Dollars and Lipstick: The United States through the Eyes of African Women

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Periodical article

Title:	Dollars and Lipstick: The United States through the Eyes of African Women
Author:	Monga, Yvette D.
Year:	2000
Periodical:	Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:	70
Issue:	2
Pages:	192-208
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Cameroon United States
Subjects:	immigrants Cameroonians women Women's Issues international relations Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Ethnic and Race Relations Cultural Roles Development and Technology mass media Sex Roles Status of Women
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1160815
Abstract:	The United States appears to be the main if not the only country in which numerous African women still place their hope of a better economic future for themselves and their children. Their hope takes concrete expression in three basic strategies for economic success based on different time horizons: 1) the sale of beauty products, or the hope of financial gain in the short term; 2) the education of children, or the hope of material well-being in the intermediate term; 3) the Americanization of children, or the hope of success over the long term. The author examines each of these strategies in turn, paying special attention to the specific symbolic role that the United States plays in each of them within the popular imagination. The observations that served as the basis of the analysis came from interviews and discussions with a sample of women from Cameroon in January 1997. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French.