Candis Watts Smith, “Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Diversity” (NYU Press, 2014)

Candis Watts Smith is the author of Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Diversity (NYU Press, 2014). Watts Smith is assistant professor of political science at Williams College. How do Black immigrants in the US view their racial and ethnic identities? Do they identify with being Black, African American, or something else? Like Christina Greer (Black Ethnics) and Natalie-Masuoka and Jane Junn (Politics of Belonging) who have appeared on the podcast before, Watts Smith aims to unpack the immigrant experience in the US. Her book takes terms like African American and Black, and analyzes the way individuals from a variety of immigrant backgrounds attach identity. Watts Smith finds areas of wide agreement on group consciousness, but also areas of divergence, particularly around finding a common policy agenda.