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The Impact of Intersecting Dimensions of Inequality and Identity on the Racial Status of Eastern African Immigrants 1
Author(s) -
Guenther Katja M.,
Pendaz Sadie,
Songora Makene Fortunata
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
sociological forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1573-7861
pISSN - 0884-8971
DOI - 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2010.01226.x
Subject(s) - immigration , racial hierarchy , sociology , ethnic group , hierarchy , racism , gender studies , identity (music) , metropolitan area , categorization , color line , race (biology) , political science , geography , anthropology , philosophy , physics , archaeology , epistemology , acoustics , law
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.