Approaching A More Accurate Depiction Of Black Politics

A much-needed and quickly growing literature in political science illuminates the various ways that Black people across national-origin groups navigate their ascribed and adopted identities in local, state, and national politics. Collectively, this research examines the variation in relationships to political parties, perspectives on policy preferences, and orientations toward anti-discrimination politics across ethnic groups. Moreover, this research tests whether tried-and-true theories of Black political behavior extend to a group that is ascribed to a racial identity that they may or may not adopt voluntarily. This research reveals intra-racial tensions as well as points of collective identity and potential for pan-ethnic coalition (Capers and Smith Reference Capers and Smith2021; Greer Reference Greer2013; Rogers Reference Rogers2006; Smith Reference Smith2014).

Extant research on Black immigrants has relied largely on ethnography in specific locales; surveys that were not designed to ascertain ethnic, linguistic, and national-origin differences; and small samples to extrapolate larger theories of Black racial and ethnic identity. The 2020 CMPS, however, elevated the opportunities of social scientists to delve deeper into questions concerning Black politics. In addition to a primary sample of 14,988 interviews of white, Black, Latino, and Asian Americans, the data include 2,568 respondents from hard-to-reach but incredibly pivotal groups: Afro-Latinos, Black immigrants, Middle Eastern and North African Muslims, American Indians, Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, and LGBTQ Americans. These interviews were conducted in English, Spanish, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and Haitian Creole.

Because of the diverse composition of the sample, these data allow scholars to extend the boundaries of the study of Black politics and to offer new theoretical insights. Much of the research on Black immigrants focuses on Afro-Caribbean immigrants who live in New York; however, locales including Jamaica, Haiti, Nigeria, and Ethiopia represent some of the main countries of origin among Black immigrants in the United States (Lacarte Reference Lacarte2022). In addition to capturing Black immigrants from English-speaking Caribbean nations, the oversample includes Black immigrants from Spanish- and French-speaking Caribbean nations and Anglophone and Francophone sub-Saharan African countries. A potential line of scholarship that could emerge from these data is the consideration of the political legacies that Black immigrants bring with them. Because Black immigrants do not come to the United States as “blank slates,” scholars may use the data, for instance, to ascertain how the political economies, colonial legacies, religious composition, and quality of democracy of their native countries may affect their political orientation in the American context.

Another line of research that could be expanded concerns the role of place—that is, examining the effects of local dynamics, such as the size and proportion of Black ethnic-group representation and diversity (Gooding Reference Gooding, Smith and Greer2019; Wright Austin Reference Wright Austin, Smith and Greer2019). Although New York remains an important destination for Black immigrants, major cities on the East Coast including Boston, Miami, and Washington, DC—as well as Western and Midwestern states including Washington and Minnesota, where increasing numbers of African immigrants are settling—also are important to consider. If, indeed, “all politics is local,” then it behooves scholars to obtain data to understand how a diverse group navigates the political terrain of cities and counties across the country.

Finally, it is worth noting the ways in which some Black people have identities that are attributed largely to other groups—such as an identity as Latino or as Muslim. The Black immigrant oversample of the CMPS presents opportunities to dig deeper into the politics of cross-cutting identities. For instance, studies of Islamophobia often overlook Black people; research can be expanded on anti-Muslim discrimination or even re-enlivened on the role of Black religious traditions and spaces (e.g., church and masjid) on Black politics. Likewise, although the effects of immigration enforcement are studied mostly with regard to Latinos, immigration enforcement is highly linked with America’s criminal legal and carceral systems, which disproportionately affects Black people. Therefore, scholars can make greater inroads on understudied areas of intersectionality.

Complexities and Caveats

When we seek to explore the complexity of ethnicity and identity, the endeavor can become complicated. The Black immigrant sample of the 2020 CMPS embraces this complexity. Attempting to collect a sample of Black immigrants is a challenge that is likely unique when compared to oversampling other groups in the CMPS. First, when collecting samples of respondents from Afro-Caribbean and African nations, the identification as an immigrant is not necessarily straightforward. Depending on length of time in residence, respondents in the sample may differ on their self-identification as an immigrant.

Second, some Black immigrants from non-English-speaking—more specifically, Spanish-speaking—nations may further complicate a respondent’s self-identification and categorization: some may be more inclined to identify as Afro-Latino rather than Black. Respondents with mixed-raced heritage may choose to identify as Black, depending on their geographic locale, upbringing, religion, and/or other personal self-identification preferences. This complexity is illustrated in the data because respondents belong to racial and ethnic groups that are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, a person who identified as Black may report that they are a recently immigrated queer person from the Dominican Republic. In this case, this person may be categorized as “Black,” “Afro-Latino,” “LBGTQ,” and “Black immigrant.”

The 2020 CMPS data were collected between April and October of 2021—a period characterized by uncertainty and cross-state policy inconsistency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ideally, an oversample for hard-to-reach groups would include on-the-ground and face-to-face interviews in partnership with non-profit organizations. This simply was not possible at the time. As a result, the oversample directors and CMPS principal investigators focused on quota samples to meet minimum-sample-size thresholds.

The use of a quota strategy means that although the Black immigrant oversample is richly diverse, it is not a nationally representative sample. Nonetheless, the 2020 CMPS provides a carefully curated set of weights that rely on data from the US Census Bureau. In the cases of groups that were not robustly considered and measured by official government data, weights were based on research that focuses on those groups of concern (e.g., Pew Research Center and Center for Migration Studies). We considered research for the best-known estimates from public data in our decision-making calculus.

Moving Forward

The Black immigrant oversample in the 2020 CMPS provides an unprecedented source of data for scholars of Black politics, the politics of immigrants and immigration, and pan-ethnic politics. By using the Black immigrant oversample data, we may be able to better understand the increasing number of complexities that we observe around us. Consider, for example, the different challenges that Ilhan Omar, a Somali American congressional representative, may face in comparison to her colleague, Ayana Pressley, a Black American born and raised in the Midwest. We might better understand how Davino Watson, a Black citizen, could be held illegally in immigration detention for three and a half years. As the child of a Black immigrant, Watson found himself in the crosshairs of the criminal legal system and the immigration system. Moreover, as the contemporary movement for Black lives seeks to carve out a more capacious understanding of Blackness and those who lean toward an American Descendants of Slaves (ADOS) orientation seek to narrow the definition of Blackness contend with one another, it behooves scholars to stay informed and up to date about these ever-changing dynamics.