Black immigrants from Africa have a much higher level of education, and Afro-Caribbean immigrants have a higher socioeconomic status than Black Americans in general. 13 This, therefore, increases the fluidity of “blackness,” emphasizing the diverse experiences of the black African diaspora in the United States. However, again, because they are likely to be identified as black, these immigrants – especially among first-generation immigrants – engage in strategies to maintain an identity that distinguishes them from black Americans. Mary K. Waters’ landmark study of West Indian immigrants shows that for them, becoming American means becoming African American, which these immigrants equate with a lower social status than they already have. This clearly contradicts theories of assimilation.

By maintaining their accent, identifying themselves as foreigners first, resisting racism, etc.

These immigrants try to maintain their identity as foreigners to make sure they are not assimilated with black Americans. 14They are trying to “come out” of the darkness (ibid.151). Moreover, while more than three-quarters (77%) of all foreign-born blacks and Americans consider themselves a distinct racial group, only 1/3 (36%) believe that all members of the black/African diaspora work together toward a common goal. However, second-generation immigrants are much less likely to fight the African-American identity that is imposed on them. If they do not actively resist social and institutionalized racial identity, they tend to move down the social ladder because of their association with blacks. Those who resist have so far only been able to change the racial order on an individual level by “leapfrogging” black Americans as a group.

Confronting the American racial order is a daunting task, and second-generation immigrants are inevitably absorbed into it as a group; only individuals may have engaged in acts of resistance, but they have not been able to disrupt the racial order for the group. Even if acts of resistance multiply, they are not transformative enough to eradicate associations with white and black on a personal, social, and structural level. This would mean that America remains black and white in desperation, and that the association – to any degree – of one person or group with exclusive blackness or inclusive whiteness still determines the life chances of that person or group. These acts of resistance are multiplying and also come from Asian and Latino populations,

Immigration trends over the past 40 years have indeed changed to the point where the non-Hispanic white population of the United States is declining at a rapid rate. It has been said that the United States is a nation that is “no longer black and white.”