Nigerian Americans

Nigerian Americans (Igbo: Ṇ́dị́ Naìjíríyà n'Emerịkà; Hausa: Yan Amurka asalin Najeriya; Yoruba: Àwọn ọmọ Nàìjíríà Amẹ́ríkà) are Americans who are of Nigerian ancestry. The number of Nigerian immigrants residing in the United States is rapidly growing, expanding from a small 1980 population of 25,000. The 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) estimated that 712,294 residents of the US were of Nigerian ancestry. The 2019 ACS further estimated that around 392,811 of these (85%) had been born in Nigeria. This puts the American-born Nigerian American population a little over 400,000. Similar to its status as the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria is also the African country with the most migrants to the US, as of 2013. In a study which was carried out by consumer genetics company 23andMe which involved the DNA of 50,281 people of African descent in the United States, Latin America, and Western Europe, it was revealed that Nigeria was the most common country of origin for testers from the United States, the French Caribbean, and the British Caribbean.
Most Nigerian Americans, like British Nigerians, predominantly originate from southern Nigeria, as opposed to the Islamic northern half of the country.
The first people of ancestry from what is now modern Nigeria to arrive in what is now the modern United States were brought by force as slaves. These enslaved people were not called Nigerians but were known by their ethnic nations due to Nigeria not being a country until the early 1900s, after the slave trade was over. Calabar and Badagry (Gberefu Island), Nigeria, became major points of export of enslaved people from Africa to the Americas during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most slave ships frequenting this port were English. Most of the slaves of Bight of Biafra – many of whom hailed from the Igbo hinterland – were trafficked to Virginia. After 400 years in the United States and the lack of documentation because of enslavement, African Americans have often been unable to track their ancestors to specific ethnic groups or regions of Africa. Like Americans of other origins, at this point most African Americans have ancestors of a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Most of the people who were stolen from Nigeria were likely to have been Igbo or Yoruba. Other ethnic groups such as the Fula and Edo peoples were also captured and transported to the colonies in the New World. The Igbo were exported mainly to Maryland and Virginia. They comprised the majority of all enslaved Africans in Virginia during the 18th century: of the 37,000 Africans trafficked to Virginia from Calabar during the eighteenth century, 30,000 were Igbo. In the next century, people of Igbo descent were taken with settlers who moved to Kentucky. According to some historians, the Igbo also comprised most of the slaves in Maryland. This group was characterized by high rates of rebellion and suicide, as the people resisted and fought back against enslavement. Many Nigerians of Igbo origin were also brought into the US in the late 1960s as war refugees during Nigerian Civil War.
Some Nigerian ethnic groups, such as the Yoruba, and some northern Nigerian ethnic groups, had traditional, cultural identification marks, such as tattoo and scarification designs. These could have assisted a kidnapped and enslaved person who escaped in locating other members of their ethnic group, but few enslaved people managed to escape the colonies. In the colonies, slavers tried to dissuade the practice of traditional tribal customs. They also mixed people of different ethnic groups to make it more difficult for them to communicate and band together in rebellion.
US President Thomas Jefferson officially outlawed the Atlantic slave trade in 1808, although some enslaved Africans continued to be illegally smuggled into the country and the institution of slavery persisted until the American Civil War.
In modern times, most Americans of unambiguous Nigerian ancestry are voluntary immigrants and their descendants. Various leaders of the Nigerian independence movement such as Eyo Ita, Mbonu Ojike, and Nnamdi Azikiwe were educated in the United States during the 1930s-1940s. When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, US restrictions on immigration from regions outside of Northwestern Europe were eliminated, allowing for a greater number of Nigerians in the United States.
The modern generation of Nigerian migrants was initially motivated by the desire to pursue educational opportunities in undergraduate and postgraduate institutions in the United States. During the 1960s and the 1970s aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War, the Nigerian government funded the education of Nigerian students attending US universities. While this was occurring, there were several military coups, interspersed with brief periods of civilian rule. The instability resulted in many Nigerian professionals emigrating, especially doctors, lawyers and academics, who found it difficult to return to Nigeria.
