These women left the City of Brotherly Love for the City of Light, and found freedom

PARIS — Paris is more than cafés, cobblestoned streets, and haute couture. It’s long been a refuge for American women — especially women of color ― to just be.

Recently, I went to Paris. When I first arrived, I was put off by the big-city feel. But a few days in, I began to marvel at Parisians’ ability to linger. The Metro is always packed, but once people get where they are going, they take the time to meander through museums and pause for hours over a single glass of wine. Ideas started to emerge. What if if I started that novel about a family of seers who lived in Philadelphia, and worked on it every morning? What if I learned to pour candles? What if I had time to explore these ideas as real possibilities?

“You could if you moved to Paris,” responded the Philadelphia women I met who now call Paris home.

Why? When the French say come as you are, they mean it. Natural beauty is appreciated. Ease is the norm. And, they say, in Paris, Americans are revered. (Of course that doesn’t mean showing up slovenly.)

America and France have been friendly since the Revolution. This is particularly important to Black women who — whether teacher or lawyer, artist or student — all agree: In Paris, we are American first. Here, we are not treated like second-class Americans, looked at through suspicious eyes, or looked over in so-called elite spaces. Our presence isn’t questioned. Where we go, we belong. We aren’t expected to live out stereotypes, or think as a monolith, freeing us to figure out what we really want to do and to do it.

This is the spirit of Josephine Baker. This is what it means to just “be.” That’s intoxicating. Magical even. I wanted to know more, so I sought out Philadelphia women-turned-Parisians to share their stories about how Paris ignited their sense of freedom.

Answers have been edited for clarity.

Yamilett Suarez elected to travel abroad for college to escape the violence in her Tioga neighborhood. She never thought she’d end up in Paris.

“I already spoke Spanish,” said Suarez, an Afro-Latina and 2022 graduate of Little Flower High School. “I wanted to learn a new language.”

Now in her second year at the American University of Paris, Suarez is majoring in international studies and comparative politics. After she graduates from law school, she plans to return home and work as an immigration lawyer.

In Philadelphia, I have to always be on. ... My guard is always up. Here, I’m aware of what surrounds me, but I can let my guard down a bit. My walls don’t have to be so high. It’s still a big city, but the pace is much slower.

I’m from North Philadelphia. It’s a hard place to live. My mom is such a worried parent. She is worried all of the time. I inherited her panic and paranoia. I didn’t trust anyone. I hardly went anywhere. I always had to be on the lookout because anything could happen at any moment. Nothing has happened to me or my family, but I see how [violence] has affected my friends.

Without it, without that constant threat, I feel like I can do anything. All of the doors are open for me.

I can focus on just being a teenage girl. The first night I was here I was sitting at a café with new friends. We sat for hours. Nobody was trying to kick us out. We could have sat there the whole night if we wanted. I felt comfortable. Without being worried all of the time about being safe, or political problems, I can focus on other stuff. It’s freeing.

Sabreen Lateef’s first visit to Paris was a three-day graduation trip with her mom back in 2018. Since then, the Southwest Philly native and substitute teacher has vacationed in Paris every year, staying at Airbnbs and immersing herself in Black Parisian culture. She plans to move to Paris next year to go to law school and study sustainability law.

I viewed Paris through a very white lens. It was all about women wearing jeans, ballet flats, and walking around the city with baguettes. My first trip to Paris did not help. We stayed next to the Eiffel Tower and I only saw the glitzy part. When I came back and decided to stay a month I really made it a point to learn about the people here, the Black people here. There is a huge, diverse culture here.

There is so much magic here. Every day I get the opportunity to observe. I pick up on situational cues and learn through body language. There is a magic in not knowing everything, in not moving around so fast, and letting things wash over you. Everything here is an adventure. I had to learn a new transportation system, where to eat, and how to live. The fears I had about traveling as a woman, by myself, just went away.

Being African American is a unique experience here because Black people here are African or African Caribbean. They are Somali French or Guinea French or Jamaican French. So I really have to think about what it means to be a Black American. And then I have to explain we are more than just ‘90s hip-hop and no, we all don’t know Obama. Being Black American isn’t the dominant experience here. It’s not the be-all, end-all. I have to listen and learn, adjust, and be more open.

My natural beauty is appreciated. I feel more desired here. I’m a Black woman, but I’m an American first. People want to teach me French. People want to serve me in their salons. I’m not always having to justify that I belong. Black women are hyper-seen in America or we aren’t seen at all. They don’t see our individuality. I feel like I’m part of a monolith.

In Europe, all eyes are on me but people want to know my opinions. They want to know me. I can pave my own way. I don’t have narratives associated with my identity here. I can create my own path.

Channel Andrews married Abdoul Mbengue, a Senegalese Frenchman, seven years ago.They met while she was in France studying abroad.

Today, Andrews, originally from Southwest Philadelphia, has two sons, is an immigration lawyer, and teaches American law at Université-Panthéon-Assas .

She has no intention of moving back to the States.

I romanticized Paris. It was a fantasy. A dream land. This beautiful place that was historic and timeless. It’s a place where a woman could be and do anything. I also knew historically what it meant for Black artists. That was exciting to me.

It’s a place where Black people can be free — especially creatively — and indulge in the luxuries of life without feeling guilty. Paris has the world’s best shopping, hotels, and restaurants. It’s all here. When I do these things, people aren’t looking at me like I don’t belong.

There are more professional opportunities in Paris. The French have a motto, Liberté, égalité, fraternité. That means Parisians are born and remain free and equal. The French government doesn’t collect data and statistics on its people based on race in an attempt to treat everyone equally, irrespective of race and other identifying factors. While I don’t think looking at people color blindly is the best approach to life, I will admit I’ve been treated much better in France. I’ve been promoted several times. I have been appreciated because of my skills and I know I wasn’t promoted to fill a quota.

In Paris I have the opportunity to do what I want to do and what feels good. When I was an attorney in Philly I thought I had to do civil rights law. Here I don’t feel like I need to. Paris gives me a sense of freedom that life can be fun, not daunting, heavy, or a burden.

It’s an interesting phenomenon to experience, to be a Black person in the presence of other Black people and treated differently. But I’m American first and foremost.

Paris-based writer Lindsey Tramuta grew up in Amblerand learned how French colonialism impacted Afro-Caribbeans and Caribbeans in Paris as a student of French literature and linguistics at Temple University.

That knowledge and her passion for women’s rights inspired The New Parisienne: The Women & Ideas Shaping Paris, a coffee-table book packed with eye-catching portraits and deep profiles of some of the city’s most inspirational women entrepreneurs, advocates, and politicians.

[Paris] is romanticized to the point where people think it’s a postcard. I was sick of seeing millions of articles that [claim] French women — who are [portrayed as] mostly white, heterosexual, thin, seductive, and concerned with superficial matters — do everything better. Paris is wonderful and exciting because it’s a real place. Its diversity is what makes it a real global city.

Paris was my first opportunity to have long conversations with people and push myself. That was the magic. I am here, engaging with people from all parts of the world learning about arts and culture and getting a sense of how people from other parts of the world think of America. I’ve learned to think more critically about where I have come from. There is magic in that.

I love Philly. But, home? I don’t feel as at home in the United States. I’ve married a Frenchman. I’m a French citizen. I don’t think I can live in the States again for a variety of reasons, access to health care is one of them. But when anyone — especially New Yorkers — take a jab at Philly, I’m like, let’s fight it out.

I never thought I was fleeing, but it turned out when I came here, that is really what I was doing. I didn’t know what I could become in the U.S. I didn’t know I could be a writer. I have Tourette’s syndrome. Being in a place where I don’t have to be defined by limitations is freeing to me. I arrived with a clean slate. My mind was clear. I could be who I wanted to be.

When University of Pennsylvania graduate Monique Wells moved to Paris to work for the pharmaceutical company Rhône-Poulenc back in the early 1990s, she fell in love with the city’s walkability, museums, and food.

In 1999, she and her husband launched Entrée Into Black Paris, offering walking tours to travelers curious about the city’s African American history. Her tour introduces visitors to the cafes where Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Chester Himes composed their masterpieces, and demystifies the work of Black women artists like Philadelphia-born Barbara Chase-Riboud.

The beauty of Paris is its rich diaspora of brown people. There is an Afro-Caribbean population and a population of people directly from the continent and their experience, combined with those of us who are African American create a beautifully, broad view of the world.

The myth of a color-blind France took hold when Black soldiers who fought in World War I came to Paris, and in many ways Paris was. Paris has more nuanced views of Black people, as in once they figure out you are American they treat you like an American with all its perks. That’s where the possibility lies.

We started a tour company based on a walking tour we did in Italy. Our African American clients wanted to see Black Paris, so we created walks. Over the years more Black people — especially women — began to come here and our business grew.

I’ve been here for 31 years and I still see its magic. It’s the energy. Paris is a feminine city. It’s steeped in art. It’s steeped in history. It’s steeped in an appreciation for life in a way that Americans can only dream about.

The whole approach to life is different here. Americans approach life like a sport. For us, it’s how big can you get? How much do you make? How much can you eat? How much can you buy? That’s America. Here art is appreciated. Doing nothing is appreciated. Just being is appreciated.