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.

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