PROJECT RESEARCH

Young Children of Black Immigrants in America: Changing Flows, Changing Faces
Edited by Randy Capps and Michael Fix
The US child population is rapidly changing and diversifying, in large part because of immigration. Today, nearly one in four US children under age 18 is the child of an immigrant. While research has focused on the largest of these groups, far less academic attention has been paid to the changing Black child population, with the children of Black immigrants representing an increasing share of the US Black child population. This interdisciplinary volume, with chapters by leading researchers, examines the health, well-being, school readiness, and academic achievement of children in Black immigrant families, most with parents from Africa and the Caribbean. The volume explores the migration and settlement experiences of Black immigrants to the United States, focusing on contextual factors such as family circumstances, parenting behaviors, social supports, and school climate that influence outcomes during early childhood and the elementary and middle-school years. Its findings hold important policy implications for education, health care, child care, early childhood development, immigrant integration, and refugee assistance.
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Black Immigrant Mothers in Palm Beach County, Florida, and their Children's Readiness for School
By Lauren Rich, Julie Spielberger, and Angela Valdovinos D'Angelo
This report, which draws on a unique, six-year longitudinal study of Palm Beach County and distressed areas within the county, examines parenting, child care enrollment, and other factors that encourage early school success, comparing Black immigrant, Latina immigrant, and Black native-born mothers, as well as the early developmental outcomes of their children. The authors find that kindergarten-age children of Black immigrants have significantly higher odds of being ready for school, as measured by the county's kindergarten readiness assessment, than children of Latina immigrants or Black natives living in the focal areas.
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Patterns and Predictors of School Readiness and Early Childhood Success among Young Children in Black Immigrant Families
By Danielle A. Crosby and Angel S. Dunbar
This report examines levels of school readiness among young children by race/ethnicity and nativity, helping fill a significant gap in knowledge about the early childhood experiences of young children in Black immigrant families. Using a nationally representative US birth-cohort study (the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort), the authors identify the contextual factors - such as family circumstances, parenting practices, and enrollment in center-based child care - that encourage early school success.
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Parenting Behavior, Health, and Cognitive Development among Children in Black Immigrant Families: Comparing the United States and the United Kingdom
By Margot Jackson
Racial disparities in child development in the United States are significant, with a particularly pronounced disadvantage among Black children. This report focuses on the development of children of Black immigrants, comparing against the outcomes for their peers in native-born and other immigrant families. The report also compares children in the United States to those in the United Kingdom, where there is a large Black immigrant population but a notably different policy context of reception.
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Black and Immigrant: Exploring the Effects of Ethnicity and Foreign-Born Status on Infant Health
By Tiffany L. Green
The birth experiences and prenatal behaviors of Black immigrant mothers have received relatively little attention. This report compares prenatal behaviors and birth outcomes of Black immigrant mothers to those of other immigrant and US-born mothers, using federal vital statistics. It finds that Black immigrant mothers are less likely to give birth to preterm or low-birth-weight infants than US-born Black women, yet are more likely to experience these adverse birth outcomes than other groups of immigrant and US-born women.
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Changing Demography and Circumstances for Young Black Children in African and Caribbean Immigrant Families
By Donald J. Hernandez
This report, the first in a trio of reports from the Young Children of Black Immigrants research initiative, finds that the 813,000 children under the age of 10 who have Black immigrant parents generally fall in the middle of multiple well-being indicators, faring less well than Asian and white children but better than their native-born Black and Hispanic peers. The report examines their family structure, citizenship status, English proficiency, parental characteristics, poverty, housing, and access to social supports.
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Diverse Streams: African Migration to the United States
By Randy Capps, Kristen McCabe, and Michael Fix
Black African immigrants represent one of the fastest-growing segments of the US immigrant population, increasing by about 200 percent during the 1980s and 1990s and by 100 percent during the 2000s. This report finds African immigrants generally fare well on integration indicators, with college completion rates that greatly exceed those for most other immigrant groups and US natives. Despite higher levels of human capital, high employment rates, and strong English skills, African immigrants’ earnings lag those of the native born.
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A Demographic Profile of Black Caribbean Immigrants in the United States
By Kevin J.A. Thomas
Immigration from the Caribbean to the United States is a relatively recent phenomenon, beginning largely after changes to US immigration law in 1965 that placed a new priority on family-based migration. This report finds that despite relatively low educational attainment, English-speaking Black Caribbean immigrants earn more than Black African immigrants. This earnings gap may be explained in part by the fact that Caribbean immigrants, who account for 1.7 million of the nation’s nearly 40 million immigrants, tend to have been in the United States longer.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

MPI has developed a working annotated bibliography to draw together relevant work from multiple disciplines and to highlight research imperatives. To browse the bibliography, click here. If you know of a report or article we should add, please let us know.

SELECTED READINGS

Immigration and America’s Black Population
(Population Reference Bureau, Population Bulletin Vol. 62 (no. 4), December 2007)
Author: Mary Mederios Kent

Poverty Among Young Children in Black Immigrant, US-Born Black, and Non-Black Immigrant Families: The Role of Familial Contexts
(University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series, DP2010-02)
Author: Kevin J. A. Thomas, Professor of African and African American Studies, Sociology, and Demography, Pennsylvania State University

Links Between Parenting Styles, Parent-Child Academic Interaction, Parent-School Interaction, and Early Academic Skills and Social Behaviors in Young Children of English-Speaking Caribbean Immigrants
(Early Childhood Research Quarterly, June 2006, Vol. 21 Issue 2, 238-252, 15)
Authors: Jaipaul L. Roopnarine, Department of Child and Family Studies, Syracuse University, New York; Ambika Krishnakumar, Department of Child and Family Studies, Syracuse University; Aysegul Metindogan, Department of Child and Family Studies, Syracuse University; and Melanie Evans, Eastern Connecticut State University.

STATEWIDE: Click the map for state-by-state data on Black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean.

You also may be interested in the following articles from our online journal, the Migration Information Source:

African Immigrants in the United States
Compared to other immigrants, the African born tend to be highly educated and speak English well. However, they also are less likely to be naturalized US citizens than other immigrants. This report focuses on African immigrants residing in the United States, examining the population's size, geographic distribution, socioeconomic characteristics, and admission categories.

Caribbean Immigrants in the United States
While the number of Caribbean immigrants in the United States continues to increase, the population's rate of growth has slowed a bit more each decade since 1970, and the share of the foreign born that is from the Caribbean has gradually declined since 1990, reaching 3.5 million in 2009.

Refugees and Asylees in the United States
In 2008, the United States raised the ceiling on refugee admission by 10,000, admitted more than 60,000 refugees for resettlement, and granted asylum to nearly 23,000 people. A detailed look at US refugee and asylum statistics.

Jamaica: From Diverse Beginning to Diaspora in the Developed World
This former British colony, once a destination for forced labor, has seen large emigration flows of skilled and unskilled workers and their families to the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada over the last half century. But, the Jamaican government has strategies to limit brain drain and encourage return.

Becoming American/Becoming New Yorkers: The Second Generation in a Majority Minority City
The second generation in New York City largely comes from non-European ethnic origins. This article looks at how growing up in a "majority minority" city has affected their experiences in school, on the job, how they feel about their progress, and where they think they fit within American society.