Just more than 43 percent of the Black immigrants surveyed hailed from the Caribbean, with 28.6 percent coming from Africa and 7.4 percent from Latin America. Jamaica (20.5 percent) and Nigeria (17.3 percent) were the home countries of the most students. The report’s authors note that both countries are “former British colonies where the educated classes speak English.�

The researchers also found few differences in socioeconomic origins between Black immigrant and Black American student groups, except for the fact that Black immigrant fathers were far more likely to have graduated from college than native fathers. Many of the Black immigrant fathers originally came to the Unites States to pursue a degree, the report says. While the author’s suggest that parental roles, schooling, religion and higher test scores for Black immigrant students play a role in the attendance disparity, Charles says there is no good evidence to suggest that a cultural affinity towards education may give Black immigrants an advantage over their African-American counterparts.

“Immigrants generally are going to have a heightened concern for upward mobility because they are doing so to improve their economic futures,� she says. “But I am not convinced that immigrants value education more. The American society that immigrants encounter is different from that which disadvantaged groups encounter. Immigrants get cut some slack. They work to maintain their ethnic heritage, so they can be treated differently from native Americans.�

— By Shilpa Banerji

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