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By Eucharia Mbachu
The United States of America has received large number of immigrants from various parts of the world since the beginning of the last century. African presence in Maryland goes back to the days of slavery. History tell us about the life and times of Ayub Ibn Sulaiman Jallow, the African prince who was involved in slave trading but ended in Annapolis in Maryland. There he witnessed the plight of his fellow Africans who made the Middle Passage. His story is remembered in Douglas Grant’s book “The Fortunate Slave”. This African Prince shared the attention of writers and contemporaries with Yarrow Mamout (Yorro Mahmud) who is now remembered at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History as the Maryland Muslim. This man served as a slave for many decades and was given his freedom in his later years.
The arrival of Africans in any significant numbers is tied to the Cold War and to the decolonization of Africa from European colonial rule. During the Cold War many young Africans came here to study and returned home to serve in various capacities in their lands of origins. The number of Africans who decided to settle here for short or long-term was very small. What changed the situation since the late 1960’s and thereafter lies in political turmoil and regime collapse. The outbreak of civil wars in such places as Congo and Nigeria in the 1960’s and 1970’s led to the beginning of African immigration. There were few Congolese here then, but the number of Nigerians of Ibo origins was relatively significant.
Maryland was one of the areas of interest to these early Africans because of its proximity to the nation’s capital and because of its location on the eastern seaboard. Although the situation in the sixties and seventies were not favorable to any large African influx in Montgomery and Prince George ’s Counties, the conditions would change in the last decades of the last century.
Census figures tell us that both Prince George ’s and Montgomery counties are multicultural in their demographics. Africans are now widely distributed in both counties. The last forty years have seen the growing numbers for a variety of ethnic groups. The primary national and ethnic groupings are from the following countries in Africa : Nigeria , Ghana , Liberia , Sierra Leone , Ethiopia , Somalia , Eritrea , Senegalese and Gambians. There are other African nationalities but their numbers are relatively smaller than those listed above. A review of the census in both counties would show that Africans from the Horn of Africa are more visible in Northern Virginia than in the two Maryland counties.
In writing about the African immigrants one can identify four areas of interest. The first area is that of community-building in their new location. Almost all the African immigrant groups have organized themselves along two lines. There are groups created purposely to reinforce ethnic or national cultures and traditions. Hence the African Directory contains the names, addresses and telephone numbers of different cultural communities that address a wide range of topics. Some of these groups serve the needs of groups with respect to rites of passage of their country men and women. For example, there are Nigerian, Ghanaian, Sierra Leonean, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Somalis or Senegambian organizations that meet to celebrate weddings, naming ceremonies or funeral services for members of their communities. These events have received scholarly treatments as in the case of an anthropological study of Muslim Sierra Leoneans in the Greater Washington area.
The other area in which these African immigrants have organized themselves is in the form of private enterprises. These structures are in the form of restaurants, night clubs, hair braiding shops, law offices and other professional bureaus. Through these structures, the African immigrants in Montgomery Prince George’s counties are connected to one another. The restaurants do not cater to Africans alone; rather they seek to widen the circle of African culinary to reach the taste buds of Americans and other immigrants from other parts of the world. During the weekend one has the opportunity to see large numbers of African immigrants buying African cooking ingredients from food stores owned by fellow Africans in Langley Park or dpwn towm Silver Spring . These food stores are not organized only for food stuff. They provide a wide range of services. The latest hits from Nollywood, the Nigerian counterpart to India ’s Bollywood and America ’s Hollywood , are usually prominently display. Many African parents are beginning to buy these DVDs and Video products to connect their children with their home cultures. What makes these products cultural attractive and social useful lies in their messages and their affirmation of the cultures left behind by the parents of the second generation immigrant Americans.
The last area to be covered here are the structures of religion that have developed over the last two decades. Several theses and dissertations of African students at Howard University and elsewhere in the neighboring universities have focused on these immigrants and their experiences. There are several Christian and Muslim organizations in the State of Maryland especially in West Montgomery County . The Christian groups consist mainly of Catholics and mainline Christian groups. The African Catholics have historically interacted within their mother churches here. However, the larger ethnic groups such as the Ibos have tried to create a congregation where their ethnic language enjoys primacy and parishioners are given the opportunity to pray and sing in their native tounges. In addition to this development, there is also the emergence of African Christian churches that are modeled after their counterparts back in Africa . There are many active African evangelicals and their activism has also received attention from scholars in the universities. Two things are significant in this respect. The first is the growing impact of these home-grown African churches in the lives of the immigrants. The second is their successful partnership with their home country churches. Through such activism, one is more and more likely to encounter such preachers and their congregations in hotels and auditoriums across the county.
The other religious groups are the African Muslim immigrants. The Nigerians and the Senegalese have the largest followers. Under the leadership of their Islamic center on eastern avenue in the borderline between Prince George ’s County and the District of Columbia , the Nigerians have built a place of worship for themselves. During Muslim holidays, such as Ramadan and Idel Fitr, Nigerian Muslims and other believers share space in this location. Not only do they eat together but they create a cultural environment that replicate locally much of what they know back home in Nigeria .
The other group is the Senegalese community. Divided into two main groupings such as the Muridiyya and the Tijaniyya, these organizations have set up places of worship in Maryland . The Muridiyya are visible in Lanham in Prince George ’s County and their activities have attracted the attention of local political leaders in both the county and in the District of Columbia . Over the last five years or more, the city council in Washington DC has honored their founding father, Shaykh Ahmad Bamba, by naming a particular day in the year. The other group is the Tijaniyya whose activism is evident in their annual celebration of the Mawlid ul-Nabi, the birth day of Prophet Muhammad. These groups joined other Muslims in such Muslim holiday celebrations such as Idel Fitr (end of the fasting month) and the feast of sacrifice better known as Idel Kabir.
The story of the African immigrants in Maryland has a long-term and a short-term component. The first African immigrants came here in the era of slavery. In this narrative the story of those who came more recently tells us how the Cold War and decolonization in Africa contributed to their arrival. Some of them are here to stay and they are creating business and social organizations to facilitate their lives and cultures. Their activities are part of the economic and cultural enrichment of Maryland life and the counties they live in. The political leaders who count numbers and votes are already aware of their presence and they are here to stay.
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Posted by Robot| 02.03.2007 05:50