Africans in U.S. caught between worlds - USATODAY.com

Africans in U.S. caught between worlds - USATODAY.com: "By David Crary, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — They range from surgeons and scholars to illiterate refugees from some of the world's worst hellholes — a dizzyingly varied stream of African immigrants to the United States. More than 1 million strong and growing, they are enlivening America's cities and altering how the nation confronts its racial identity.

Some nurture dreams of returning to Africa for good one day. But many are casting their lot permanently in America, trying to assimilate even as they and their children struggle to learn where they fit in a country where black-white relations are a perpetual work-in-progress.

'To white people, we are all black,' said Wanjiru Kamau, a Kenyan-born community activist in Washington, D.C. 'But as soon as you open your mouth to some African-Americans, they look at you and wonder why you are even here.

'Except for the skin, which is just a facade, there is very little in common between Africans and African-Americans. We need to sit down and listen to each other's story.'

The 2000 Census recorded 881,300 U.S. residents who were born in Africa. By 2005, the number had reached 1.25 million, according Brookings Institution researcher Jill Wilson."
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Lack of knowledge can cut both ways. Tigist is gradually learning details of America's racial history, even watching the TV mini-series "Roots."

"I feel bad about that racism — but when I come here now, I didn't feel it at all. I would never think someone would discriminate against me," she said. "I don't have any bad feelings for black Americans, but I am not one of them. ... I'm not a black American, I'm not a white American. I'm an Ethiopian."

Democratic president candidate Barak Obama, son of a black Kenyan father and white American mother, has wrestled with similar issues. Some skeptics have doubted whether his background will appeal to black voters, and he recalled in his memoirs that he was rebuffed by national civil rights groups when he was younger.

Jacqueline Copeland-Carson, an African-American scholar with Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, is optimistic that African immigrants and African-Americans will outgrow any strains, which she blames partly on stereotypes.

"Some Africans view African-Americans as violent, lazy, intellectually inferior — U.S. blacks are taught that the Africans are less civilized, not as capable," she said.

"As people get to know each other in churches and mosques and community associations, they're beginning to realize they've been taught lies about each other. They're starting to understand they share many things in common."

In the District of Columbia, as in some other cities, there has been occasional friction between recently arrived Africans and the entrenched, politically powerful black American community.