Rneee Ombaba delivered the final in a series of Brown Bag Luncheon Lectures hosted by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture Wednesday in the Barnard Observatory.
Entitled “In a Foreign Land: The Stories of African Immigrants and their Children in the US South,” Ombaba presented her experiences as the child of African Immigrants growing up in the South.
Ombaba, a second year Southern Studies graduate student working as an assistant in the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, spoke first about her name.
“Growing up I was always teased about my name,” said Ombaba, whose mother came from Zambia and father from Kenya.
“I was different,” Ombaba said. “The other kids at school saw me in the consumable depiction of Africa, and they forced me into the African box they created.”
Like many children of African immigrants, Ombaba struggled to find her identity among Southerners, Americans, African Americans, and African immigrants in America.
“African immigrants and their children can often feel detached and unwelcome when they come to America,” Ombaba said.
Ombaba remembers how at first she was unsure how to feel about her African heritage.
“I always felt I belonged at the end of the line,” Ombaba said. “My name always caused a stir when it was time for roll call.”
But for Ombaba, comfort was found was close to home.
“My mother began teaching me about my heritage,” she said.
Ombaba’s mother took time to become involved with teaching African culture to her classmates, and helped Ombaba begin to feel pride in her African heritage.
“She taught me I was special,” said Ombaba.
Today, Ombaba hopes to spread awareness in the South about the African community and culture.
“My main goal is to really show that there is an African American culture deeply involved in the South,” Ombaba said. “We exist. We are part of the culture, the heritage, and the identification. We participate.”
According to Ombaba, Africans and Southerners shape their identities though collective and personal memories. Embracing African heritage can be vitally important in community building and developing a sense of identity for both African immigrants and their children.
“It gives people the opportunity to share experiences to find out who they are,” Ombaba said, “In some cases, community is all African immigrants and their children have to stay connected.”
Ombaba hopes that by bringing the African culture of the South into better light, she will help those caught between two worlds to find out who they are.
Hosted by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture in Barnard Observatory since it’s foundation in 1978, the “Brown Bag Luncheon” is a lecture series featured every Wednesday during the academic year at noon.
“We call it our “brown bag series,” because we hope folks with simply bring their lunch (in or out of a brown bag) and spend their noon hour on Wednesdays with us in our lecture hall,” says Mary Hartwell, Operations Assistant for the Center. “The series is part of the Center’s community outreach to afford folks an opportunity to learn about the broad spectrum of our interdisciplinary approach in the study of Southern culture.”
-McKenna Wierman
mckenna.wierman@yahoo.com
