Rural Ideologies and Urban Imaginings: Wolof Immigrants in New York City
Wolof speaking Senegalese began migrating to New York City in the 1980s.1 In Senegal, Wolofs are the politically and culturally dominant group,2 but in New York City they are a minority among minorities. They number only 10,000 to 20,000 individuals,3 primarily single men who are less than forty years old.4 As Douglas Massey points out, Africans in general are "marginal participants in the North American migration system,"5 overshadowed by such highly represented regions as Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean. Despite their small numbers, Wolofs have succeeded in carving out distinct niches in the metropolitan economy: Wolof street peddlers vend counterfeit watches, umbrellas, coloring books, and clothes; Wolof "gypsy" taxis zoom through Manhattan and the boroughs, offering transport for a fraction of yellow cab fares. Wolof workers perform cheap labor at odd hours in far off places; they guard warehouses, clean hotels, pump gas, and work in factories. Newspapers and magazines highlight the novelty of "Wolof American" encounters. City tour buses head to Harlem's 125th Street African Market, where visitors delight in buying exotic cowrie shell bracelets, beads, carvings, and richly embroidered mbou mbous (caftans) New York based job brokers transport busloads of West Africans, including Senegalese, to work at rich Rocky Mountain ski resorts. There, Wolofs will scrub toilets, wash linens, and watch Americans "slip around" on the snow.6 These media accounts invariably center on cross cultural faux pas and odd anecdotes that accentuate cultural difference. They speak of Senegalese cooks who wash their feet in restaurant sinks to the chagrin of their managers;7 of a Senegalese hotel worker who repeatedly cleaned