Introduction

This chapter examines the Sierra Leonean diaspora in the United States and its interconnection with homeland politics during All People's Congress (APC) rule under President Siaka Stevens from 1968 to 1985. The Stevens era is arguably the most decisive period in the postindependence history of Sierra Leone. For seventeen years, power was concentrated in the hands of President Stevens. The chapter focuses on why and how diaspora Sierra Leoneans in America exerted an influence on the politics of the country they had physically, but not emotionally, abandoned. In addition, the chapter examines how President Stevens and the APC responded to the Sierra Leoneans in America who brought pressure to bear on the government of their adopted country to influence politics at home. In attempting to exert their influence at home, diaspora Sierra Leoneans were not unique. In fact, diasporans have long sought to influence governments in their adopted countries and politics at home.

Over the past three decades, the study of the African diaspora, an ongoing dynamic process, in the United States and elsewhere, including Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, has become a growing multidisciplinary field of inquiry. In particular, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and political scientists have collectively produced several major works dealing with various aspects of the black experience outside of Africa. Themes such as the voluntary and involuntary migration of black peoples, their settlement in and adaptation to the complex political, social, economic, and cultural environments they have encountered in their host countries, and their relationship with Africa as their ancestral homeland have dominated the literature.