During the 1980s, a larger wave of Nigerians immigrated to the United States. This migration was driven by political and economic problems exacerbated by the military regimes of self-styled generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha. Other émigrés comprised a large number of refugees, fleeing on account of religious persecutions, endless political unrests and ethnic/tribal conflicts, the presumption of Nigeria as a failing state, or just to enhance the quality of lives for themselves and their families (Ogbuagu, 2013). The most noticeable exodus occurred among professional and middle class Nigerians who, along with their children, took advantage of education and employment opportunities in the US.
This exodus contributed to a "brain-drain" of Nigeria's intellectual resources to the detriment of its future. Since the advent of multi-party democracy in March 1999, the former Nigerian head-of-state Olusegun Obasanjo has made numerous appeals, especially to young Nigerian professionals in the United States, to return to Nigeria to help in its rebuilding effort. Obasanjo's efforts have met with mixed results, as some potential migrants consider Nigeria's socioeconomic situation still unstable (Ogbuagu, 2013b).
Since 1980, the estimated population of foreign-born Nigerians has grown from 25,000 to 392,811 in 2019.
The Migration Policy Institute reports that 29% of Nigerian Americans have a master's degree, PhD, or an advanced professional degree (compared to 11% of the US population overall). Nigerian Americans are also known for their contributions to medicine, science, technology, arts, and literature. In 2023, 64.4% of Nigerian Americans had attained a bachelor's degree compared to 36.2% for the total population.
Nigerian culture has long emphasized education, placing value on pursuing academic excellence as a means to financial security. Examples of Nigerian Americans in education include Akintunde Akinwande, Oyekunle Olukotun, Jacob Olupona, and Dehlia Umunna, professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Harvard University, respectively. Recent famous examples include ImeIme Umana, the first black woman to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman to become the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a homeless child refugee who went on to become a chess prodigy. Examples of Nigerian Americans in popular media include Dr. Bennet Omalu, portrayed in the 2015 film Concussion, and Emmanuel Acho, former professional football player and host of the weekly activist webcast Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.
A large percentage of black students at highly selective top universities are immigrants or children of immigrants. Harvard University, for example, has estimated that more than one-third of its black student body consists of recent immigrants or their children, or were of mixed-race parentage. Other top universities, including Yale, Princeton, Penn, Columbia, Rice, Duke, and Berkeley, report a similar pattern. As a result, there is a question as to whether affirmative action programs adequately reach their original targets: African Americans who are descendants of American slaves and their discriminatory history in the US.
According to the 2021 Open Doors report, the top five US institutions with the largest student population of Nigerian descent (in no particular order) are Texas Southern University, University of Houston, University of Texas at Arlington, University of North Texas, and Houston Community College. According to Institute of International Education's 2017 Open Doors report, 11,710 international students from Nigeria studied in the US during the 2016–2017 academic year, the 12th highest country of origin and highest of any African country.
56.9% of Nigerian Americans work in Management, business, science, and arts occupations compared to 43.2% for the total population. Nigerian Americans in 2023 had a median household income of $80,711 which was higher than the total population's. However, Nigerian Americans had a slightly lower per capita income ($43,030) than the total population ($43,313). Personal earnings for Nigerian American males was $67,475 and $61,208 for females, both of which were higher than the total population's which was $63,975 for males and $52,370 for females. Nigerian Americans had a slightly lower poverty rate than the total population. Nigerian American families also had a lower poverty rate then the total population. Nigerian Americans have a high labor force participation rate of 77.7%.
In 2017, sociologist Onoso Imoagene argued that second generation Nigerian Americans are forming a distinct "diasporic Nigerian ethnicity" rather than assimilating into the mainstream African American culture, in contrast to what should have been predicted by segmented assimilation theory. Limited sociological research suggests that Nigerian Americans may have a more positive opinion of the American police compared to the broader black community. The Marshall Project and Prison Legal News have reported that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice heavily recruits Nigerians to serve as guards in Texas prisons, where a significant proportion of the prisoners are black.
