Jerry Large
Seattle Times staff columnist
Letting people tell their stories is a powerful way of illuminating the world.
With that in mind, a Seattle writer, Sandra Chait, has collected the thoughts of people whose stories stretch from the Horn of Africa to multiple neighborhoods around King County and in Portland.
Chait wove their stories into a book, "Seeking Salaam," that captures the complexity of identity and the horror and hopefulness of life for her subjects.
The book is based on interviews with 41 people from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. A number of them are people I've written about over the years.
Chait explores their relationships with each other here, the historical and ongoing conflicts in their homelands, divisions within each community, and their efforts to make a place for themselves in the American mix.
Chait is herself an immigrant from a country with its share of painful history, South Africa.
"When I came to the U.S., I was ashamed of being a white South African," she told me. People jumped to conclusions about her, but she came to terms with that and began writing about being South African.
People want to be understood. We tell stories to say this is who I am, and we tell them to establish our relationships with others.
During a decade at the University of Washington, Chait, who taught English literature and African literature and who was associate director of the university's Program on Africa, heard lots of stories from students from countries in the Horn of Africa. Often they conflicted with one another.
She wanted to make a record of the many individual stories and to give Northwesterners more insight into their newer neighbors.
Refugee efforts to establish a life here are affected by how we view the lands they come from.
Chait writes that Americans generally have a favorable view of Ethiopians. We see them as Christians, though a third are Muslim. Americans appreciate the history they proclaim for themselves as descendants of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. They are respected for having repelled an Italian attempt at conquest.
Eritreans have a different situation. Lots of Americans have never heard of their country or think it is part of Ethiopia. Ethiopians and Eritreans have differences over that, too.
At the other end of the spectrum, Somalis feel weighted down by negatives impressions born of fear of terrorism, which attaches to them because they are mostly Muslim. Chait explores several local events and people affected by the anti-terrorist campaign.
And while all three groups are building a place among more established Americans, they do so without the benefit of mutual understanding. There is a long history of conflict among the countries.
Many refugees maintain East African boundaries in American neighborhoods, Somalis gather at this cafe, Ethiopians at that one, and Eritreans at another.
And beyond that, within each country there are divisions based on clan, religion, region, even ethnicity.
People she interviewed differ about who is a real Somali, who is a real Ethiopian, and about who did what to whom.
Outsiders may find their conflicting stories both confusing and enlightening. In what part of the world is this not the case? We are much more alike than we like to think.
Their region, the Horn of Africa, is in chaos at this moment. And, like so many waves of immigrants before them, the East Africans have found a refuge here.
And they are repeating another pattern, too.
The stories of young people Chait interviewed differ from those of their parents. The old conflicts don't make their hearts race, they date across lines their parents would never have crossed. They appreciate their parents' culture, but their identities are rooted here. Here is where their stories are being written.
Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.
Source: The Seattle Times
No comments:
Post a Comment