Blackness and Africanness: Black West African Immigrant Students’ Experiences in Two New York City High Schools (2016-2017)

Conducted during the 2016-2017 at two Bronx, NY public high schools, this is a multi-sited critical ethnographic research that examines the school experiences and academic achievement of Black West African immigrant students (WAISs). Through postcolonial theory and anti-Blackness, the research interrogates the racialization of Black African immigrants and examines racialized discourses and practices that impact their schooling experiences. Specifically, this project explores the ways in which teachers’, counselors’, and peers’ perceptions of Africanness and Blackness influence their perceptions and treatments of WAISs at these two schools. Concurrently, the study examines how WAISs make sense of teachers’, counselors’, and peers’ perceptions of them and how that shapes their self-identification, school experiences, and academic performance.

Through this study, I define Blackness as a concept that is associated with notions of being Black. It includes and transcends just being phenotypically Black and is based on both real and imagined shared culture, beliefs, norms, and experiences. Blackness, which I capitalize for emphasis, possesses dimensions of thought and feeling, experience and imagination, and reflects both individual and relational dynamics subject to change over time and across space. In the U.S., Blackness is often associated with the experiences of Black Americans whose ancestors experienced chattel slavery, also referred to as African Americans. Additionally, I define Africanness as a concept that signifies an African and a pan-African identity. It implies that there is a collective culture and commonly shared values by Africans and people of African descent

This project is unique in that it is one of the very few studies that examine the K-12 school experiences and academic achievements of (West) African students while they are still in school. It is also one of the few studies that seeks to present a more holistic understanding of African students’ school experiences by including teachers, staff, and other non-African students and examining the impact of the school space and demographics on African students’ experiences. Findings from this research are highlighted in upcoming peer reviewed journal publications and book manuscript.  

Four Years Later: Black West African Young Adults in the United States (2020)

Conducted during the summer of 2020 (in the middle of the social uprising in the United States and the COVID-19 pandemic around the globe), this research explores the high school and post-high school experiences of a group of Black West African young adults, ages 18-26, who grew up in New York City. It is a follow-up on the 2016-2017 study on the school experiences of Black West African students at two Bronx, NYC public high schools. This study engages previous participants and investigates their trajectory as students and working adults. The study also focuses on understanding their experiences within the last four years with Trump’s presidency as Black and immigrant people, the social uprising in the Summer 2020, and their thoughts and preparations for the 2020 presidential elections. While the original study was conducted inside the schools, data for this follow-up study was collected remotely and consisted of qualitative interviews and document analysis. Findings from this research are highlighted in an upcoming book manuscript.

Living and Learning Through a Pandemic: African Immigrants Students’ Experiences with COVID-19 in an Anti-Black and Anti-immigrant America (2021-2022)

This proposed study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the in-school and out-of-school experiences of African immigrant high school students in New York City. Centering race and racism, this study uses a Critical Race Theory Framework to investigate the complex ways that African immigrants’ Black racial identity in an anti-Black and anti-immigrant sociopolitical context shapes their experiences with the pandemic. This study uses qualitative interviews, youth journals, and school and non-school related documents (such as students' transcripts) as data collection methods to capture how factors associated with COVID-19 such as remote learning, high unemployment rate, and high risk of contracting the virus shapes the lives of African immigrant high schoolers in NYC. This study also seeks to investigate how African immigrant students navigate and find joy amidst this global pandemic and a racist system that positions them as the “other.” As a group that is often forgotten or left behind in social science research, this study provides scholars with an early look at how African immigrant students are navigating the on-going COVID-pandemic. Furthermore, findings from this study contribute to sociology and educational literature by centering and providing scholars with insight into the lives of African immigrant students and their experiences with anti-Blackness in the U.S.