Department of Sociology, University of California, Riverside, 1206 Watkins Hall, Riverside, California 92521; e-mail katja@ucr.edu.
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The Impact of Intersecting Dimensions of Inequality and Identity on the Racial Status of Eastern African Immigrants†
Article first published online: 6 FEB 2011
DOI: 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2010.01226.x
© 2011 Eastern Sociological Society
Additional Information
How to Cite
Guenther, K. M., Pendaz, S. and Songora Makene, F. (2011), The Impact of Intersecting Dimensions of Inequality and Identity on the Racial Status of Eastern African Immigrants. Sociological Forum, 26: 98–120. doi: 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2010.01226.x
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This project was funded in part by the National Science Foundation, Grant SES 0099145, a University of Minnesota Multicultural Faculty Research Award, and a University of Minnesota Life Course Center Grant. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the University of Minnesota Life Course Center. Previous drafts of this article were presented at the University of Minnesota’s Sociological Research Institute, and through the MacArthur Interdisciplinary Program on Global Change, Sustainability, and Justice. We thank those who provided useful feedback on this article: Ahmed Ali, Ron Aminzade, Samantha Ammons, Erika Busse, Sarah Flood, Erik Larson, Trina Smith, and the anonymous reviewers at Sociological Forum. We especially thank Elizabeth Heger Boyle.
Publication History
- Issue published online: 6 FEB 2011
- Article first published online: 6 FEB 2011
- Abstract
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Keywords:
- African immigrants;
- ethnicity;
- immigration;
- inequality;
- intersectionality;
- Islam;
- race
In this article, we examine how immigrants from eastern Africa to the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area understand and navigate the U.S. color line and its implications for nonwhites. Although these immigrants are subject to constraints based on their racial status as black, they mobilize other intersecting aspects of their identities to manipulate racial classifications in the hopes of attaining upward mobility in the United States, even when doing so creates other social costs for them. Eastern African immigrants draw on their ethnicity and, among Muslim immigrants, their religion to differentiate themselves from African Americans, who occupy the lowest position in the U.S. racial hierarchy. In challenging their categorization as racially black and seeking to move up the racial hierarchy, Eastern African immigrants refine the color line to distinguish between African-American blacks and non-African-American blacks.