This articles tells about African immigrants all across the country, not quite fitting into either white or black communities. DP
By DAVID CRARY, Associated Press
theeagle.com: WASHINGTON - They range from surgeons and scholars to illiterate refugees from some of the world's worst hellholes - a dizzyingly varied stream of African immigrants to the United States. More than 1 million strong and growing, they are enlivening America's cities and altering how the nation confronts its racial identity.
"To white people, we are all black," said Wanjiru Kamau, a Kenyan-born community activist in Washington, D.C. "But as soon as you open your mouth to some African-Americans, they look at you and wonder why you are even here."
Since 1990, the African population has more than tripled in places as far-flung as Atlanta, Seattle and Minneapolis, where Africans now constitute more than 15 percent of the black population. The biggest magnets are New York City and greater Washington, including its Maryland and Virginia suburbs; Jim Wilson, Brookings Institution researcher, estimates that the African-born population in each area has soared past 130,000.
Census data from 2000 show 43 percent of Africans in the U.S. have college degrees, higher than the adult population as a whole. Compared to African-Americans, the immigrants' average household income is higher and their jobless rate lower.
They include hard-working couples such as Tigist Mengesha and her husband, Girum - Ethiopians trying to build their own version of the American dream in the mostly black suburb of Suitland, Md.
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