Advantages of Apportioned Assimilation: West African Immigrants in America

Advantages of Apportioned Assimilation: West African Immigrants in America

Immigrants residing in New York City brave physically and mentally grueling conditions that challenge their daily existence. For example, many migrants take on the responsibility of providing for their large families back home, which not only comes at a high cost of personal sacrifice but also includes feelings of social detachment living away from family. In Paul Stoller’s Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York young West African male immigrants are depicted to be prone to these types of difficulties. Arriving with low levels of education and little knowledge of English or cultural norms, these newcomers heavily rely on a range of support networks to help them achieve upward mobility. To the unassuming customer shopping at the Malcolm Shabazz Market in Harlem, the merchants appear to be in fierce competition with each other for the sale of goods, and rightfully so. Underlying however, the West African traders in New York City are a “savvy group of entrepreneurs” whom, out of necessity to combat the numerous socio-political challenges and limitations inherent to immigrant merchants, have built a cohesive and effective “transnational trading network.” In the anthropological context of this text, we will discuss some of the social capital benefits achieved through an apportioned trader network.

The benefits derived from the “preferential treatment and cooperation between individuals and greatly beneficial to our West African immigrants in gaining social capital. Since most West African immigrants are male, women and children are predominately left in homeland, often for several years before seeing each other. “Not having seen each other for five years, Issifi had begun to long for them” (Stoller 2002: page 4). While some men stay faithful to their wives in West Africa, many seek companionship from local women. “He explained to her that his first allegiance had to...