As of 2013, the World Bank estimated that 252,172 Nigerian migrants live in the US. This is 23% of all Nigerian migrants, the most of any destination country. Nigerian migrants represent 0.5% of all migrants in the US, the 32nd highest of all US source countries.
The 2016 American Community Survey estimates that 380,785 US residents report Nigerian ancestry.
The 2012-2016 ACS estimates that 277,027 American residents were born in Nigeria. It also estimates that these states have the highest Nigerian-born population:
In terms of religion, the Nigerian community in the United States is split, as approximately 70% practice Christianity while 28% follow Islam and the remainder practice other religions (2%).
Among Nigerian Americans, traditional Nigerian attire remains very popular. However, because the fabric is often hard to acquire outside of Nigeria, traditional attire is not worn on an everyday basis but rather, reserved for special occasions such as weddings, Independence Day celebrations, birthday ceremonies and Muslim Eid celebrations. For weddings, the fabric used to sew the outfit of the bride and groom is usually directly imported from Nigeria or bought from local Nigerian traders and then taken to a local tailor who then sews it into the preferred style. Due to the large number of Nigerians living in America and the cultural enrichment that these communities provide to non-Nigerians, the traditional attire has been adopted in many parts of the country as a symbol of African ethnicity, for example, clothes worn during Kwanzaa celebrations are known to be very influenced by Nigerian traditional attire. In recent years, the traditional fabric has attracted many admirers especially among celebrities such as Solange Knowles and most notably Erykah Badu. On the fashion runway, Nigerian American designers like Boston-born Kiki Kimanu are able to combine the rich distinct colors of traditional attire with Western styles to make clothes that are highly sought after by young Nigerian professionals and Americans alike.
Nigerian-Americans can be subdivided into Nigeria's three largest ethnic groups - the Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa-Fulani.
Igbo Americans are people in the United States that maintain an identity of a varying level of Igbo ethnic group that now call the United States their chief place of residence (and may also have US citizenship). Many moved to the US following the effects of the Biafran War (1967–1970).
Yoruba Americans are Americans of Yoruba descent. The Yoruba people (Yoruba: Àwọn ọmọ Yorùbá) are an ethnic group originating in southwestern Nigeria and southern Benin in West Africa. The first Yoruba people who arrived to the United States were imported as slaves from Nigeria and Benin during the Atlantic slave trade. This ethnicity of the slaves was one of the main origins of present-day Nigerians who arrived to the US, along with the Igbos. In addition, native slaves of current Benin hailed from peoples such as Nago (Yoruba subgroup, although exported mainly by Spanish, when Louisiana was Spanish), Ewe, Fon, and Gen. Many slaves imported to the modern United States from Benin were sold by the King of Dahomey, in Whydah.
The native tongue of the Yoruba people is spoken principally in Nigeria and Benin, with communities in other parts of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. A variety of the language, Lucumi, is the liturgical language of the Santería religion of the Caribbean.
Ibibio Americans are Nigerian Americans from present day Akwa Ibom State and Cross River State of Nigeria. They are identified by their common names and language that include the Efik, Ibibio and Annang dialects of the Ibibio Language. The main seaport where slaves were moved out of Nigeria is located in Calabar, the capital city of Cross River State and the first British Administrative Headquarter in southern Nigeria.
Fulani and Hausa Americans are people in the United States that maintain a cultural identity of various levels from the Fulani and Hausa ethnic groups and now call the United States home. Most speak Hausa, Fulfulde as well as English fluently and Arabic on various levels. The first wave of Fulani immigrants arrived as a result of the Atlantic slave trade. Recent Fulani and Hausa arrivals immigrated to the United States during the 1990s. They now make up a large percentage of the Muslim communities across America.
Nigerian American organizations in the US include:
Nigerian American associations representing the interests of determined groups include: