Reflection from work

I saw a Sudanese man at work today trace the outline of a woman wearing a light sundress--beige in color and speckled all over with the pink petals of small embroidered flowers--with the mouse of his computer. She was a far-away woman both in reality and in gaze: her eyes were staring at the camera without much expression except that of the realization that she is nowhere with no future and, to top it all off, without her loved one. Was this man, the one who was in our computer lab, her husband? Her lover? Her best friend? Her brother? He kept tracing her picture with the cursor from his computer mouse; I watched the cursor lightly brush past her braided hair, down over her smooth cheeks and over pink lips that contrasted powerfully with her soft, dark complexion. He knew I was standing behind him, watching this most intimate of acts between himself and this far-off, once-loved woman, but he didn't stop. He just kept tracing, tracing her eyebrows, breasts, and thighs and body--a body that was shrouded in the long, curtain-like raiment of the dress.

A man by the name of Edwin has been enlivening our halls at work, filling the air with that deep African resonance that makes the English language seem almost exotic, even foreign to my ear. I don't know really what his purpose here is, but he seems to be in holding until the time comes when he will be able to move to Houston, Texas, to try his hand at trucking in the USA.

Yesterday, Edwin met one of the unruly teens we have coming through the center, Deng. Deng emigrated to the United States when he was only a two-year-old; his mother was a refugee fleeing the civil war between the South and the North of Sudan, while his father was a "General" in the Sudanese liberation army--by the way, it seems to me that all African women, when asked what their men do back in Africa, unhesitatingly reply that "he is a General." Deng fights, argues, and has a nearly uncontrollable animosity towards those individuals who have a better life situation than himself, which he barley manages to hide beneath layers of intelligence and an out-going personality. Often times he can be seen berating the racial and family history of other Africans, youth and volunteers for not being 'African' enough, or not "understanding me."

Anyways, Edwin ran into Deng in the hallway across from my office. He then proceeded for the next twenty minutes to lecture Deng on remembering the importance of an education and the necessity of staying out of trouble and not running amuck with lesser people who have a predisposition to steal, lie and cheat. Edwin, in a seemingly unwarranted and very dangerous statement, told Deng that he should never forget that "He will never be an American," and that he should "Always remember that he is a third-world child, not a first-world child." I could see that Deng began to feel uncomfortable. I, myself, was a little bit taken back by such a brash statement of "You are not who you think you are." This would have been acceptable if Deng had an actual working memory of "HIS country"--as Edwin kept saying in reference to Sudan--but Deng knows only Erie. He knows only snow in winters, boarded up buildings on Parade Street, and the struggles that his mother has in acculturating to the fast-paced, work-heavy American life. His Sudanese Arabic, I'm sure, has a thick American English accent on it. How could Edwin, a Kenyan who has been in the United States for a mere three days, speak to this young man about nationality and history with such authority? And how could Edwin feel confident and knowledgeable enough to assuredly give opinions on matters of what makes an American an American, and what it means to be accepted into the American nation?

After the conversation with Deng, Edwin plopped into my seat and sorrowfully exclaimed that "these African kids forget who they really are; that’s sad." This got me thinking: Didn't all of us Americans have to--at least at some point--forget who we were or where our family came from to accept at least a part of our own 'Americaness?' And, when is an American actually created? At the moment they make the decision to accept their Green Card? Or at the time their memory of the 'old country' is nothing but a collection of stories and photographs from family members long deceased?