“Ain't Making It in America”: The Economic Characteristics of African Immigrants in North Carolina, USA

ABSTRACT

This study interviewed 350 African immigrants in North Carolina (NC) to shed light on their economic conditions. It focused primarily on their labor force participation and incomes for the period 2004–2014. The findings showed that both structural changes in NC's economy and prejudicial experiences within the labor force were the most important forces that undermined the economic ambitions of the Africans. The study also yielded a complex picture and raised some questions about the resettlement outcome of African immigrants in the United States.

KEYWORDS:

• African immigrants
• North Carolina, USA
• immigrants
• poverty-immigrants
• prejudice in USA
• race relations

Notes

1. Small numbers of African migrants also came from other parts of Africa; they are not part of the study due to their small number.

2. Refugees were not part for the present study. Often refugees required special needs that are not always provided in the host society; this can slow economic progress (see Segal, 2012).

3. Poverty is used here to refer to the state of being indigent, the state of being worse off than the average person in one's community (Eitzen & Baca Zinn, 2013).

4. In the course of the 2000s, attempts to deal with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, many of whom are Hispanics, have often led to vitriolic anti-immigrant sentiments.

5. The researcher took contact information of respondents and interviewed them at a later date and time.

6. This included cities such as Salisbury, Lillington, Spencer, Fayetteville, Gastonia.

7. This is similar to previous findings on the educational attainments of African immigrants in the United States by Healy, 2012.

8. Respondents cited the relative success of Jamaicans, Asians, and East Indians in America.

9. Adult respondents were receiving Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) benefits; those with children were also receiving Women Infant and Children (WIC) benefits.

10. Not their real names.

11. When Pillowtex closed its doors on July 30, 2003, 4,800 individuals in North Carolina lost their jobs—this was the single largest mass layoff in NC history (Duke University, 2006).

12. In 2008/2009, Hanesbrand, the apparel giant shut down two plants in Eden and Rockingham and 1,400 North Carolinians lost their jobs.

13. George and Chaza (2012) made similar observations about African and other Third World origin immigrants in Canada.