ABSTRACT
East Africa, unlike the western part of the continent, was not a major source of slave importation into the United States during the transatlantic slave trade from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Indeed, the number of East African immigrants to the United States remained extremely small until immigration restrictions were eased in 1965. Even then, the numbers of East African immigrants did not become significant until the late twentieth century, when their migration was spurred by violence, political upheaval, and economic dislocation in the region. (East Africa is usually defined as including the following nine countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.)
