude awakening you all are now experiencing. You are traitors to your own land and people. You see the reality now and you want to return home....but you are returning with your tail between your legs....not as a Prodigal Son - to be welcomed home with feast and celebration after a sojour to a cruel, wicked foreign land. Hurry up and get out of here for your life's sake and build up your own country. At least you know where you are from. We here, don't. We can only figure out where we are from by who we look like over there. How come your country does not offer dual citizenship to the ex-slave from America? Only Ghana, to my knowledge, has offered. You can go home as times get hard. At least you have some place to go. Poor ex-slave with no where to go and no one to welcome us to their home. Go home and stay there! Do for your own people. You did nothing for us while you were here anyway. You got sucked in to the scam of the American dream. \For Black - it is the American Scream!....Peace
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Permalink Reply by Pianki on
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Black Africans come here to qualify for what black Americans can not. Weather it is education, professions or what ever. I know about ten pharmacist and nine of them are Nigerian. When Black Americans migrated to the north they meet opposition. Now they are leaving the north in groves. You think the whites are saying good ridence.?
Yomi Ace said:Folks,
These are some stupid "Tales from the Arabian Nights" told by many trying to vent their spleens on Uncle Sam for ridiculous reasons. No one forced them to come; and for as long as they keep their nose clean, no one is interested in forcing them to leave. However, they are free to leave for keeps whenever they feel so inclined. Only true Americans need worry about whether or not America is falling and brace up themselves to doing something about it. Others can save the crocodile tears.
Keith was right when he said there were many more foreigners willing to come to America than leaving it. Go to virtually all US embassies abroad, especially in Africa, and see how many are lining up (virtually cap in hand) to come to the United States. Call their yearning a product of ignorance of what awaits them in America (the grass is always greener on the other side); call it the euphoria of trying something exotic and different from the familiar; call it blinding romanticism with the fantasy oozing out of Hollywood in movies and the rest of the make-believe world; call it unfounded belief that dollars grow on freeways like fruits on trees or weed in the bush; call it whatever you may, the fact remains that the longing for God's Own Country by foreigners is irreconcilable with this garbage few are spreading. Of course, some smart folks will genuinely reflect on their situation in America and say they are better off returning to wherever they come from. By the way, many of these folks are illegal aliens in the first place. So, their lives are predictably miserable as they remain mere statistics, especially in resurgent periods of tightened policies on immigration.
Before now, many American corporations, especially banks, abused temporary foreign-worker provisions in the old INS rules; bringing in foreigners too eager to sell their labor cheap. When that route began to close relatively, these corporations resorted to outsourcing jobs and/or building overseas affiliates and maintaining call centers in India and the Philippines. When the US government is serious enough, it will take known tax measures to contain outsourcing and these other nefarious, anti-American practices that many corporations canvass as business strategies.
People like Maina should ensure they turn in their green cards permanently when they leave; not try and hold on to them as life-lines for when they start facing some new realities. Many folks make comments on things they know very little about; talking or writing because they want to join the chorus. How smart that is anyone's guess. If Africans are leaving America in droves, many more are struggling to take their places in greater numbers.
Pianki said:
Well said.
Saleem Shah said:That is good. Africa for the Africans was Marcus Garvey's cry. You should not have come here in the first place. As much hell as the ex-slave gets here what made you Africans think that you could come here and do better? You do not believe that the American ex-slave master still has the same mentality. America is a doomed place. She is falling fast and her fall cannot be stopped. Your mistake, Africans, was that you abandoned your homeland to take your skills and talents and come to make some place else better than your own.You came to serve a people who hate your black skin. That attitude of the white American is imbedded in the psyche of this country. It was born out of slavery. You should remember that - especially since you had a hand in getting us over here in the first place! You deserve the hard and rude awakening you all are now experiencing. You are traitors to your own land and people. You see the reality now and you want to return home....but you are returning with your tail between your legs....not as a Prodigal Son - to be welcomed home with feast and celebration after a sojour to a cruel, wicked foreign land. Hurry up and get out of here for your life's sake and build up your own country. At least you know where you are from. We here, don't. We can only figure out where we are from by who we look like over there. How come your country does not offer dual citizenship to the ex-slave from America? Only Ghana, to my knowledge, has offered. You can go home as times get hard. At least you have some place to go. Poor ex-slave with no where to go and no one to welcome us to their home. Go home and stay there! Do for your own people. You did nothing for us while you were here anyway. You got sucked in to the scam of the American dream. \For Black - it is the American Scream!....Peace
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Permalink Reply by Penguin Board of Directors on
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"Black Africans come here to qualify for what black Americans can not. Weather (sic) it is education, professions or what ever (sic). I know about ten pharmacist (sic) and nine of them are Nigerian" (Pianki, Personal Communication).
