Beyond Expectations: Second-Generation Nigerians in the United States and Britain

by Onoso Imoagene

Overview

In Beyond Expectations, Onoso Imoagene delves into the multifaceted identities of second-generation Nigerian adults in the United States and Britain. She argues that they conceive of an alternative notion of "black" identity that differs radically from African American and Black Caribbean notions of "black" in the United States and Britain. Instead of considering themselves in terms of their country of destination alone, second-generation Nigerians define themselves in complicated ways that balance racial status, a diasporic Nigerian ethnicity, a pan-African identity, and identification with fellow immigrants.  
 
Based on over 150 interviews, Beyond Expectations seeks to understand how race, ethnicity, and class shape identity and how globalization, transnationalism, and national context inform sense of self.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520292321
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	02/21/2017
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Onoso Imoagene is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
1 • Setting the Context: Immigration, Assimilation versus Racialization, and the African and Nigerian Diasporas in the United States and Britain
2 • “You Are Not Like Me!”: The Impact of Intraracial Distinctions and Interethnic Relations on Identity Formation
3 • “It’s Un-Nigerian Not to Go to College”: Education as an Ethnic Boundary
4 • Forging a Diasporic Nigerian Ethnicity in the United States and Britain
5 • On the Horns of Racialization: Middle Class, Ethnic, and Black
6 • Feeling American in America, Not Feeling British in Britain
Conclusion

Appendix A: Notes on Method
Appendix B: Ethnic Identification Information
Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"In this unparalleled global and comparative analysis of the racial and ethnic identities of Black African immigrants, Imoagene aptly demonstrates that second-generation Nigerians “choose ethnicity, while negotiating race”."

Canadian Journal of African Studies