Gordon Onyango Omenya

The Relations Between Asian and African Communities of Kenya: Afro-asian Socio-economic and Political Relations in Nyanza Province of Kenya Gordon Onyango Omenya

This study investigates the problem of race relations between Asian and African communities in Kenya?s Nyanza region. It examines the roots of Asian presence in the Nyanza region and explores the various levels of interactions between the Asian ethnicities and the Africans within the post-colonial space of Nyanza. Although the literature review demonstrates that some research on the Asian Question in East Africa has been undertaken by a number of scholars, there is little evidence to show that Afro - Asian relations in Nyanza Province has been given scholarly attention. This hiatus makes the study abundantly significant and justified. The study revolves around four fundamental premises. It proposes that forced immigration played a remarkable role in the emergence of interracial relations between Africans and Asians in Kisumu, Ndere, Kendu Bay and Yala areas of Nyanza region. Besides, it assumes that government policies were the main causes of suspicion, tension and conflict between the Asians and the African communities. Furthermore, it supposes the contest between the Africans and the Asians manifested itself in the social, political and economic spaces available in Nyanza.