Pianki,
That is laughable. Black Africans are not coming here to qualify for what Black Americans cannot. From where did you get that in the first place?
That type of claim is as ludicrous as it gets. If such a wild stuff is allowed to stand anywhere, then, we have no basis for rubbishing Eysenck's jaundiced claim that Caucasian Americans have IQs inherently superior to Black Americans'! Please, let us read our posts aloud to ourselves before publishing them.
Pianki said:Black Africans come here to qualify for what black Americans can not. Weather it is education, professions or what ever. I know about ten pharmacist and nine of them are Nigerian. When Black Americans migrated to the north they meet opposition. Now they are leaving the north in groves. You think the whites are saying good ridence.?
Yomi Ace said:Folks,
These are some stupid "Tales from the Arabian Nights" told by many trying to vent their spleens on Uncle Sam for ridiculous reasons. No one forced them to come; and for as long as they keep their nose clean, no one is interested in forcing them to leave. However, they are free to leave for keeps whenever they feel so inclined. Only true Americans need worry about whether or not America is falling and brace up themselves to doing something about it. Others can save the crocodile tears.
Keith was right when he said there were many more foreigners willing to come to America than leaving it. Go to virtually all US embassies abroad, especially in Africa, and see how many are lining up (virtually cap in hand) to come to the United States. Call their yearning a product of ignorance of what awaits them in America (the grass is always greener on the other side); call it the euphoria of trying something exotic and different from the familiar; call it blinding romanticism with the fantasy oozing out of Hollywood in movies and the rest of the make-believe world; call it unfounded belief that dollars grow on freeways like fruits on trees or weed in the bush; call it whatever you may, the fact remains that the longing for God's Own Country by foreigners is irreconcilable with this garbage few are spreading. Of course, some smart folks will genuinely reflect on their situation in America and say they are better off returning to wherever they come from. By the way, many of these folks are illegal aliens in the first place. So, their lives are predictably miserable as they remain mere statistics, especially in resurgent periods of tightened policies on immigration.
Before now, many American corporations, especially banks, abused temporary foreign-worker provisions in the old INS rules; bringing in foreigners too eager to sell their labor cheap. When that route began to close relatively, these corporations resorted to outsourcing jobs and/or building overseas affiliates and maintaining call centers in India and the Philippines. When the US government is serious enough, it will take known tax measures to contain outsourcing and these other nefarious, anti-American practices that many corporations canvass as business strategies.
People like Maina should ensure they turn in their green cards permanently when they leave; not try and hold on to them as life-lines for when they start facing some new realities. Many folks make comments on things they know very little about; talking or writing because they want to join the chorus. How smart that is anyone's guess. If Africans are leaving America in droves, many more are struggling to take their places in greater numbers.
Pianki said:
Well said.
