‘For The First Time In My Life, I Was A Minority’: What Immigrating To America Taught Me About Race Relations

On May 6th, 2003, I arrived in the United States for the first time as a missionary for my church. My 23-hour flight from Accra, Ghana landed at LAX around noon, and I was plunged right into the heart of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. It was my first time on a plane and my first experience outside of Ghana. I had turned 19 earlier that year and had completed my freshman year of college. I expected to experience some culture shock but did not know exactly how it would manifest. 

I was greeted at the airport by the husband-and-wife patrons of the California Los Angeles mission, along with another young, white man, who was much taller and larger than I was but who was only a year or so older. I soon learned he was from Clinton, Utah. He had been assigned to be my trainer and was tasked with helping me acclimate to my new circumstances. As I picked up my bags at baggage claim, the monumental change in my surroundings began to set it.

In my 19 years growing up in Ghana, the idea of race was never a major point of contemplation or topic of discussion. Because of my parent’s line of work and responsibilities, I had limited interactions with people from various parts of the world, including tourists, church leaders, exchange students, and philanthropists, many of whom were white. However, I never viewed those interactions in the context of racial identity. All I wished for at the time was to have an opportunity to visit and possibly move to America someday.

Now here I was in Los Angeles, my dreams having finally been realized, trying to make sense of the dizzying feeling that ran through my entire body. Everything looked and felt different, including what I thought was the unbearably cold 64-degree weather.

Amid my sensory overload, one thing was inescapable: For the first time in my life, I was a minority – not just in terms of race, but also in language, culture, and anything else one could imagine – and that was scary.

My two years in Los Angeles were equal parts emotionally exhilarating and intellectually eye-opening. It was educational, solemn, and humbling, and the experience gave me a window into American life from a perspective rarely encountered, even by those born in this country. I spent most of my time going door to door, visiting, teaching, volunteering, and serving people from all walks of life in the Greater Los Angeles Area.

My service spanned many affluent cities like Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Westwood, and Malibu as well as areas like South Central LA, Compton, Lynwood, and Watts. One pattern that was unavoidably apparent was the fact that the areas I perceived as having a lower socio-economic status also happened to mainly be demographically black. This correlation deeply troubled me and kindled a desire to discover why that was the case and what, if anything, could be done about it.

Prior to my immigration to the US, I knew about America’s unfortunate and regrettable history with slavery and the profound evil perpetrated against people of African descent, who were taken and transported against their will by the hundreds of thousands to the West. I was also aware of the structural and systemically racist laws, policies, and jurisprudence established to keep blacks subjugated, disenfranchised, and segregated from the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, acknowledged in America’s Declaration of Independence as sacrosanct and unalienable.

In contrast, I also knew and celebrated the phenomenal strides America had undertaken to offer atonement for the grave injustice of slavery and the subsequent atrocities committed against people who would later be rightfully recognized as fellow citizens entitled to every right and privilege of being American. From my perspective, this monumental shift represented the true essence of Americanism as manifested in the will of its citizens to fight and to lay down their lives and, as Martin Luther King Jr. would have put it, to bend the proverbial arc of history towards justice.

In fact, I believed so much in the transformation of America towards true racial equality that I had nary a hint of hesitation or misgiving about coming here, making this country my home, and going about my way to achieve the American dream. Owing to the myriad numbers of black Africans who have immigrated to the United States, it stands to reason that my assessment is not at all unique.

So, why are so many black people born and raised in America unable to see this country as I and millions of other immigrants do? Why do they believe they cannot achieve similar levels of socio-economic success as so many black immigrants have? Who or what is behind the subtle but increasingly undeniable reverberations of racial tension in America? Are the sentiments