Beyond the Shores Quotes

“Yet when it comes to living abroad, there is an undeniable privilege in being a Black American, no matter one's family origins. A Black woman from Chicago who moved to New Zealand (and asked THE ROOT to use a pseudonym for her) spoke of being held up as a kind of 'model minority' compared to Indigenous Maori and African New Zealanders (many of whom had arrived as refugees), which protected her from the kinds of discrimination those groups experienced when trying to find jobs, places to live, and a sense of inclusion in the dominant culture.”
― Tamara J. Walker, Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad

“It didn't take long after moving to Paris for Ricky to realize that her experience of the city was not universal. 'The Afro-French have a very different experience here,' she told me. Janet McDonald, a lawyer, told THIS AMERICAN LIFE host Ira Glass about having a similar realization after she moved to Paris from Brooklyn in the 1990s: 'For African Americans, we're in a very bizarre position. It's almost like being an honorary white in apartheid South Africa. And I noticed that, as my French got better and better, sometimes I wasn't as well received as I would be if I played up my American accent.”
― Tamara J. Walker, Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad

“. . . the [NBC] network bosses called her into a meeting. 'Ricki,' they said, 'you're Black. And you're the only woman. We're going to be sending you around the world, and you don't know what you're going to run into.'

Ricki laughed. She knew exactly what she was going to run into. 'Having lived in Saudi Arabia,' she told me, 'and having gone to all these different places, I knew that I was treated really special in other countries, far better than the treatment I got in the United States. And that's what happened working for them: The only time I ever had challenges would be in America. But traveling all over the world? Never a problem. NEVER a problem.”
― Tamara J. Walker, Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad

“How could both things be true? How could Kenyans seem, at least to outsiders, to be living out scenes from OUT OF AFRICA (the bestselling memoir written by Isak Dinesen, a Danish settler in colonial Kenya), while African Americans felt like they had found an escape from the racism that had so defined their lives and worldviews? This was the tension that lay at the heart of being an African American abroad, then as now: The only place it was possible to truly feel like an American, and to experience all the privileges that came along with it, was in other countries.”
― Tamara J. Walker, Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad