Francis O Nyachae
10/16/2011
Thomas Maltman
Ethnography
The Immigrants Untold Story
I chose to study more about immigration because I felt the subject hasn’t been given a lot of attention and where it had, it was greatly misrepresented. I will seek to know what my subjects really hope to achieve or what they were in pursue of when they decided to cross borders, why they choose here i.e. The United states Of America. My location will be in the twin cities and I will focus mostly on Immigrants from Africa with an emphasis on first generation immigrants meaning immigrants who weren’t born here. I remember my late grandfather Ombese Nyachae telling my dad “as much as someone would tell you how they know you feel, Its only you who truly understands” indeed, I can relate, I can come close understand after comprehension, its only the shoe wearer who would tell it as it is.
From the previous census The United States of America in 2009 had a population of 309 million people that according to the U.S department of Statistics where 11 million was a combination of both undocumented and documented aliens. Part of my main focus was to identify the kind of living standards they have, what goals they do have and if they believe they would be better of here at the end of the day than back their original homes.
Identifying subjects to research on and interview was a small rocky mountain because of the complexity of the issue and the last thing I wanted to do was to invade or intrude on other individual’s lives. I did not want to assume that all Africans or Asians were immigrants.
I was a big fan of geography till I got an instructor that never really cared and there went an area that I could have focused on even as a career; but I remember that The United states of America was considered a melting pot from the little knowledge I had acquired; thus in a way almost everyone was an immigrant at one time. Why not Asia, United Kingdom or Switzerland?
The main root of gathering information for me was both interviewing and observation. My plan then became to gain my subjects trust and thereafter focus on my main topic if my subjects allowed me. Luckily enough my target group did not have any lacking on subjects that I would dig into headfast without causing alarm. Thus decided on culture, social economics and targets goals ambitions basically where they are now, where they need to be and where they hope to be.
My location was at a church gathering in Brooklyn Park city which is dominated by Liberians, Kenyans, and Togo, a few from Sudan, Somalia and Nigerians. The service was a different from your normal setting in a church since they had three translators for the three different nationalities which became evident they spoke different languages. They were all housed in one large auditorium but had different locations that had projectors and translators from different tribes. The church could sit easy a thousand people but on that particular day it had almost six hundred people.
The church had different regions for different communities and adults were separated from children; they had their own nursery. The church was all colorful beginning with how people were dressed. This was not your formal gathering where folks were all formal; people were dressed casually, traditional attire, others were on jeans and T-shirts.
One evident thing right away I learned was this communities do indeed stick together; despite them coming from different countries, speaking different languages, they still decided to congregate on one location. In my interview with two pastors and three church elders, the response they had to me was” we all worship the same God despite the language difference, Why not stay together and demonstrate the love”. The Music they played was just in one word incredible. The mixture of drums, the piano, the saxophone produced a magnificent symphony like outcome.
Once I had gained the trust and rapport with my interviewees I decided to go in phases so that it dint appear as suspicious. On the back of my mind , I learned that a good number of the African immigrants don’t have legal status of being here . They either came visiting or schooling here and after their main purpose to their trip the decided on making this their home thus violating their Visa; consequences of which could lead to imprisonment or a fine maybe both thereafter immediate deportation irrespective of what you did.
A small number was here as a result of winning a green card, which is a lottery, conducted by the US government or asylum seekers. On an average yearly according to the department of homeland security and the department of immigration, the DV program (diversity Visa) provides 50 000 green cards with a greater number of Visas going to regions with lower rates of Immigration.
Without a legal basis of being here an individual is not entitled to any kind of benefits like being legally employed, having a drivers license medical coverage , social security etc. This meant that they have too look for jobs that other folks don’t want at a not so fare remuneration. Without an option some of them settle for this and it becomes part of their livelihood. The kind of jobs they settle for menial jobs like being nannies, working in nursing jobs, construction, bus driving cab drivers etc. Quite a few of them focused on white-collar jobs.
