Out of Africa
Young African immigrants must choose between being African or African American. Their parents pull in one direction and their peers pull in another.
Tools
"I can always tell the difference between the two right away," Dinknesh says to me in the library of her high school. She came to Seattle in 1999 from Ethiopia, and though her accent is thick, she has a steady command of English. "If I go to the mall," Dinknesh says confidently, "I can tell who is African American and who is African. For some people it's not easy, but I know the difference."
I explain to her that I can never tell them apart, especially with the East African youth. If they come from Nigeria or Zimbabwe or Zaire, I know right away they are African, and not because their features are more recognizable (more Bantu, as an ethnologist might bluntly put it), but because they always get the codes wrong or messed up. They are either a year behind the trends or their pants aren't sagging in the proper, lackadaisical manner, or worse still, and I have seen this several times, they are wearing a generic version of Tommy Hilfiger--a brand name that's already a thing of the past for African American youth.
Stranger Personals
"I can understand how you might not tell the difference with the [Ethiopian] boys; they are harder [to distinguish]. But the African girls, you can tell right away," Dinknesh says.
Dinknesh is a case in point: She is East African, but in terms of appearance, clothes, bright jewelry, and fancy fingernails, she's all African American. And though she doesn't say it directly, she's proud of the fact that in just under three years, she has managed to blend into the American foliage. "Many African Americans are surprised when they hear me speak," says Dinknesh. "[Before I speak] they think I'm an American or even someone they know. But I'm Ethiopian, and proud of who I am, and of my African heritage."
A hard line runs between Dinknesh's appearance, which is connected with her American future, and her internal life, which is still connected with her African past. The surface and the center do not hold well in Dinknesh and others like her; they speak two separate social languages, which they have yet to reconcile or make sense of. For many young East African immigrants, this conflict has produced a crisis. Dinknesh's successful assimilation of black American clothes and style will, according to popular and academic reasoning, probably be more detrimental than beneficial to her future in America. Black Americans represent the American underclass, and to adopt their ways (and be their color at the same time) is to adopt their terrible fate.
All East African youths who look like African Americans are conscious of this; it's frequently emphasized by their parents. To look like African Americans, who are the very definition of limited opportunity in this society, is to reject the grand myths of success that obsess the immigrant parent. Dinknesh and other East African immigrants like her are making a choice that will relegate them to the bottom of this oppressive society.
Classic Assimilation
The old model of assimilation--the classic assimilation model--goes something like this: Immigrant arrives in a big, northern industrial city like New York City, with a leather suitcase in hand. The immigrant then moves into a ghetto, gets a low-paying job, works long hours for his/her kids, who do their homework in a tiny kitchen smelling of Old World foods. The kids, the second generation, then go to college, graduate with honors, and become doctors, lawyers, and presidents of the United States of America.
As Kathryn Harker writes in her invaluable study, "Immigrant Generation, Assimilation, and Adolescent Psychological Well-Being" (Social Forces): "According to this model, first-generation immigrants, who are foreign-born and socialized in another country, should rarely be expected to achieve social and economic parity with the native-born American population because they must often overcome barriers such as discrimination, a new culture, and a new language. However, the second generation, U.S.-born children of immigrants, [or] foreign-born immigrants who migrated to the U.S. while very young… [are] expected to narrow the gap between themselves and the native population in terms of social outcomes."
The classic model of assimilation, however, applies only to European immigrants, who can lose their ethnic identity and become white, and thereby identify themselves with the ruling class. "Life is easier for you if you assimilate, and become more white American, that is true," says Mimi Rosinski, who is 19 and came to America from Poland 14 years ago. Like the Polish immigrants who arrived in this country in the early part of the 20th century, Mimi has gone through the first phase of the transformation from European to white American; her son will complete the transformation and become all-American.
"You get shit for being different in school, and so you become like them. It also makes it easier for you to get a job if you're American, and to get to places you want to be in this society," says Mimi. "But then there is the whole other problem of becoming Americanized, even if it is white American. In the end, parents don't like it. At least my parents didn't like it. They now say I'm too Americanized and liberated, and I've lost touch with my Polish roots. But they are the ones who let me become American. They didn't teach me anything about being Polish. I think they first thought it was good and were even excited about it, then [later] they thought it was bad and ruined the unity of the family."
Despite its currency in the popular imagination, the classic assimilation model has been in sharp decline since the passage of the Hart-Cellar Immigration Reform Act in 1965. That law abolished "national origins" quotas that favored European immigrants above all others, and channeled immigrant flows through more democratic processes. Today, 90 percent of immigrants come from Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and they've invented a plethora of new assimilation and adaptation models to meet their specific needs.
For blacks in particular, the classic assimilation model is nothing more than a bad joke. Unlike Latin Americans and even some Asians, blacks don't stand a chance of becoming white and benefiting from the institutions and connections available to white people. In fact, all they can become is another type of traditional American: black American. But this form of assimilation doesn't offer the same opportunities that white assimilation offers European immigrants. So to succeed in the United States, modern African immigrants have to adopt the very opposite of the classic assimilation model. To survive in this country, they work hard to preserve their cultural distinctions rather than blend in with African Americans. To blend with African Americans is to engage in downward assimilation, as sociologists call it, a process by which new immigrants are absorbed into "impoverished, generally nonwhite, urban groups whose members display adversarial stances toward mainstream behaviors, including the devaluation of education and diminished expectations." (Center for Migration Studies of New York.)
In New York City, for example, the retention of foreign accents and culture has helped West Indian blacks get jobs. "Given the strong negative stereotypes attached to black Americans, maintaining their distinctiveness [is] particularly important for West Indian blacks," writes sociologist Kyle D. Crowder. "Recent research indicates that West Indian immigrants are well aware of the stigma attached to being black in America, and, especially among first generation West Indians, there is a strong motivation to maintain their distinction as West Indian ethnics."
This was certainly the case for me. I'm the son of Zimbabwean immigrants, and when my family lived in a black community near Sharptown, Maryland, my mother took extraordinary measures to keep my sister and me separated from local black Americans. My mother allowed only the children of whites, other Africans, and upper-class African Americans of the sort to be found in Ebony magazine to hang out in our rooms. But most of the African American boys and girls I knew--and conducted secret friendships with under my mother's radar--were like Kicky, who lived across the street from us. Kicky's mother was a part-time server in a cafeteria at a special school, and his father was somewhere in Tennessee serving time. My mother not only banned Kicky from our house, but also from the sidewalk in front of our house.
Our Parents
"Where have I heard that before?" laughs Hali Mah-Mohamed, after I tell her the things my mother used to say about African Americans. "I hear that all of the time. Even the little bad things that happen, she blames them on African Americans. She is always saying they are drug dealers, they don't want to work, they do nothing but bad things."
Like Dinknesh, Hali, who is 18 years old and moved here from Uganda six years ago, looks more African American than African. Her friend, Tirzah Ngaga, who is 19 years old and moved here from Kenya four years ago, also looks American, though a part of her makeup--the penciled eyebrows; her long, pulled-back hair--recalls Nairobi's "high life" culture. We're sitting in the Rosebud, and the girls seem to forget me for a moment, locked, as it were, in a conversation about their guardians.
"Remember when you braided Makoni's hair at my house, and he was there with three of his friends?" Hali asks Tirzah.
"Yeah, I remember that," Tirzah responds, sipping her cappuccino.
"My mother just freaked out when she saw the boys, because they looked African American," says Hali. "'Who are those African Americans?' she asked me. I told her that they were not even African American but from Ethiopia, and they were my friends. But she still freaked out, saying I should stay away from African Americans 'cause they are bad people, and a bad influence. They do drugs, and go to jail." Hali shakes her head as she recounts her mother's impossible reasoning.
"Even if they were African American, what does it matter anyway?" Tirzah adds, raising her voice in protest. "My sister does the same thing. In fact, she is always judging African Americans. She never stops saying that they are not good people and I will get into trouble if I hang out with them. But how can you judge something you don't understand? She does not know any African Americans, so how can she call them all bad?"
"Parents are always like that. They just label everyone as the same and that is it," concludes Hali.
