ABSTRACT
Because so many Africans inhabited problematic dwellings, officials focused on housing. Authorities tried to relocate residents from slums, run-down hotels, and overcrowded foyers to alternative dwellings using the surveillance and records kept on the community by various agencies. By moving groups of Africans to better housing, officials reasoned that they could provide relief from overcrowded housing conditions. The dispersal of African workers broke up what authorities identified as “ethnic enclaves,” a concept antithetical to the republican model of integration. In doing so, the anti-slum campaign also interrupted the important social networks that African immigrants built with one another.