There was the other set of individuals who decided to pursue in academics; they did indeed manage to have a better life that their counterparts though they still had issues of working legitimately. Since they did not have legal status. This though never stopped them as some went ahead and falsified their clearance for working. The pastors and the elders emphasized to me that most immigrants are hard workers, not looking for shortcuts and willing to work and pay their way and dint want handouts.
Among the people I was interviewing was Makayla Kwamboka, a postgraduate student in the University Of Minnesota and Professor Callen Marube; this was clearly evident to me that these we individuals who valued education and had a focus in life, which brought me to the other focus I had.
There were so many locations that they would have settled in but decided to choose here the United states of America. Proximity definitely wasn’t a reason since it’s almost 8000 miles away. One of the church elders responded to me that different individuals had different reasons as to why they choose where they ended up in but reiterated that the main reason was they had felt that this country was an advocate for the voiceless, was democratic and it emphasized individuals having their rights respected and most important the American dream. “The Image the United States had portrayed to me was this was a place where you would become anything you always wanted to be like a lawyer, teacher, engineer if you worked hard” Makayla stated.
“Some of the people here lost all they had in terms of material things and close family during war ‘’ Callen, an elder from the Liberian community responded” thus for them coming here was basically a way to start a fresh and running away from persecution, wars inequality, terrible acts in the name of tradition (female genital mutilation)”. In the back of my mind the big question I had was if they had met their expectations by coming her and the results I had were really contrastingly shocking. Apparently for individuals who never pursued an education or never got a career would love continue staying here since if they go back home they don’t have anything to show for the time they have stayed here and would be worse of in comparison to individuals on the ground since they have had time to build up their way around, while the other category of the educated career holders were ready to go back anytime as they felt that their services would be utilized more back home since they had at least some credentials. I Learned on later that both sets in categories had gotten to a point where their main focus was having their children have the forest benefits that they never had like exposure to a fast phase of life and an education, this meant they were here basically because of their children. A Somali elder mentioned to me ‘I d rather drive my cab here and make minimum wage than going back home where there is political unrest and I wouldn’t be able to make even a tenth of the Minimum wage I’m making here doing a far much better job than I’m going now”. I later on learned that most of the immigrants basically came to whichever state they had relatives, though individuals who were not with proper documentation kept on shifting states looking for states that were more liberal on issues of immigrations like Texas.
The elders mentioned to me that they have fears that their cultures we slowly being eroded and that’s why they sought to combine several communities albeit being different so as to identify what they had in common and try to see if they can preserve what’s left.
The response I got from them that really shocked me was when I asked the elders and the clerics what they were doing to help out the communities that needed help in terms of being legal; their response was “Nothing at the moment “Its just too expensive, attorney fees, State fees is just too expensive. Apparently they believe that the older generation facing their situation would have to be a burden bearer.
After the conclusion of my interview I was left with a lot to ponder on and was glad that I got a lot questions answered. I learned that immigrants are just like any other human being with the pursuit of a better life. They are also very educated individuals though not all, and a good number of them had been hampered by lack of status. I learned of how strong and determined they were in clinching onto their traditions and cultures. I did learn too that they hadn’t taken a better much more proactive way of looking for a solution, perhaps this was because of fear of repercussions of was as they had mentioned, lack of finances. It was evident that there was a great disparity of the learned and the latter; It was also brought to light of what brought them here and the reasons were basically quite different depending on the circumstance, some were because of war, asylum, search of greener pastures. All in all at the end of my study I was left at a standstill since I felt obligated to help out and I knew very well I wasn’t well situated to do anything major. This could be a race for another day while well prepared, a inner voice within stated.
Works Cited
A place where you would become anything you always wanted to be like a lawyer, teacher, and an engineer if you worked hard.(Makayla Kwamboka) 5 October 2011. Personal Interview.
Basically a way to start a fresh and running away from persecution, wars inequality, terrible acts in the name of tradition like female genital mutilation . (Professor Callen Marube) 5 October 2011 Personal Interview.
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