Gauging panethnicity: affirmative action, African Americans, and children of black immigrants

ABSTRACT

This article examines second generation Nigerian adults’ attitudes to affirmative action and whether black immigrants and their children should be beneficiaries of the policy to gauge their panethnic levels and notions of linked fate with African Americans. I find evidence of panethnic developments based on shared racial status and experiences of discrimination. However, this panethnic identity exists alongside emerging class based affinities with middle class Black Americans.

KEYWORDS:

• Second generation
• Black
• affirmative action
• panethnicity
• identity
• Nigerian
• African
• linked fate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.