• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Visiting Professor Francis Nesbitt is originally from Kenya. He is teaching a course on African i

Benedict Oladele, an international scholar from Nigeria, often has lunch with his friend Gary Moore, who drives a campus shuttle. While eating lunch and taking breaks from their busy schedules, the two share experiences from their different backgrounds.

“We both share stories about our cultures and experiences, and while we are doing this, we learn more about each other,” Oladele said, adding that he values the time he spends with his friend from UCLA’s African American community.

The experiences which Oladele and Moore bond over are reflective of the common bond shared by UCLA’s African America and African communities.

Though thousands of miles separated the communities for hundreds of years, both embrace their common history and the significant role Black History Month plays in each respective community.

Scot Brown, a professor of African American studies at UCLA, believes the history of the African American community is greatly integrated with the history of African people – both groups share roots in the same community, both at UCLA and beyond.

“History has divided Africans and African Americans, and the university experience of interaction should strengthen and solidify the bond between us,” Brown said. “The university experience provides an opportunity for blacks throughout the community to meet and draw relationships and alliances.”

The inception of the month itself evolved out of Carter G. Woodson’s Negro History Week in the 1920s and has roots in acknowledging African history, Brown said.

UCLA’s African community is mainly composed of visiting scholars within the Global Fellows Program, which exchanges scholars from different countries and allows them to research and teach at a participating institution such as UCLA.

Francis Nesbitt is one such scholar. Nesbitt is originally from Kenya and holds a doctorate degree in African American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This is his first year in the UCLA program and he said he feels connected to the African American community.

“I feel an intellectual connection with African Americans here at UCLA, in Los Angeles and around the country,” said Nesbitt, who teaches a seminar in the history department titled “African Intellectuals in Exile: 1945 to the Present.”

Nesbitt added he has greatly benefited from the expertise at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA and several of the faculty have already reviewed his work, including books he has written.

Nesbitt believes those in the African community should celebrate Black History Month because the month also recognizes the migrating of Africans into the United States and the struggles they faced, which Nesbitt said he learned about during his time as a student in Africa.

“I remember taking classes on African American history and the Civil Rights Movement in the University of Nairobi,” he said.

Oladele, a Fulbright scholar, said he looks at Black History Month as a celebration by all in the black community, mainly because it recognizes the achievements blacks have made throughout the years.

“It should not matter whether one is African or African American because we are celebrating the same recognition and (we) come from the same origins,” Oladele said.

The scholars work out of the UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center and act as cultural academic ambassadors because they share their culture and knowledge with the UCLA community, said Azeb Tadesse, the assistant director of the center who is Ethiopian but has lived in the United States since she was 14.

For Tadesse, black history is not just a celebration in February, but a celebration of black achievements throughout the year.

She praises the diversity in the black community because it allows for more cultural awareness within the community. Student groups such as the African Student Union are places where students can identify with different cultures within the black community as a whole, Tadesse said.

Aweh Wami, a fifth-year African American Studies student, said she has a close connection with the African community because her parents came to the United States from Nigeria in order to have an opportunity of higher education.

“There is a lot of interaction between the two communities, mainly because we share the same identity and have similar lifestyles – even though we come from different backgrounds,” Wami said.

“Africans’ role in Black History Month is important because it is the fight of black people from the African diaspora in general,” Wami said. “The fight for black rights by African Americans has been for everyone who came after so that they would be able to have these rights.”

Even though both communities share similar roots and some of the same struggles, there are still distinct differences in their respective cultures.

For Nesbitt, the main difference is Africans in the United States are still strongly connected to their native countries. Through modern technology, they can continue to speak their native language, attend traditional ceremonies, and enjoy African music and food, Nesbitt said, as he referred to a Kenyan scholar who has called Africans in the United States “American Africans instead of African Americans.”

“This was not possible for African Americans or the historical African diaspora. ... They lost their languages and ethnic identities but are actively seeking to reconnect with African history,” Nesbitt said. “I see this desire in my students both at San Diego State University and UCLA.”

And it is these differences that disconnect some in the African community from the African American community at UCLA.

Obinna Okwara, a fourth-year sociology student who was born in Nigeria, believes Black History Month should be celebrated every day by both communities, but said he cannot personally relate to the African American community.

Okwara said the difference lies in what he believes are distinct struggles facing each community. While he believes the African American community struggles to prove itself in American society, his family in the United States struggles to take care of the rest of his family back home in Nigeria.