The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Monday, December 9, 2019 — 3A
This is now one of the best times
of the year in my opinion. Even if
you don’t celebrate a particular
holiday, it is great to acknowledge
the power of love, offering and
being surrounded by others. I
personally celebrate Thanksgiving
and Christmas — growing up in
a Christian family has made this
time very important to me. When
I think about the holidays, I realize
the integrity of culture to the
traditions of these celebrations. I
am used to going to church more
during this season and having
huge family dinners consisting of
soul food and card games.
But there is another holiday
that I realize has ties to my
heritage that I have yet to formally
celebrate: Kwanzaa is a week-long
holiday celebrated from December
26th to January 1st in and around
the United States to celebrate and
honor African heritage in our
culture. For some reason when I
was in elementary school learning
about Kwanzaa, I always thought
of it as something celebrated by
people of another culture. I didn’t
have any friends who celebrated
it even though the majority of
my friends were also African-
American, so it never seemed
strange to me that my family never
did.
I think the reasoning for this
is sometimes it is hard for people
of African descent to think of
ourselves as African. We are called
“African-American,” but many of
us have no idea what country in
Africa our ancestors came from.
I guess this brings the question of
what African heritage means in
America.
When I have to check off
boxes describing myself, I always
have to check off “Black/African-
American.” I am an American
citizen, and I know that I have
African ancestry, but somehow I
always feel guilty for calling myself
“African.” This is an issue that
many people come across because
we don’t have a straightforward
answer as to where our ancestors
came from. Is it okay for us to
celebrate it even if we don’t feel
connected to African culture?
I have to be honest, if someone
asked me to name one African
tradition or even something of my
heritage, I would struggle. This
is why celebrating a holiday that
is supposed to be dedicated to my
“heritage” is difficult. I don’t know
my heritage or what it means. This
is something that I will continue to
think about as I am enjoying the
holidays this season –– and I might
even celebrate Kwanzaa, too.
Should I celebrate
Kwanzaa?
ARIELLE MCENTYRE
MiC Blogger
Deceiver
Africa hears my name and calls
me to herself
She doesn’t know Ayomide
means Jacob
Or maybe she does and ignores
this because
I smell like Sunday afternoons
filled with Nigerian yams
And fried egg seasoned with
suya peppeh
Africa knows the difference
between peppeh and pepper but
Kiana does not
Kiana
smells
like
Sunday
morning breakfasts filled with
slow-cooked grits
And shrimp seasoned with
cayenne pepper
I see how Africa treats her
because of this so I am
caught between a rock and a
hard place
The rock is the dusty, pothole-
ladden “highway” between Lagos
and Abeokuta
The hard place is the breached
levees in New Orleans
And I wait in the middle
wondering whose frustration I
should carry
I am wary of the line between
Africa
and
her
descendants
because
Africa has been born again
And the diaspora are just
children of the slave woman
And the diaspora are just
children of the same woman
Every day,
I find myself caught between a
rock and a hard place
The rock is green and white and
corrupt
The hard place is red and green
and black and
I wait in the middle wondering
whose anger I should carry
I am wary of the line between
African-American
But I don’t know if it is for
connection or separation
Africa
has
been
writhing
with the pains of labor since her
conception
And her first born have long
been forgotten
And their language has long
been forgotten
The pressure increases as I find
myself caught between a rock and
a hard place
The rock is my identity
Or the one I grew up with
The hard place is my destiny
Where I’ve been given a chance
to grow
I don’t know whose purpose I
should carry
I am wary of the line between
Nigerian and Black
And I don’t know if I can keep
double dutching much longer
Africa sees my name and calls
me to herself
And knows I’m not her firstborn
when she smells my clothes
But she blesses me anyway
October,
November
and
December are some of my
favorite months of the year.
There are holidays such as
Halloween and Thanksgiving,
followed by one of my favorite,
Christmas. Being Muslim, I
always get weird looks from
people when I tell them that
Christmas is one of my favorite
times of the year. It’s true, I am
Muslim and I love Christmas
time. To specify, I love the
atmosphere that comes with
Americanized Christmas.
I don’t love the consumerism
that comes with Christmas. I
don’t love the idea of minimum-
wage
workers
working
overtime
instead
of
being
with their families. I don’t
love how commercialized a
religious holiday has become. I
understand that Christmas was
originally a holiday to celebrate
the birth of Jesus. There are
several Christian traditions that
come with traditional Christmas
such as going to mass, having a
tree that represents Jesus and
singing Christmas songs to talk
about the birth of Jesus. Parts
of traditional Christmas still
do exist today but Christmas in
America has definitely evolved
from these traditional ideas.
What
I
actually
love
about Christmas time is the
community,
culture
and
happiness that seems to come
with it. There are very few days
in the year where the entirety of
the U.S. seems to comes together
to celebrate one thing happily.
Though not everyone in the U.S.
today
celebrates
Christmas,
including my family, everyone
has some sort of sense that it
is Christmas time and that it is
a time of coming together with
the ones you love.
With that being said, I do
understand that Christmas is
not always a happy time for
everyone.
People
have
bad
memories
associated
with
Christmas and not everyone has
a family or someone to celebrate
Christmas
with.