Saleem Shah said:That is good. Africa for the Africans was Marcus Garvey's cry. You should not have come here in the first place. As much hell as the ex-slave gets here what made you Africans think that you could come here and do better? You do not believe that the American ex-slave master still has the same mentality. America is a doomed place. She is falling fast and her fall cannot be stopped. Your mistake, Africans, was that you abandoned your homeland to take your skills and talents and come to make some place else better than your own.You came to serve a people who hate your black skin. That attitude of the white American is imbedded in the psyche of this country. It was born out of slavery. You should remember that - especially since you had a hand in getting us over here in the first place! You deserve the hard and rude awakening you all are now experiencing. You are traitors to your own land and people. You see the reality now and you want to return home....but you are returning with your tail between your legs....not as a Prodigal Son - to be welcomed home with feast and celebration after a sojour to a cruel, wicked foreign land. Hurry up and get out of here for your life's sake and build up your own country. At least you know where you are from. We here, don't. We can only figure out where we are from by who we look like over there. How come your country does not offer dual citizenship to the ex-slave from America? Only Ghana, to my knowledge, has offered. You can go home as times get hard. At least you have some place to go. Poor ex-slave with no where to go and no one to welcome us to their home. Go home and stay there! Do for your own people. You did nothing for us while you were here anyway. You got sucked in to the scam of the American dream. \For Black - it is the American Scream!....Peace
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Permalink Reply by Pianki on
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@Yomi. black African have a higher educational attainment than any other immigrant group including Asians.
Top Colleges Take More Blacks, but Which Ones?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/us/top-colleges-take-more-blacks-...
At the most recent reunion of Harvard University's black alumni, there was lots of pleased talk about the increase in the number of black students at Harvard.
But the celebratory mood was broken in one forum, when some speakers brought up the thorny issue of exactly who those black students were. Go Read Yourself >>>>>>>
African Immigrants Biggest Winners In Affirmative Action
http://outoftheblu.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/african-immigrants-bigg...
African vs. African-American
A shared complexion does not guarantee racila solidarity.In 1990, the median household income of an African immigrant was $30,907, according to the Center for Research on Immigration Policy in Washington, D.C. That compares with $19,533 for black Americans. Africans who immigrate to the United States come largely from the educated middle class of their countries. The research center reports 47 percent are college graduates and 22 percent have a professional specialty. Only 14 percent of black Americans graduate from college.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~fboateng/akata.htmAfrican immigrants to the U.S. are more highly educated than any other native-born ethnic group including white Americans. Some 48.9 percent of all African immigrants hold a college diploma. This is more than double the rate of native-born white Americans, and nearly four times the rate of native-born African Americans.[10]
Their children are healtier. They generally have a higher median income.
Yomi Ace said:
"Black Africans come here to qualify for what black Americans can not. Weather (sic) it is education, professions or what ever (sic). I know about ten pharmacist (sic) and nine of them are Nigerian" (Pianki, Personal Communication).
Pianki,
That is laughable. Black Africans are not coming here to qualify for what Black Americans cannot. From where did you get that in the first place?
That type of claim is as ludicrous as it gets. If such a wild stuff is allowed to stand anywhere, then, we have no basis for rubbishing Eysenck's jaundiced claim that Caucasian Americans have IQs inherently superior to Black Americans'! Please, let us read our posts aloud to ourselves before publishing them.
Pianki said:Black Africans come here to qualify for what black Americans can not. Weather it is education, professions or what ever. I know about ten pharmacist and nine of them are Nigerian. When Black Americans migrated to the north they meet opposition. Now they are leaving the north in groves. You think the whites are saying good ridence.?
Yomi Ace said:Folks,
These are some stupid "Tales from the Arabian Nights" told by many trying to vent their spleens on Uncle Sam for ridiculous reasons. No one forced them to come; and for as long as they keep their nose clean, no one is interested in forcing them to leave. However, they are free to leave for keeps whenever they feel so inclined. Only true Americans need worry about whether or not America is falling and brace up themselves to doing something about it. Others can save the crocodile tears.
Keith was right when he said there were many more foreigners willing to come to America than leaving it. Go to virtually all US embassies abroad, especially in Africa, and see how many are lining up (virtually cap in hand) to come to the United States. Call their yearning a product of ignorance of what awaits them in America (the grass is always greener on the other side); call it the euphoria of trying something exotic and different from the familiar; call it blinding romanticism with the fantasy oozing out of Hollywood in movies and the rest of the make-believe world; call it unfounded belief that dollars grow on freeways like fruits on trees or weed in the bush; call it whatever you may, the fact remains that the longing for God's Own Country by foreigners is irreconcilable with this garbage few are spreading. Of course, some smart folks will genuinely reflect on their situation in America and say they are better off returning to wherever they come from. By the way, many of these folks are illegal aliens in the first place. So, their lives are predictably miserable as they remain mere statistics, especially in resurgent periods of tightened policies on immigration.
