Continental African Muslim Immigrants in the United States: A Historical and Sociological Perspective

Abstract

This chapter examines the challenges and opportunities that face the African immigrant community and the African immigrant family, with special emphasis on African Muslims. It has four main objectives: to identify the building blocks that go into the making of the African immigrant community in the United States of America; to explain how changing times, conditions, and circumstances have combined to define the nature of the relationship between the African immigrant and the larger American society; and to identify the main issues facing the leaders and their followers in the African immigrant communities around the United States. The chapter argues that the assimilation process for African immigrants depends on critical variables, such as the inherited colonial language, social class, and the sociocultural origins of the immigrant.