Musoni Francis - Voices of African Immigrants in Kentucky

Voices of African Immigrants in Kentucky

Voices of African Immigrants in Kentucky

Migration, Identity, and Transnationality

Francis Musoni, Iddah Otieno, Angene Wilson, and Jack Wilson

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Copyright 2019 by The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.

All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Musoni, Francis, author. | Otieno, Iddah Aoko, author. | Wilson, Angene Hopkins, author. | Wilson, Jack (Jack A.), author.

Title: Voices of African immigrants in Kentucky : migration, identity, and transnationality / Francis Musoni, Iddah Otieno, Angene Wilson, and Jack Wilson.

Description: Lexington, Kentucky : University Press of Kentucky, [2019] | Series: Kentucky remembered: an oral history series | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019023529 | ISBN 9780813178608 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780813178615 (pdf) | ISBN 9780813178622 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Africans--Kentucky--Interviews. |ImmigrantsKentuckyInterviews. | RefugeesKentuckyInterviews. |AfricaEmigration and immigration. | KentuckyEmigration and immigration. | Transnationalism. | Oral historyKentucky.

Classification: LCC F460.A24 M87 2019 | DDC 305.8009769dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023529

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Member of the Association of University Presses

Contents

Map of Africa. (Map provided by Dick Gilbreath.)

Nations Represented by African Immigrants in This Book

Algeria

Botswana

Burundi

Cameroon

Cte dIvoire/Ivory Coast

Democratic Republic of Congo

Egypt

Ethiopia

The Gambia

Ghana

Guinea

Kenya

Liberia

Libya

Malawi

Namibia

Nigeria

Republic of Congo

Rwanda

Senegal

Sierra Leone

Somalia

South Africa

South Sudan

Tanzania

Uganda

Zambia

Zimbabwe

Series Foreword

Kentucky is an international leader in the field of oral history. Over the past several decades, thousands of its citizens have been interviewed. While oral history is, of course, only one type of source material, the very personal nature of recollection often discloses hidden aspects of history. Oral sources thus provide a vital thread in the rich fabric that is Kentucky history. Kentucky Remembered: An Oral History Series brings into print the most important of the states collections of its citizens oral history, with each volume focusing on a particular subject.

Voices of African Immigrants in Kentucky: Migration, Identity, and Transnationality is the thirteenth volume in the Kentucky Remembered series, which explores ways in which oral history connects the individual story to tradition and to the historical record. Nationally, there is an increasing number of oral history projects documenting the immigrant experience in the United States. This book draws from forty-seven oral history interviews conducted by the authors over a five-year period. As the subtitle suggests, this is not simply an account of migration stories but an exploration of the intersection of the complex issues of culture, community, and identity. Voices of African Immigrants in Kentucky: Migration, Identity, and Transnationality weaves together compelling narratives that demonstrate the sometimes far-reaching impact of oral history and archives in the exploration and interpretation of immigrant experiences.

Douglas A. Boyd

Terry L. Birdwhistell

James C. Klotter

Preface

It is a human being that counts. I call gold, it does not answer. I call cloth, it does not answer. It is a human being that counts.

Akan/Ghanaian proverb

Voices of African Immigrants in Kentucky: Migration, Identity, and Transnationality is about particular human beings, individuals for whom the continent of Africa was their original home. Based for the most part on almost fifty oral history interviews with first-generation African immigrants in Kentucky, this book tells stories of their African pasts, of migration to the United States, specifically Kentucky, of dealing with struggles and successes, and of becoming individuals who are often simultaneously American citizens, borderlanders, and transnationals who connect and contribute to two continents. One aim is not only to tap the richness of the oral history interviews in the books narrative but also to suggest at certain points with endnotes marked with an asterisk that the reader listen to the actual voices themselves, easily available online in the African Immigrants in the Bluegrass Oral History Project at the University of Kentuckys Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History. The majority of the participants in this oral history project were born and raised in Africa during the past seven decades, a period of history that coincides with independence in most African nations, which had almost all endured more than eighty years of colonial rule following European partition in the 1880s. Their interviews illustrate the political, cultural, and religious diversity in postcolonial Africa, the opportunities and challenges of life on the continent, the connections between modern Africa and the US, and the opportunities and challenges facing differently positioned immigrants in the US as well as the various forms and levels of contact that Kentucky-based immigrants have with the continent. Although the oral history interviews focus on individual experiences, there are common themes, events, and processes that migrants from the same country or region, regardless of differences in social, economic, or political standing, commonly refer to when they talk about why and how they made decisions to temporarily or permanently move to other countries or regions of the world. Being aware of developments that push migrants out of their countries of origin will help illuminate immigrants accounts and experiences of relocation. Similarly, an appreciation of historical and contemporary events unfolding in the host country, in this case the United States, will increase understanding of immigrants experiences.