“America, Too, Has Tribes”
Ask me, or if you do not believe me, my Haitian neighbor, or you may prefer to ask my Nepalese workmate; I will tell you that America belongs to the American-Indians, everyone else is an immigrant. Period.
I am reminded of a famous 1909 Israel Zangwill play, The Melting Pot, which had these lines: “America is God’s crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming!… Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians- into the crucible with you all! God is making the American… the real American has not arrived.”
If these words were true 100 years ago, I am witness to their truth today, and the question lingers, who is an American? Is it the Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Irish or the free people of color who communicated in French before 1810; and New Orleans was their major city?
Or is it the Spanish colonists, who occupied that large swath of land between California and Texas? Many of these settlers passed their heritage for generations, and they still maintain their Spanish roots.
From the White Mountains of New Hampshire to the white beaches of California, different regions have been influenced by distinct linguistic; ethnic, religious, and cultural groups. Yet, it is the Americans with an Anglo Saxon background who feel they are Americans. No wonder everyone else conceals their Americanism.
Those of us who are non-white and speak fluent English, baffle white people with the quality of speech and often ask which country we come from; as it is assumed that only whites can have a mastery of the Queen’s language. The few books and reports from the US Bureau of Statistics tell me that by 2050, the wazungu will be the minority, and it is rumored that the Hispanics are on the race towards that majority. Believe you me, this is happening now.
America's number of tribes rival any African country.
One Colombian youngster I work with told me the other day that, his wife gave birth to their sixth child; and he is only 26 years old. For once I thought I was being taken down the garden path, until he invited me to his house in Lawrence, Mass., a dilapidated suburb of the city of Boston.
If you thought you have seen big families, then you have never been to Lawrence. It is here that you will come to understand that all the efforts, and campaigns for family planning have come to naught. For the tiny rooms of this once thriving Italian neighborhood, teems with Hispanic legal and illegal immigrants, and their offspring. You would be tempted to think Papa Ginos and De Angelo were born here.
Speaking of tribes, it is during the last elections in the USA, that I came to realize the many faceless tribes of America. In the list includes, inter alia; white males, white females, Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Muslims, city, inner city, and rural dwellers, Hispanics, African-Americans, Native-Americans, high school graduates, college graduates, hockey moms, Joe-the-plumber-type of guys and the list is endless.
It was the late doyen of civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jnr., Who said that the most segregated time in America is Sunday morning, when people go to church. For it is then that everyone will coalesce in their tribal/racial cocoons in the name of praying to their God – whoever they consider him to be.
And so the American Johnnie-come-lately like the Kenyans, have come up with “community churches.” If you were a university student in Kenya during the days of District X Students Association, these churches are similar to that.
It is for this reason that all Kikuyus from Massachusetts to Dallas, Delaware to Washington State have their “own” churches. And –you guessed right – the language of communication is Kisapere. So are all the Abagusii in New Jersey, all the Kalenjin in Pennsylvania, and all the Somalis in Minnesota, all the Wajaka wherever they are.
It has also come to pass that Kenyan churches like PCEA,the Anglican Church, Catholic, and Seventh Day Adventists are well represented here; complete with their own pastors and accompanying mutaratara (liturgy).
Since life is hard for everyone, including the said pastors, do not be surprised to find your pastor akikimbizana na masaa, at the local supermarket, a group home, a truck cabin.
“America is a no respecter of your Kenyan academic and professional prowess,” a once high flying bishop of a well known Kenyan church, told me when I met him pushing a wheelchair bound, drooling, senior citizen at the local shopping mall. “When you cross the Atlantic, make lemonade from the lemon America hands to you.” He advised as we parted ways.
As for me, I am always wondering the better place to be; at the head of a housefly or at the tail of a lion? The housefly in this case the third world; while the lion the first world.
And so America continues to invite all and sundry. Lady liberty, the “mother of exiles” still stands tall with her torch and declares:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Even so, the federal government has constructed a 2000 mile, 15 feet high, security fence along the Mexico border to keep latecomers out of the Promised Land. In the meantime, those who still want to get in still actually make it. There are 15 to 20 million people living without documents in the 48 lower States.
Ugandans Abroad has a content partnership with East Africa in Focus. To read Peter Gaitho’s original story, click here.
And to reach Peter Gaitho, kindly e-mail him at editor@eafricainfocus.com
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