From Dakar to New York. Sailors' Narratives of French-Speaking Africa in the "Discovery" of America at the Turn of the 1920s

The contemporary migratory movements of French-speaking western Africa towards the United States seem to have truly begun in favor of political independence in 1960, and the abrogation of the quota system of immigration in America by nationality in 1965. Since the 1980s, the effects of the accelerated liberalization of economies in Africa have increased the presence of French-speaking entrepreneurs in the cities of the east coast of the United States, including New York. Yet the historical analysis of logical migration paths and stories of individuals shows that the transatlantic movements, older, actually date back to colonial times. Thus, farmers converted sailors from different areas of French West Africa joined America by the end of the First World War. Moreover, in the colonial/segregationist context, they allow us to rethink the nature of Africa/Americas links (usually apprehended in terms of the mobility of intellectual elites) on the one hand and, on the other hand, the profile of migrants.