What its like to be the child of immigrants Michael Rain
I remember one morning
when I was in the third grade,
my mom sent me to school
with a Ghanaian staple dish called “fufu.”
(Laughter)
Fufu is this white ball of starch
made of cassava,
and it’s served with light soup,
which is a dark orange color,
and contains chicken and/or beef.
It’s a savory, flavorful dish
that my mom thought
would keep me warm on a cold day.
When I got to lunch
and I opened my thermos,
releasing these new smells into the air,
my friends did not react favorably.
(Laughter)
“What’s that?” one of them asked.
“It’s fufu,” I responded.
(Laughter)
“Ew, that smells funny.
What’s a fufu?” they asked.
Their reaction made me lose my appetite.
I begged my mother to never
send me to school with fufu again.
I asked her to make me sandwiches
or chicken noodle soup
or any of the other foods
that my friends were eating.
And this is one of the first times
I began to notice the distinction
between what was unique to my family
and what was common for everyone else,
what was Ghanaian and what was African
and what was American.
I’m a first-generation American.
Both of my parents are immigrants.
In fact, my father, Gabriel,
came to the US almost 50 years ago.
He arrived in New York
from a city called Kumasi
in a northern region of Ghana,
in West Africa.
He came for school, earning
his bachelor’s degree in accounting
and eventually became an accountant.
My mother, Georgina,
joined him years later.
She had a love of fashion
and worked in a sewing factory
in lower Manhattan,
until she saved up enough to open
her own women’s clothing store.
I consider myself an American
and an African
and a Ghanaian.
And there’s millions of people
around the world
who are juggling
these different classifications.
They might be Jamaican-Canadians
or Korean-Americans or Nigerian-Brits.
But what makes our stories
and experiences different
is that we were born and raised
in a country different than our parents,
and this can cause us to be misunderstood
when being viewed through a narrow lens.
I grew up in New York, which is home
to the largest number of immigrants
anywhere in the United States.
And you would think growing up
in a place like New York,
it would be easy for a first-generation
person to find their place.
But all throughout my childhood,
there were these moments
that formed my understanding
of the different worlds I belonged to.
When I was in the fifth grade,
a student asked me
if my family was refugees.
I didn’t know what that word meant.
He explained to me
that his parents told him
that refugees are people from Africa
who come to the US
to escape death, starvation and disease.
So I asked my parents,
and they laughed a bit,
not because it was funny
but because it was a generalization.
And they assured me that they had
enough to eat in Ghana
and came to the US willingly.
(Laughter)
These questions became
more complex as I got older.
Junior high school was the first time
I went to school with a large number
of black American students,
and many of them couldn’t understand
why I sounded differently than they did
or why my parents seemed
different than theirs.
“Are you even black?” a student asked.
I mean, I thought I was black.
(Laughter)
I thought my skin complexion settled that.
(Laughter)
I asked my father about it,
and he shared his own confusion
over the significance of that
when he first came to the US.
He explained to me that,
when he was in Ghana, everyone was black,
so he never thought about it.
But in the US, it’s a thing.
(Laughter)
But he would say, “But you’re African.
Remember that.”
And he would emphasize this,
even though many Africans in the continent
would only consider me to be
just an American.
These misconceptions
and complex cultural issues
are not just the inquiries of children.
Adults don’t know who immigrants are.
If we look at current trends,
if I asked you: What’s the fastest-growing
immigrant demographic
in the United States,
who would you think it was?
Nine out of 10 people
tell me it’s Latinos,
but it’s actually African immigrants.
How about in academics?
What’s the most educated
immigrant demographic?
A lot of people presume it to be Asians,
but it’s actually African immigrants.
Even in matters of policy,
did you know that three
out of the eight countries
in the so-called “travel ban”
are African countries?
A lot of people assume those targeted
Muslims only live in the Middle East,
but a lot of those
banned people are Africans.
So on these issues of education
and policy and religion,
a lot of things we presume
about immigrants are incorrect.
Even if we look at something
like workplace diversity and inclusion,
if I asked you what
gender-ethnicity combination
is least likely to be promoted
to senior managerial positions,
who would you think it was?
The answer is not Africans this time.
(Laughter)
And it’s not black women or men,
and it’s not Latin women or men.
It’s Asian women who are
least likely to be promoted.
Capturing these stories and issues
is part of my work
as a digital storyteller
that uses tech to make it easier
for people to find these stories.
This year, I launched an online gallery
of portraits and firsthand accounts
for a project called Enodi.
The goal of Enodi is to highlight
first-generation immigrants just like me
who carry this kinship
for the countries we grew up in,
for the countries of origin
and for this concept called “blackness.”
I created this space to be a cyberhome
for many of us who are misunderstood
in our different home countries.
There are millions of Enodis
who use hyphens to connect
their countries of origin
with their various homes in the US
or Canada or Britain or Germany.
In fact, many people
you might know are Enodi.
Actors Issa Rae and Idris Elba are Enodi.
Colin Powell,
former Attorney General Eric Holder,
former President of the United
States, Barack Obama,
are all the children of African
or Caribbean immigrants.
But how much do you know about us?
This complicated navigation
is not just the experience
of first-generation folks.
We’re so intertwined
in the lives and culture of people
in North America and Europe,
that you might be surprised
how critical we are
to your histories and future.
So, engage us in conversation;
discover who immigrants actually are,
and see us apart from characterizations
or limited media narratives
or even who we might appear to be.
We’re walking melting pots of culture,
and if something in that pot
smells new or different to you –
(Laughter)
don’t turn up your nose.
Ask us to share.
Thank you.
(Applause)