new diaspora-African immigration to the United States, The

By April Gordon*

INTRODUCTION

Africans are on the move: rural-urban migration, labor migration to neighboring countries, and refugee flows are widespread phenomena in Africa that touch most people's lives from the largest cities down to more remote villages. In addition to these movements, growing numbers of Africans are entering the stream of international migration away from the continent, not just from the country, of their birth. This exodus is what I refer to as the "new diaspora."

This paper looks at a particular aspect of the new diaspora-immigration to the United States. In the current spotlight focused on immigration to the U.S., little attention has been paid to the growing numbers of African immigrants, an omission I seek to address. My focus is on the causes of the new diaspora, its history and current trends, the origins of migrants, the consequences for Africa and the U.S., and the prospects for future immigration. Based on an analysis of the data, it is my contention that there are five major factors that account for the patterns in African migration currently observable. They are as follows:

1) globalization and integration of the world economy

2) economic and political development failures in Africa

3) immigration and refugee policies in Europe and the United States

4) anglophone background

5) historic ties of sending countries to the United States.

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION: AN OVERVIEW

Since the end of World War II, a dramatic expansion of the global capitalist economy is linking countries of the world together into a complex network of trade, finance, and technology flows. This global economy includes a global division of labor among countries, with Western industrial nations playing the leading role in providing manufactured goods, capital, technology, and markets. Previously colonized Third World countries largely provide primary goods and cheap labor, although a growing number of NICs (newly industrializing countries) and NIC "wannabes" have been industrializing as a result of foreign investments by multinationals and their own development efforts.

One result of expanding global trade and economic integration is that global gross national product (GNP) has grown to unprecedented heights. But most of the benefits so far have gone to already wealthy countries. After more than three decades of so-called development in the Third World, the gap between the richest and poorest countries has widened greatly. In 1960, the poorest 20% of the world's people received 2.3% of global income; in 1991 their share was only 1.4%. By contrast, the richest 20% increased their share of world income from 70% to 85%. This amounts to 60 times more income than that received by the poor. The distribution of economic activity is equally skewed: most jobs, trade, and production are located in rich countries. Unfortunately, most job seekers are in the world's poor countries, as will be most of the one billion new workers in the next twenty years.l Many of these people will find meager or no job opportunities in their own countries.

The disparity in opportunity and living standards between the have and have not countries is widely known to the world's struggling masses. One response is international migration. Although leaving one's country of birth is often a last resort, for more and more of the world's people in poor countries, the costs of migration are low compared to the likely gains.2 This is especially true where the gap between growing aspirations, education, and skills in a population and the ability of the country to adequately employ people and compensate them with decent living conditions is great. Stated more simply, the decision to migrate to another country often reflects the failure of development at home.3

Political turmoil is closely linked to this failure of economic development. As pressures of poverty, rapid population growth, disease and illiteracy, and environmental degradation mount, they produce a "volatile cocktail of insecurity".4 Resulting war, civil strife, state-sponsored terrorism, riots, and other forms of political violence can lead to the displacement of large numbers of people as migrants, refugees, or asylees. In the late twentieth century, compared to previous centuries, more wars are taking place, and they are lasting longer and causing more devastation. Since 1945 there have been 130 wars, most of them civil wars. Between 1989 and 1992 alone, of the eighty-two armed conflicts counted by the UN, only three were between countries; the rest were internal conflicts. In other words, most of today's wars are caused by the "failure of societies to hold themselves together."5 According to Papademetriou, both internal and regional conflicts, often based on religion and ethnicity, are precipitating unprecedented high levels of international migration.6

The economic and political factors associated with international migration that I have discussed thus far focus on the lack of economic development and political stability in many Third World countries. These are the major push factors in migration; i.e., pressures that compel people to leave their own countries. Pull factors, i.e., those that draw people to particular destinations, are equally important. The post-World War II expansion of the industrial economies of Western Europe and North America (especially the United States) has led to immigration policies in these countries designed to meet a burgeoning demand for cheap labor. Globalization has made possible a massive transfer of resources like technology and capital; labor has become another form of large-scale resource transfer. Although more than half of recent international migration flows are between developing countries, the flow from the Third World to industrial nations has grown to unprecedented levels. That developed countries are a magnet for the world's migrants is evident from statistics. In 1990, half of the world's migrants (excluding those naturalized, which would increase even more the number in developed countries) were in industrial countries: 15-20 million were in Western Europe, 15-20 million were in North America, and 2-3 million were in the industrial nations of Asia (e.g., Japan, Taiwan)? Virtually all of this migration was deliberately initiated by industrial nations.8