The Importance of Including Black Immigrant Narratives in K–12 Education

“So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become…the [danger of a] single story [is that it] creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story."
–Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story TED Talk

The first time I read a book written by a Black immigrant author was not until my first semester of college. The book was “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and it highlighted the different struggles Nigerian immigrants experience when they migrate to the United States. Reading that book made me feel seen, celebrated, and helped me to know that there are people like me who share similar stories, and who are and can be notable authors. I wish that I didn’t have to wait until college to read a book that reflected my background, and I can only imagine how much more enriching my K–12 experience would have been if Black immigrant narratives were more celebrated and included in the curriculum. 

Narratives often reflect what is accepted as true by a mass of people, and narratives about the U.S. immigrant experience typically center on a few groups of people such as Latin American and Asian cultures. This is not surprising considering that Latin American immigrants make up almost half of the nation’s 45 million immigrants, and Asian immigrants make up another quarter. However, immigrant communities are much more diverse and intersectional than narratives in curriculum, policy, and advocacy conversations tend to let on. And like Adichie shared in her TED Talk, excluding or highlighting one particular story robs us of the rich diversity of backgrounds and cultures, and in this case, the Black immigrant story.

According to a Pew Research Study, the Black immigrant population quadrupled between 1980 and 2015, and from 1980-2019, the Black-foreign born population accounted for 19 percent of the growth of the overall U.S. Black population. Today, one in ten Black people in the U.S. are immigrants, and together immigrants and U.S.-born children account for 21 percent of the total Black population. According to 2016 data, 58 percent of foreign-born Black youth and 3 percent of native-born Black youth reported speaking a language other than English at home. The highest percentages of languages spoken by Black English learners are Spanish, French Creole, Cushite, French, Kru, Igbo, and Yoruba. 

Despite this growing population, in 2019, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center conducted a study on children’s books by and about Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) published in the U.S., and found that only 17 percent were by or about Black people or those of African descent. This low representation highlights the disparity of Black immigrant narratives in reading material tailored to children. Black immigrant stories are essential to understanding U.S. history and helping us get beyond stereotypes of Black people and the immigration population overall. 

So, how can curricular materials better reflect student identities?

K-12 education is a critical season in the lives of students and is positioned to help them develop strong racial and ethnic identities and positive self-esteem as they grow older. As researcher Amanda LaTasha Armstrong writes in a recent research report,  “students value educational materials that reflect their social identities and experiences as well as those that expose them to different perspectives and accurate information about different cultures and circumstances.” This is a core tenet of culturally responsive education, an asset-based approach to teaching and learning that incorporates materials that reflect students’ cultural communities (“mirrors”) and those of different cultures (“windows”). 

While Armstrong's research found improvement in recent decades in the depiction of Black and African Americans, there are still too many narrow depictions of Black identity and too few examples of intersecting identities such as those of Black immigrants. In fact, Armstrong notes that characters with intersectional identities are more likely to be racially White. This means there is room for improvement in the extent to which educational materials include stories of Black immigration that paint a rich picture of foreign-born Black people who migrated to the U.S., as well as immigrants who are not amongst the large two subgroups. This includes acknowledging and showing positive and promising depictions of Black immigrants in their family structures, customs, and traditions.

A description of the experiences of Black people, or immigrants alone cannot encompass the intersectional experiences of Black immigrants. These two identities add multifaceted layers to the lives of Black immigrants, who experience not only what it means to be Black in the U.S., but also what it means to be an immigrant whose legal status may vary. Like other foreign-born individuals, Black immigrants can be refugees, be classified under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), have permanent residency, be undocumented, or have become a U.S. citizen. This list is not exhaustive as the terms used to label immigrants are always evolving, but these labels matter in the sense that they affect the rights and protections afforded to immigrants that fall within each distinct category. 

Although Black immigrant students may currently represent a minority of public school children, the recent increase in this population shows that may not always be the case. As such, it is important that educational curriculum and materials be prepared to reflect their experiences as part of the American story.  As practitioners, state policymakers, and educational leaders make choices about curricular materials, we recommend they actively work to include Black immigrant narratives in the larger understanding of Black culture and U.S. history.

Although Black History Month is over, it is critical that Black narratives continue being amplified, especially narratives of those who are hidden in liminal spaces like Black immigrants. As rich as the U.S. immigration population is, so should the narratives that talk about it be. And the K–12 education space can be a good starting point for students to read and hear stories about Black immigrants.

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