An Immigrant from Nigeria
by Uchenna Anayanwu
Thesis Question: Do political and economic conditions in Nigeria cause people to immigrate to the United States or do they come to the United States for personal gain?
My name is Kelcji Mutumbo and I am forty seven years old. I have a wonderful wife and three great children. We all share my success. I am a vice-president of Fleet Bank and I am paid more than $80,000 a year. If you think I have always had this good life, you are wrong. I had to work long and harder then you could possibly imagine. I am an immigrant and I was born to a poor household in one of the worst economic countries in the world.
I was born in 1950 in Lagos, Nigeria to a poor farmer. I went to school for only about two months a year. The rest of the time I was either working the farm or working at the market place trying to earn enough money to pay for high school. I was determined to make it to the United States as soon as possible but unfortunately it would not be as soon as I thought. After ten years of hard labor working in the government post office I was able to leave the country, not for the U.S., but to Turkey, where I worked for another 10 years of my life.
I went to France where I attended a school that is France's version of a community college. I majored in business and after about three years, I was given a student visa to attend school in the U.S. When I arrived in the U.S., I hardly had any money left and no where to stay. I stayed in a cheap hotel and survived on Wonder bread and water. By the time my funds ran out, I was almost a bag of bones. When I thought it was all over, my visa was running out and I had no money, I ran into my cousin, who was more fortunate than me and he took me in.
This is where everything started to go up hill for me. I illegally got a job and fell in love with a beautiful and intelligent woman who attended the same college as me. After graduation, we got married. As luck would have it, I was so exceptional in college that I was immediately hired by Fleet Bank as a high-ranking executive.
Thesis Question: Would life be different for me if I lived in Jamaica?
My name, Rohan Rawle, is a Jamaican name. I was born in 1980, so I will be 17 this year. I have lived in the U.S. most of my life. I came to the U.S. when I was a very young boy of four and one-half years old. The life I live is a little mixed up. I grew up going to school in the U.S., but I carried my Caribbean values along with me. These principles come mainly from my parents and family members. At the same time I was learning the so-called ghetto life of New York. I started acting like my American friends and I talk very much like them in order to fit into the crowd. My older brothers tease me about turning into a Yankee when I entered junior high school. This was because they lived in Jamaica for a longer period of time than I did. At one point, I wondered to myself who I really was. I took my brother's word for it and thought I really was a Yankee, but I didn't like it. I wanted to be more of a Jamaican than a Yankee. I decided to change my ways to fit with my own people. Today, I look at myself as an African American, but I also consider myself fully Jamaican or Afro-Caribbean.
I believe that if I lived in Jamaica for a longer period of time, I would be smarter in terms of education. My aunt said, "People from the Caribbean, like black people in America, have endured the same system of slavery. For reasons that are mostly based on social class, Caribbean people believe that the most lasting and uplifting way to succeed is to educate oneself. The belief that education is the way to ascend the social ladder has been purposefully caste from generation to generation."
Defining My Culture
by Khadeja Bowser
Thesis Question: What are the effects of having two cultures?
Because of the mixture of my family's culture, I have experienced many things that other families and my peers have not, such as the foods, discipline, religion, music, traditions, and that most families have one culture or background. The food prepared in my home is quite original. Both American and Jamaican foods are prepared every day at the Bowser residence. Rice n' peas, jerk chicken, and stew beef and rice, are a West Indian-style dinner. Mashed potatoes, franks, and burgers, are an American-style dinner. My mother, Brigitte Bowser, says, "I feel that learned to cook both types of foods to please both cultures."
Discipline and home training is very complex in my home. While most Caribbean families train their children through "spankings," American families train their children through bribes and reverse psychology. I received the best discipline and home training by getting more bribes than "spankings," because my family swayed more into American than Jamaican beliefs.
I choose not to carry a religion because of the complexity in choosing choose between two entirely different religions and the hundreds of other religions. I stand undecided between my American Muslim father, who has a strong personality, and my Jamaican Christian mother, who has a passive attitude.
Music is another big difference between my household and other households. Both of my parents are quite young and they listen to the same type of music that I listen to. I associate myself with different types of music. My friend Shernelle, who is from Barbados, is quite familiar with Reggae music. I am familiar with both Reggae and Rap music.
I consider myself very fortunate to have an American-Jamaican background so that I am exposed to this mixture. It has allowed me to be open minded about music, food, respect for other traditions, discipline, religion and cultures. I have the ability to prepare almost any food and the freedom to choose a religion of my choice. This is truly an experience to pass on to others.
Interview #1
Question 1: What is immigration?
Answer: Immigration is a way for someone to come to a different country for a better way of life.
Question 2: Do you think immigration benefited the United States?
Answer: I think it crowded the United States. People without much experience are looking for jobs like driving a cab and they can't understand English.
Question 3: Do you think the rights of immigrants should be limited? Why?
Answer: Yes. They should just be allowed to live here and have a job that does not require much experience.
Question 4: Does where you come from have a great importance to you?
Answer: Yes. I am an American and that means a lot to me. I believe strongly in nationalism.
Interview #2
Question 1: What is immigration?
Answer: I feel an immigrant is a person moving from one country to the next to gain better status.
Question 2: Do you think immigration benefited the United States?
Answer: I think it benefited the United States in several different ways.
Question 3: Do you think the rights of immigrants should be limited? Why?
Answer: I think all immigrants should take a class in the historical background of America, and even more importantly, be able to speak and understand English.
Question 4: Does where you come from have a great importance to you?
Answer: To me, it really does not matter. I really don't think that is what makes me who I am and therefore it does not have much importance to me.
Interview #3
Question 1: What is immigration?
Answer: Immigration is the process whereby a person leaves their country to live in another.
Question 2: Do you think immigration benefited the United States?
