Africans in Singapore : black in the red dot.

Abstract

The metaphor is meant to describe the trend of more African immigrants making Singapore their home. They constitute a group that definitely contrast against the Asian people of Singapore. But they are also a group that is growing in size and significance on the tiny red dot of an island state.

Since June last year, we have met with and talked to Africans from various parts of the continent and from all walks and stages of life in Singapore: students, professionals, entrepreneurs, traders, footballers and missionaries. And the journey has truly opened our eyes to new experiences, exposed our minds to different and diverse perspectives and inspired us to share our interviewees’ stories with not just a Singaporean audience, but a wider regional one as well.

While the relationship between Singaporeans and Africans seem to be largely defined by government and the media in economic terms, the aim of our project was to explore the social and cultural dimensions instead.

Compared to Asian foreigners, who may be ethnically similar to Singaporeans, Africans are different. This influences the way Singaporeans react to this new wave of immigrants and we explored this primarily through the Africans’ experiences in Singapore.

We also spoke to Singaporeans who had interacted with Africans and those who had never met the group to understand their perceptions and reactions to more Africans being here, as well as to find out how open they were to having relationships with Africans, as classmates, colleagues, friends or significant others.

For a clear focus, rather than interview Africans from all countries, we chose to do our project on black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa so that we could look at their experiences of racial stereotypes and discrimination in Singapore, and understand some of the reasons behind it.

By chronicling their experiences, we hope to show the changing landscape of Singapore’s multicultural identity as more Africans and other immigrants from all over the world make Singapore their home.