Urban Studies Capstone Thesis

Urban Studies Capstone Course

Question: Immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa residing in New York City have often complained about the lack of social support systems available to them. Is this because they cannot access them, they do not know about them, or they are nonexistent?

Table of Contents:

A. Introduction

B. Background of Selected Immigrant Groups

C. Thesis Statement

D. Literature Review

E. Methodological Overview

F. Findings

G. Contribution to the field

H. Conclusion

A. Introduction

Some immigrant groups in New York City do better than others both socially and economically. Many reasons have been attributed to this diversity of experiences. Sub-Saharan African immigrants are frequently very well educated in their home countries, but

The importance of their background has a reflection on the kind of social support systems they may need in the U.S. For example, a person fleeing a brutish political regime would obviously need legal, social, and cultural/religious support.

Building the systems that play these supporting roles depends on their ability to organize effectively. However, the historical, political, and cultural dynamics of the groups impact the groups’ collective effort to organize. I will elaborate on this point in my findings segment of this essay.

C. Thesis Statement

This research project is an investigation of the claims made by Sub-Saharan African immigrant communities that suggest the lack of supporting social structures by trying to find answers within the purview of the three questions in my research topic—whether they cannot access them, they do not know about them , or they are simply

There is a significant amount of literature on the social support systems for the immigrant groups.

On the question of whether there are any social support systems for the groups, using the internet search engines; many social organizations associated with the groups were discovered. Thus, I have discovered numerous Community-Based Organizations for the three groups in focus.

While both the Dominican and Chinese organizations represent their respective nationalities, the Sub-Saharan Africans are mostly ethnic-based. A case in point is the organizations that deliver social services to their members as depicted in Table 1.

This ethnic-based pattern of the African groups presupposes that the ethno-tribal differences among the African groups have a telling effect on their abilities to organize, let alone produce any effective social support systems compared to their Dominican and Chinese counterparts.

However, building the systems that play these supporting roles depend on a group’s ability to organize effectively. However, the historical, political, and cultural dynamics of the groups impact the groups’ collective effort to