Answer: I think it helped because people from other countries bring resources that are useful to the United States.
Question 3: Do you think the rights of immigrants should be limited? Why?
Answer: I think they should be limited because they are not originally from this country. If you were to go to another country you would be considered an individual from a foreign country.
Question 4: Does where you come from have a great importance to you?
Answer: Yes it does. I have pride in where I come from
Interview #4
Question 1: What is immigration?
Answer: Immigration is when a person leaves one country to go to the next.
Question 2: Do you think immigration benefited the United States?
Answer: It benefited the United States by people coming into the United States and trading ideas and helping with the materials needed.
Question 3: Do you think the rights of immigrants should be limited? Why?
Answer: I think they should be given all the rights that Americans are given. They should be treated equal.
Question 4: Does where you come from have a great importance to you?
Answer: Not really. My personality is what makes me who I am, not where I come from.
Interview #5
Question 1: What is immigration?
Answer: It is an opportunity for someone to leave their oppressed country for a better way for their family. America offers that opportunity.
Question 2: Do you think immigration benefited the United States?
Answer: It benefited the United States by the mix of people coming together from different cultures.
Question 3: Do you think the rights of immigrants should be limited? Why?
Answer: I think immigrants should have all rights with the exception of being able to vote. You should be an American citizen in order to vote.
Question 4: Does where you come from have a great importance to you?
Answer: Yes. It is my birth place, where I come from, and I can't forget that.
This oral history project is about the Stanley and Foreman families and their histories. The Foreman family came from Snowhill, North Carolina. My grandparents' names are Rosetta and Matthew Foreman. They conceived seventeen children, but three of them died at birth. The fourteen children that survived lived in a house on Macleenin St. in Snowhill. My father, Samuel Foreman, is the third oldest son. My grandfather worked on a farm that he owned, while my grandmother tended to the children and worked as a house wife. In the early 1900s, African Americans were treated as lower class citizens. They lacked education and did not receive the same opportunities as others. Despite all the racism and stereotypes about black people, my grandparents took care of their own and maintained their home without hesitation and by avoiding distractions.
The Stanley family came from Birmingham, Alabama. My grandparents' names are Carol and Benjamin Stanley. Together they conceived four beautiful and intelligent children--Patricia, Evelyn, Bobby and Jessey Ray. They lived in a house on Johnson Avenue in Birmingham. My grandmother was a nurse in a hospital but she died when my mother was eight. My grandfather was the secretary of a union of coal miners. During that time African Americans didn't receive equal opportunities as the next person. My grandmother and grandfather went through a lot to get what we have today.
An Interview with Samuel Foreman
How many siblings lived in your household and what did they do for a living?
It was 14 siblings that I lived with. We got along good. Everyone did their thing and that was it. Being that I was the third oldest I had more responsibilities. My brothers and I worked the farm every day.
What did you love about your childhood?
The thing I loved about my childhood was no worries. If I was a child now, I would enjoy my youth and not rush to be grown. You knew your place when I was young, when grown folks were talking, your place was not to do as I do, but to do as I say.
What did your family then and our family now have in common?
Both families have morals and respect. Now you have children that curse their parents, babies having babies, and children with no respect for the elderly. They talk any old way. Children need more discipline from both parents. See, in my family, my mother and father was always around. Now I understand times change, and people are so quick to play the role of an adult, but when times get hard, they want to run to their parents. All I know is that parents need to discipline their children more. Let them know who's the parents in the family.
What was the educational system like for you growing up?
The education down south was very limited. I mean, black people was always treated with no respect. Racism was more out in the open. White folks will call you a "nigger" in your face and you couldn't do anything. You try to play the "Head Nigger" and you would be a "Dead Nigger." I remember when I was sixteen years old, and my father was ashamed of what he had to do to maintain his household. I mean he never did anything wrong, it was how people did things. At the end of the week my father had to give half of his profit of what was made on the farm to this white guy named Mr. Hendrix. Mr. Hendrix was a young dude, like myself. At the time my father was in his late 30s and Mr. Hendrix said: "Boy it shouldn't be taking you so dam long to give me what you owe me." Them words had me thinking, a grown man like my father was being called a boy. That showed me who had the upper hand, who was respected and who wasn't. We as black people was never known as a human being. Teachers were very strict and they had the authority to beat your behind if you were not doing what you were told, that's the only differences. The school system up here just tolerates anything. Children today are missing the whole issue. School is not show and tell, it's learn and teach, because once you have the education you have the knowledge to succeed.
Do you think history is repeating itself?
Hell ya, history is repeating itself, just for the simple fact that we are still not treated as equal. We are just in another form of slavery. In my day you worked on somebody else's land, now you can't get your own without somebody or something distracting you. A black man has to work twice as hard as the white man and still be two steps behind.
If you know what you know now, what you change? Why?
If I knew having children was as hard as it is, and expensive, I think I would have waited because I would have stayed in college and studied something that was more beneficial.
Furthering my education is important to my family and every grown-up around me because they want me to be someone positive in life. Knowing how the world is today for minorities and women, if we don't arm ourselves with education, then we are fighting a losing battle. For my mother, continuing my education is important because she was a high school drop-out and she knows what it is like to go down that road. In order for me not to follow in her footsteps, she has to keep pushing me. I figure that is one of the reasons I am in America today, so she can guide my schooling, and be there fore me through thick and thin.
When my mother was a little girl, she went to school with one notebook for about nine subjects. She hardly ever had any textbooks. Her mother had seven more children to provide for and most of them never made it to high school. Now that my mother is in the U.S., she is trying to make something of her life by going to college at the age of thirty-six. She is always telling me to "take every opportunity and advantage of education." I have to graduate from high school and college, get my master degree in whatever I want to do, and then start enjoying life.
