African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African folklore 172
DIASPORA: AFRICAN COMMUNITIES
IN THE UNITED STATES
The decades since 1960 (marking the beginning of the postcolonial era in Africa) have
seen the acceleration of African immigrant populations settling in Europe and in the
United States and the emergence of new African diaspora communities and transnational
expressive culture.
African Transnational Migration
The diasporas of the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries were forcibly created by the
slave trade, when Africans were separated from their communities of origin and settled
throughout the American continents, against their wills, as a captive labor force. In more
recent times, impelled by the forces of globalization, Africans have been the agents of
their own migration to Europe and North America. The formation of newer diasporas has
taken place as people born on the African continent have arrived in the United States in
search of political asylum, economic survival, and educational opportunities. In the year
2000, there were over 881,300 immigrants from the African continent living in the
United States. Immigration of Africans to the United States is part of a larger and more
complex contemporary global phenomenon. Older diasporic communities tended to be
characterized by more or less permanent settlement and ever-diminished contact with
home communities, accompanied by a paradoxical longing for return to an idealized
homeland. Newer patterns of economic and educational immigration are facilitated by the
availability of low-cost, high-quality information exchange through the Internet, as well
as more accessible travel options.
Established and Emerging Diaspora Communities
The expressive culture of new African diasporic communities bears both similarities and
differences to the older communities of African descendants in North America. In both
instances, there are cultural continuities in traditions rooted in the continent of Africa and
traditions practiced in the the United States. For example, West African traditions related
to masking and festival were continued wherever possible, from the period of captivity
through the present, in African diasporic communities from Brazil, to Trinidad, to New
Orleans. The aesthetics of carnival and festival have permutated into diverse expressions,
but some of the core vocabularies of dance, the visual aesthetics of dress and movement,
and the relationship of masking to social and sacred expressions have remained close to
their African roots. Traditions in the preparation of akara, or black-eye peas fritters, were
passed down with and revitalized. For several generations, braids were worn only by very