America: Staten Island

(ongoing)

Staten Island is home to the largest population of Liberians outside of Liberia. In Jonny Steinberg’s new book Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York City, he describes a Liberian refugee’s first encounter with Staten Island:

In the valley approaching the ocean, the suburbs vanished without warning and he was on Park Hill Avenue. Identical apartment blocks as far as the eye could see; fragments of hip-hop ricocheting from the cabriolets that cruised around and around. You crossed the street, went another block, and you were back in the suburbs, the car stereos replace by birdsong. It was as if Park Hill was a thin sliver of somewhere else spliced onto the surface of Staten Island.

Most New Yorkers still think of Staten Island as working class Italian, but mainly due to the huge influx of West Africans from Liberia, Guinea, Ivory Coast and elsewhere, the black population of Staten Island has grown by 12 percent in the last decade. It’s hard to say how many Liberians and others live in Staten Island since many people haven’t sorted their immigration status, but the number is probably somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000.

Like many diaspora groups, the Liberians on Staten Island are incredibly politicized. And like many groups who have lived through war and trauma, everyone's past is suspect.

Over the coming months, I plan to spend time getting to know the Liberians on Staten Island and see how their politics affect politics in Liberia. With elections in Liberia slated for later this year, and a verdict expected in Charles Taylor's trial, this community is sure to face exciting - and trying - times.