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GREAT STORIES:
Journey
Yields Glimpse of Missing Past American Dream
The
Miami Herald
November 7, 2004
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Photo
by Sarah J. Glover
While traveling from Niger
to Sierra Leone, Miami Herald columnist Leonard
Pitts had a layover in Senegal. He visited Goree
Island, known as an exit port for African slaves
that were forced into slavery and taken to the
Americas. Pictured is the door of no return, the
exit door which slaves passed through prior to
boarding slave ships headed for the Americas.
Pictured is a moment when a tourist walked into
the doorway to get a view of the Atlantic Ocean.
| For
Africans, U.S.A.
is lighthouse in the
storm
We spend a lot of time here trying
to explain America. It is the lighthouse in the storm in
this part of the world, an exemplar looked to with hope
and expectation. People speak of America as they speak
of dreams. Every bright young man, every beaming young
woman, tells you confidently that they are going
there.
You ask an old person if they'd like to go
to America and their eyes go out of focus as if fixed
for a moment on yesterday's ambitions, now yellow and
brittle with disappointment and age.
"I'm too old
now," they'll say. "But maybe my son or daughter. If my
child can get there, get an education, make some money
" The thought makes them smile. It's always a sad
smile.
"America is a country that helps other
countries a lot," says Kedidia's cousin Souleymane, "and
that cares about humanity and about the well-being of
the rest of the world. A lot of young people and even
some adults' life dream is to visit
America."
"You are from America?" asks Hassan, a
28-year-old shopkeeper, excitedly. I am in his store
buying a soda.
I tell him yes. He points to the
floor. "First time?"
Yes, I say. This is my first
time here. Hassan, who says his command of English is
"small, small," makes me understand that he desperately
wants to go to America someday. "In Africa is difficult
to succeed."
Having spent so many years in the
United States, Kedidia's view is a bit more
jaded.
"I went to a black school in Alabama," she
says. "After that, they took me to Nebraska to study
agriculture. And it was so hard. First of all, we have
the culture shock of being there, people you don't know,
a culture you don't know. I lived in this little off
[campus] house with a lot of white people who came from
rural Nebraska. I was longing to get closer to the
African Americans, but there was no connection until
later on.
"It was very, very difficult," she
adds. "Sometimes, some white people played a game of
dividing the African Americans and the Africans. Oh
yeah, Africans are different from African Americans.
They have this stereotype of the African Americans and
they try to make you feel [like you are better than an
African American]. I'd tell them, The only difference
between me and an African American is my ancestors were
not brought here. If my ancestors were brought here by
force, you would say the same thing about me.
"
But Kedidia would like to return to the United
States someday. Or barring that, to France. Still,
there's the matter of her family, pressing her to stay
in Niger.
I ask if she ever feels herself torn
between cultures. She hesitates before admitting that
she does. |
