AfricaIs aCountry

African Immigrant Life in New York City

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African Immigrant Life in New York City

By
Sean Henry Jacobs

Students in my Media and Africa seminar at The New School create short video profiles of African immigrant experiences in New York City. Here I highlight a few of the striking ones.

Biggie Smalls mural on Fulton St. in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Image via author.

For the final assignment in my Media and Africa class at The New School, I asked students to create short video profiles of African immigrant experiences in New York City. Most students had never blogged, filmed, or edited content for public viewing before. None of the films exceed 7 minutes. Each is powerful, reflecting immense student effort. While I have links to all the videos, I’ll highlight a few in this post.

The short film “The Big Dreamer,” by Anni Lyngskaer, tells the story of Lookman Mashood, co-owner of Buka, a Nigerian restaurant that opened this year in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn. Robert Sietsema, Voice food critic, checked out the restaurant already and wrote about it.

The second film, below, by Porsha Elaine, is a profile of a young, Nigerian-American singer, Tigre Fisher:

Other videos covered immigrant performers on Broadway, the relationship between African Americans and African immigrants in Harlem; the travails of African diplomats at the United Nations; and a Nigerian chief who lives in Queens.

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