Chapter 5 delves deeper into the challenges of coming to the United States and being confronted with issues of race, national narratives adopted to describe all peoples of color and discrimination along color lines.

Sub-Saharan African immigrants may have familiarity with what it means to be discriminated against from their colonial history and the divide-and-rule strategy that resulted in what today is evident as ethnic conflicts. However, in their homelands, they have not been exposed to the kind of color-based racism they experience when they emigrate out of Africa. The kind of discrimination based on race that Black people have been subjected to since slavery is unique. The caste system (race hierarchies) in the United States is one of the most brutal and dehumanizing in the world.

The responses from the interviewees demonstrate clearly that sub-Saharan African immigrants know what discrimination is but are not very familiar with the kind of racism that is part and parcel of the racial hierarchy in the United States. At first, they view racism as a hindrance and challenge, before coming to the realization of its historical context and the magnitude of its impact on their lives. Resilience is one competency they use to devise coping mechanisms. One respondent says:

My experience in Nigeria would be that I have to confront ethnic discrimination. We have about 250 languages in Nigeria so that in itself is a different experience and then coming here I have never up to the time I came to North America, Canada and United States, I have never confronted racial discrimination in high school. I had Irish reverend fathers as my teachers, British council teachers, and American Peacecorp volunteers. The relationship was not on the basis of race. We were more in terms of what I can benefit from my teachers.

Another respondent compares and contrasts discrimination in Nigeria and in the United States in the following words: