The Untold Truths of the Lives of African Immigrant Women
I come from a lineage of great African women — a lineage comprised of survivors, initiators, and implementers and I believe that just my existence is proof of all these attributes. Being able to thrive over generations and generations in a widely patriarchal society with rigid cultural norms that leave little to no room for the independent economic growth of women is no easy feat, but the women I am descendant of repeatedly show me that it is possible. Thriving as a woman in my family comes in many forms whether it be achieving a university education, owning a farm, migration, owning a trade/business or surprisingly even, marriage. There are all these different representations of what success is in my family and I am highly favored to be able to witness them all. Webbed deep into these successes are stories of sacrifice. My mother and I’s migration journey and experiences have served as an eye-opener for the underlying seeds of sacrifice sowed by African women for the betterment of theirs and their children’s lives and for generations in the future to reap the benefits.
“Tosoboola genda kusomelo wotyo nawe!! Oyagala abasomesa bakuyiisemu amaaso balowooze ova mu ghetto??” This is a statement I heard every morning coming from my mother as she tugged at my little sister’s coarse hair with a pick and struggled to put it up into a neat puff despite my sister’s objections. This statement in English directly translates to “You can’t go to school looking like that! Do you want the teachers to think you’re from the ghetto?” My sister is 6 years old, and so I am pretty sure her appearance is the least of her worries. However, the more my mother repeated the above statement each school morning, I realized that this persistent need to look presentable was not just for the sake of looking nice for the teacher, but was just a manifestation of one of the many fears that troubled her as an African immigrant woman and mother.
Faced with this new obstacle of racial profiling in the country of milk and honey, my mother has toiled to shield her children from a phenomenon to which they would not be subjected back home in Uganda. The early mornings dedicated to combing and straightening out my sister’s hair are a norm because my mother fears that the teachers will look at my sister sideways or even worse give up on her as a student, and so she wants to eliminate that possibility. The PTA meetings she religiously attends, where she is one of the few parents present, just to prove that she is actively involved in her child’s education(which she is as most African parents are) exhibit the extra mile she is willing to go for her children. In a country where one’s identity heavily revolves around their racial and ethnic attributes, being Black and African becomes a burden. But I think what motivates every African immigrant is keeping their eyes on the prize and I think for most, the prize is fulfilling both economic and educational aspirations that brought them to America in the first place. The skin color issue is just another hurdle in place that will be overcome, just like the long wait for papers(greencard/citizenship).
The need to maintain cultural ties with the motherland whilst trying to assimilate to an entirely different culture is central in the African immigrant woman’s household. Last summer, I was cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and got rid of all these herbs and spices that we had brought along with us when we first arrived in America five years ago. My mother was furious when she found out what I did. I saw no wrong in it because we were not going to use the spices anyways since they were expired. Now, I realize that it was not about cooking food, maybe partly, but trashing these commodities was like severing the significant ties my mother holds on to to symbolize the culture of our homeland. My mother never passes up an opportunity to send for ghee and grasshoppers from home. Ghee is a cow product that is similar to butter and gives food a very strong appetizing aroma. Grasshoppers are insects that are fried and eaten as snacks with tea or coffee. We have never run out of the aforementioned food because my mother never stops sending for it. These two foodstuffs and the recipes my mother still uses from when we were still back home are tangible representations of our roots and evocative of the normalcy that she grew up immersed in as a child, normalcy to which she wants her children to be exposed even though they are not present in it.
The late-night calls to relatives across several time zones to pass on congratulations for the baby who has just been born or pass on condolences to the cousins that just lost a son in the family are crucial to maintaining family ties. Keeping in touch with family back home is a strong thread that my mother leans on for moral support. In a new land where she knows no one, the three-hour phone calls with friends or family combined with the occasional $100 that she sends back to her mother fill her with so much delight and satisfaction. The food she receives from family reinforces her sense of belonging while she continues to survive in a country where her identity makes her subject to subordination.
African women have a fire and pride in them that is nurtured throughout their upbringing and is encouraged, in most African households, to be displayed. Getting used to a new normal never posed itself as a threat to my mother. If it did, she would not have uprooted her entire life from the place she calls home. The problem arose when the new “norm” to which she had to get used in this country of opportunities kept rejecting her based on the way she looked and talked. My mother stopped ordering meals for herself at drive-throughs restaurants or completely refused to enter fast-food franchises and insisted that I do it instead, even though she is perfectly fluent in English. Was she just scared? No. Her accent. Her African accent. The way words roll off her tongue is different compared to the American way of pronouncement. But I would like to say that yes, her syllables sound different, but they can still be understood. It does not take much to understand someone who is speaking English, in a slightly different accent. An accent is no reason to disregard a person’s needs or thoughts, especially if the language being spoken is mutually comprehensible. Additionally, because her accent distinctively sounded African and Africa automatically translates to “illiteracy” for most, it became even harder for my mother to break through these barriers and stereotypes that brought her down to levels she has surpassed labelling her as uneducated. Recognizing the predicaments and subtle indignities faced by my mother, and most likely a lot of other African immigrant mothers pains me but also pushes me to appreciate these women more for their ability to persevere.
It really is interesting that when most Americans think of specifically African immigrants, thoughts of poverty, famine, war, and disease-stricken wastelands are what come to mind. I do not blame them because that is the picture that is portrayed in the media. Nevertheless, I shall clarify that when some African women do come to developed countries, we are not necessarily always escaping from the “bad things” happening back at home, however, we are investing in ourselves, our children and our children’s children, similar to how one invests in university education.
The migratory experiences of African women are not widely discussed, not because they do not exist, but because they are generalized along with their male counterparts and also overwhelmingly overshadowed by immigrants from Latin America and Asia. I would like to stress that African women are not passive and just mere appendages of their male counterparts. Even though they are digitally invisible, African immigrant women are individuals that are actively, and at times independently, involved in the ever-growing transnational movements of people, and also contribute to the make-up of both skilled and unskilled labor in developed countries.
While analyzing the experiences of my mother, I have noticed that a great deal of sacrifice is intertwined in the legacies, movements, and aspirations of African immigrant women. These sacrifices that comprise of leaving their entire lives at home and starting afresh in places of unfamiliarity are a result of the fact that African women are always looking towards a favorable future, both for them and their children. Anything good or beneficial usually requires sacrifice. When I think of the women before me and my mother, I wonder how intricately their sacrifices have contributed to the comforts of education and independence I am experiencing at the moment. The American history books might never contain their names, but the portraits of immigrant women all from diverse African backgrounds and all with different motivations for pursuing immigration will forever hang in the hearts and minds of their children.