Before now, many American corporations, especially banks, abused temporary foreign-worker provisions in the old INS rules; bringing in foreigners too eager to sell their labor cheap. When that route began to close relatively, these corporations resorted to outsourcing jobs and/or building overseas affiliates and maintaining call centers in India and the Philippines. When the US government is serious enough, it will take known tax measures to contain outsourcing and these other nefarious, anti-American practices that many corporations canvass as business strategies.
People like Maina should ensure they turn in their green cards permanently when they leave; not try and hold on to them as life-lines for when they start facing some new realities. Many folks make comments on things they know very little about; talking or writing because they want to join the chorus. How smart that is anyone's guess. If Africans are leaving America in droves, many more are struggling to take their places in greater numbers.
Pianki said:
Well said.
Saleem Shah said:That is good. Africa for the Africans was Marcus Garvey's cry. You should not have come here in the first place. As much hell as the ex-slave gets here what made you Africans think that you could come here and do better? You do not believe that the American ex-slave master still has the same mentality. America is a doomed place. She is falling fast and her fall cannot be stopped. Your mistake, Africans, was that you abandoned your homeland to take your skills and talents and come to make some place else better than your own.You came to serve a people who hate your black skin. That attitude of the white American is imbedded in the psyche of this country. It was born out of slavery. You should remember that - especially since you had a hand in getting us over here in the first place! You deserve the hard and rude awakening you all are now experiencing. You are traitors to your own land and people. You see the reality now and you want to return home....but you are returning with your tail between your legs....not as a Prodigal Son - to be welcomed home with feast and celebration after a sojour to a cruel, wicked foreign land. Hurry up and get out of here for your life's sake and build up your own country. At least you know where you are from. We here, don't. We can only figure out where we are from by who we look like over there. How come your country does not offer dual citizenship to the ex-slave from America? Only Ghana, to my knowledge, has offered. You can go home as times get hard. At least you have some place to go. Poor ex-slave with no where to go and no one to welcome us to their home. Go home and stay there! Do for your own people. You did nothing for us while you were here anyway. You got sucked in to the scam of the American dream. \For Black - it is the American Scream!....Peace
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Permalink Reply by Penguin Board of Directors on
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These pieced-together bits and pieces do not support your statement. It does seem like you may need some help with translation to decipher the difference.
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Permalink Reply by Pianki on
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I have personally coached and assisted African Immigrants, a recent Igbo from Nigeria, get hired on the spot at interviews at medical insitutions (BJC) ahead of local born Blacks. The real problem is black Americans want put the infrastructure in place to produce the talents within their ranks. that is a black American Society problem. White firms who are being pressured by afirmative actions will choose the best qualified black face or non best non-caucasian face.
African Born Blacks in the Wash D.C Metro Area.
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2008/blackImmigrantsdc.aspxHigher Education and Incomes
The population is primarily of working age, with 84 percent ages 18 to 64. Just over one-half (52 percent) is male. Black African immigrants in Washington have more education, higher salaries, and are more likely to hold higher-status jobs than other African-born blacks. In 2005, 42 percent held a bachelor's degree or higher, and just over one-third worked in management, professional, and related occupations (see table). Another quarter worked in service occupations, while 23 percent worked in sales and office occupations. Production, transportation, and material moving occupations—which include taxi drivers—account for another 11 percent. The median household income for black African immigrants in Washington is almost $53,000, well above the $36,700 median for the African-born as a whole. This population also has one of the highest levels of English proficiency among U.S. immigrant groups: 62 percent speak English very well.
But many of these immigrants struggle to support their families in lower-paying jobs in the high-cost Washington area. Their unemployment and poverty rates are above the national average, but lower than that for black Africans nationally. About 7 percent were unemployed in 2005 and 11 percent were in poverty. Because Washington has a high cost of living relative to other cities, and poverty thresholds are not adjusted for local living costs, these poverty rates probably underestimate the share of immigrant families that face economic hardship.
Yomi Ace said:These pieced-together bits and pieces do not support your statement. It does seem like you may need some help with translation to decipher the difference.
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