Christmas
can be a hard time for many, a
time of mourning, sadness and
nostalgia.
In my experience, Christmas
has always been a time where
I can watch Christmas movies,
listen to Christmas music, walk
down any sort of downtown
and look at Christmas lights,
etc. Even though my family
does not celebrate Christmas
whatsoever, I have different
traditions that are my own that
happen during Christmas time.
My friends and I play Secret
Santa or White Elephant, we
drive around to see Christmas
lights,
we
bake
Christmas
cookies with siblings, and for
an instant, we forget everything
else bad going on in the world.
For some, Christmas is like
an escape from reality for a
quick second. It is a time where
you can be with the people you
love and do what you enjoy.
Celebrating the small things
in life such as putting up lights
with grandparents or decorating
cookies with a sibling.
So yes, I am a Muslim who
loves
Christmas
time
and
most aspects of it. I come
from a family that has never
celebrated Christmas yet I am
that person that starts listening
to Christmas music right after
Halloween
and
sometimes
even before. I have 12 Days of
Christmas socks and a small
Christmas tree in my room. I
love Christmas time because
it is one of the only times of
the year where people come
together with their families
and communities, are happy
and kind to others, and there is
goodwill in the air.
The complexities of
Christmas as a Muslim
UAAO 2019-2020 board photo series: Can you
recognize Angell with all our colors?
AYOMIDE OKUNYADE
MiC Columnist
RAHIMA JAMAL
MiC Columnist
UAAO 2019-2020 EXECUTIVE
BOARD
Photos courtesy of UAAO and Sam So
With the closing of A/PIA
Immigration Awareness Week, we
present this year’s UAAO Execu-
tive Board annual board photo-
shoot as an opportunity to raise
awareness
regarding
former
University of Michigan presi-
dent James B. Angell’s role in the
creation of the Chinese Exclu-
sion Act, how this established
precedence
for
longstanding
anti-Asian rhetoric in the United
States, and UAAO’s stance as an
Asian American advocacy group
on campus.
We
present
this
year’s UAAO photoshoot: “Can
you recognize Angell with all of
our Colors?”
The U.S. legislation created
by James B. Angell, the former
University of Michigan president
that we commemorate when we
participate in any institutional
entity named after him, such as
simply walking through Angell
Hall, played a foundational role in
U.S. exclusion of Chinese immi-
grant populations. This period of
Chinese exclusion paved the way
for the xenophobic propaganda
that has pervaded many facets of
Asian American discourse.
The Angell Treaty, drafted by
James B. Angell and signed by
U.S. Senate on November 17th,
1880, paved the way for the Chi-
nese Exclusion Act. In this treaty,
Angell advocated to severely limit
Chinese immigration to the Unit-
ed States, with justification that
Chinese immigrants were unas-
similable and threats to white
racial purity. The Angell Treaty
amended the Burlingame-Seward
Treaty of 1868, which had sought
to expand the right to free immi-
gration and held provisions for
Chinese citizens. Instead of sup-
porting the pre-existing effort to
expand the rights of the Chinese
immigrant communities working
on the transcontinental railroad,
the Angell Treaty was signed as
U.S. law in 1881, ending free Chi-
nese immigration into the United
States. The success of the Angell
Treaty became an outlet for the
agendas of anti-Chinese lobby-
ists, culminating into the Chinese
Exclusion Act of 1882 that barred
the
immigration
of
Chinese
laborers. The Chinese Exclusion
Act was the first U.S. immigration
law to ban an entire ethnic group.
The Chinese Exclusion Act
separated marriages, prevented
the formation of families, and
trapped Chinese laborers who
intended to return to their homes
in China. In this time, Asian
populations had never asked to
be American. The Angell Treaty
of 1880 not only set precedence
for Chinese American exclu-
sion following 1882 through the
demonization of this immigrant
population, but also an era of pan
Asian American exclusionary leg-
islation.The Chinese Exclusion
Act was later expanded into the
Immigration Restriction Act of
1924 that barred all Asian immi-
gration, except for migrant labor
from the Philippines, a U.S. colo-
ny at the time. The Immigration
Restriction Act was not amend-
ed until 1965. Angell’s abuse of
power, which furthered a xeno-
phobic and white supremicist
agenda, produced and perpetu-
ated several harmful perceptions
that affect our Asian American
identity, from perpetual for-
eignness to the model minority
myth, which our community is
still left to navigate. The era of
Asian American exclusion can be
understood as a catalyst for Asian
and American to be put together
as a political identity. We reclaim
political exclusion when we say
Asian/ American, Asian-Ameri-
can, and Asian American.
To Stand in Angell is to Stand
in Resistance.
UAAO looks onto the Univer-
sity’s historical involvement in
Asian American exclusion with
only revulsion. While our his-
tory
books
have
propagated
these exclusionary practices to
have been acceptable in the time
period, we reject such claims
in consideration of the Chinese
immigrant populations whose
detestments to exclusion were
never considered in the White
centric history that we remem-
ber the Chinese Exclusion Act by.
President Angell’s actions only
become admissible by accepting a
history of silencing Asian Ameri-
cans through exclusion of our
populations.
Read more online at
michigandaily.com