A few days before meeting Tirzah and Hali, I met again with Dinknesh, who has been in the United States for two years, and a handsome young student named Hayat Yemer, who has been in the United States for four years. Seventeen years old and from Ethiopia, Hayat's face has the noble air of basketball superstar Kobe Bryant. Whispering in the library of Chief Sealth High School in West Seattle, we discussed their parents' attitudes toward their appearance, which is black American.
"Our parents have problems with [it], but this is the way we must look because we are now in a new country," Hayat says confidently. "When I play basketball with my friends we speak English, and I like to speak English. It is the professional thing to do."
"I don't feel whites. You know," says Dinknesh, laughing, "[whites] don't like me and my skin color, and I don't like them. So why should I try to look and act like them?" I ask her if she gets along with African Americans, seeing as she has rejected white Americans. "My people have a problem understanding them," she says. "That is why we don't get along. They talk too fast, and pronounce words like 'ask' like 'axes.' So we don't know what they are talking about. Plus they don't like us. And they also think we don't like them.
"When I was at the mall the other day, some African American guys who thought I was American came up to me and started talking. [But] when they heard me speak they backed away, saying African women don't like African Americans. But I said it's black Americans who don't like Africans, especially black American girls. The girls don't like us because they are jealous of us--at least that is what I heard. They are jealous because of the hair and they recognize our beauty. So they are worried that their men will chase us instead of them."
"All you have to do is work hard and everyone will respect you," Hayat says, feeling that Dinknesh has gone off the deep end, and is now in private territory. "I know African Americans have problems working and also with family [life]. Their fathers are never around, and drugs are everywhere. But if you work hard, get a job, and don't abuse the freedom we have in America, then everything will be okay."
The Survivors
Most immigrants avoid thinking too deeply about what's really going on in America. The whole weird and complex structure of their new society is broken down into basic parts: parts that work and improve their lot, and parts that don't work and don't improve their lot. All other possibilities are thrown out the window. Immigrants can't help but be so blunt because their world is a panicked world. They arrive in America fleeing desperate circumstances--war, famine, crazy dictators. Once they arrive, deportation always seems a phone call away. They are usually forced into poor neighborhoods riddled with crime and bad cops, and if they have a job it's rarely stable or meaningful. This is why so many black immigrants hold such low opinions of African Americans, the very people they should identify with. Immigrants want to improve their lives as fast as possible, and they don't see many black Americans living the lives they want to live in America.
Indeed, most black immigrants are as suspicious and critical of whites as black Americans, but they don't have the luxury of voicing their grievances. For example, my mother's criticism of black Americans was equally matched by her criticism of white Americans, particularly Republicans. She hated Ronald Reagan with a passion, and thought that Republicans were the cruelest, most selfish people on Earth. The day Reagan was shot was not a dark day in the Mudede home. But my mother would never express this harsh criticism in public, because she didn't want to jeopardize her already shaky status as an American. What mattered to her first was achieving some sort of security, and not the larger problems of the racism and capitalism in America. (When we were back in Africa, many years later, she let everyone know how much she despised Ronald Reagan. Even the daughter of the American ambassador to Zimbabwe, who visited my sister regularly, was told that her father's employer was a very bad man. My mother's brother, who was educated in the middle of Idaho, spoke about Europeans in terms that would have pleased Louis Farrakhan after he returned to Africa.)
The Real Future
East African youths like Dinknesh are in transition; they may look black American, but their core is still African. Their children, however, will be African American in the deepest sense. Because America is the way it is, these African American children will experience the full brunt of America's brand of racism. The happy life their grandparents dreamed about when they arrived here from "war-torn Africa" will become, for them, a nightmare of police harassment, job discrimination, and limited social and economic prospects. Dinknesh's parents are trying to block the path to this bleak future by sustaining and imposing their Africanness.
As for my own mother, she succeeded. Despite my absorption of black American culture from hiphop to black literature, I maintained my African/British identity, and never became an African American. But now I have two kids, who, despite being mixed (white/black), are considered black in this society--the sad legacy of the "one drop rule" (during slavery days, it was held that one drop of black blood made you 100 percent black). Will I react like my mother if my son comes home from school in sagging pants, saying nigger this and nigger that? At present, I really don't know. And maybe I don't want to contemplate such a terrible question.
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