by Harald Franzen

Makonnen Tadesse pushed back his New York Yankees hat and scratched his head through his short hair. His slender arms rested on the counter of his small store as he tilted his head deep in thought. His thin nose and thin dark lips made him look distinct from most people in his neighborhood. Tadesse is an Ethiopian living in Harlem, an African among African-Americans.

"The only thing we have in common is our color," Tadesse said about African-Americans. "They just grow up in a society which is different then Africa. We come here from a different country, so we are the product of that old society," he added. "We bring our culture, traditions and everything here. So for us to find common ground to hang out together sometimes is hard."

Tadesse speaks for many African immigrants and African-Americans alike. The two groups often have difficulties relating to one another. A lack of knowledge about the respective cultures, combined with a certain suspicion of the unknown other group, has led to the creation of two, for the most part separate, communities that exist alongside each other in predominantly African-American Harlem. Community activists try to mediate.

Africans in Diaspora, Africans who live outside of the African continent, are far from being a homogenous group. There are those who are descendants of slaves, brought to the Americas during the slave trade, starting almost 400 years ago. Others left their home countries voluntarily and settled in Europe and North America after the end of the colonial era in Africa, less than 50 years ago. Extensive migrations of people of African ancestry within the Americas, mainly from the Caribbean to the United States, are also taking place, continuously reshaping the ethnic mix of the country.

Harlem
Harlem in upper Manhattan has been a center of African-American culture in the United States since the 1920s. It is home to the Schomburg Center for Research into Black Culture, the largest research center for African and black culture in the United States. Political activists and leaders like Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. lived and worked in Harlem. During the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, writers like Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes reshaped African-American culture here. These names give an idea of the importance of the neighborhood for advancing the African-American community in the United States and shaping its self-image.

During recent years, large numbers of immigrants from Africa settled in the predominantly African-American community, particularly around 116th Street in West Harlem. "The West-Africans, they changed the face of Harlem, not Giuliani," said Tadesse, himself a native of East Africa. He attributes the neighborhood's recent revival entirely to the immigrants, particularly the French-speaking Senegalese who make up a large portion of the Africans settling there.

"They have made a difference and their presence is indeed positive," agrees William Allen, the African-American Director of the Ecumenial Community Development Organization, a not-for-profit real estate developer in Harlem. "But when they moved into those storefronts on 116th Street, those were renovated buildings. They were not burnt out and they put money into those buildings. Those buildings were heavily subsidized." Organizations like the Upper Manhattan Development Corporation as well as private non-profit organizations had invested in the construction of affordable housing in the neighborhood, attracting the recent immigrants from Africa.

Today 116th Street between 8th Avenue and St. Nicholas Avenue is indeed a lively commercial strip. There is a Senegalese-run 24-hour deli, where many of the Senegalese gypsy-cab drivers relax after they get off work. A few years back, anything open 24 hours in this neighborhood was hard to imagine says Tadesse. He has lived on 116th Street for nine years.

Now The Tribe of Shabazz Unisex Salon & Barbers offers hair braiding, perms and blowouts on bright, lemon green signs in the window. Next door, Sall Mamadou from Senegal opened 99 cent Sall Plus a few months ago which boasts a colorful collection of brooms, packs of toilet paper and boxes of toothbrushes, screwdriver sets and household cleaners. There is Soap Opera, the Laundromat and casual evening hangout and Touba International Flavor, an import/export business with adjacent Islamic literature store. Yemen&Somalia Restaurant and Chez Kine make the Kennedy Fried Chicken at the corner look almost like a relict from a past era.

And then there are African food stores like Tadesse's Abyssinia Ethiopian Grocery. Like most of the stores here, it is more than just a place to buy groceries. It is a community center, a newsstand, a market place, a bar. You can buy spices here and T-shirts, jewelry and newspapers, posters and flour. Orthodox Coptic bibles sit on the shelf next to postcards of Addis Ababa and newspapers in Amharic, Ethiopia's main language. Plain unlabeled plastic bags fill the shelves. The spicy smell of their colorful contents fills the room. People don't just come here to buy their groceries. When they come, they take their time. They come here to chat, to meet friends. Everyone knows each other here and most are greeted with a warm hug. Or at least those that are Ethiopian.

Two Communities
African-Americans shopping on 116th Street often feel like outsiders. "Many African-Americans don't feel the Africans give them the respect they should," said Jackie Wilson of the United TIL Coalition of Harlem, who actively promotes dialogue within the community. "Like a woman I know," she said. "She went to one of their stores and she had to wait for a long time. She just stood there while other people came in. They greeted each other and spoke in their language and no one paid attention to her."

Soumaila Sanogo, a member of Masjid Salam, a predominantly West-African mosque on 116th Street says it is the other way around. "They don't welcome us, they don't respect us. The best way is to keep your distance," he said.

Next door, at Farafina Coffee Shop, Aziz Soumare who came to New York from Mali in 1988, is more conciliatory. "The problem is, we don't have too much connection with the American people, the African-Americans," he said. "The problem is because my people can't speak well English. That's why we don't have any good good relationships with them."

Soumare, who started out working as a security guard, now owns his own gemstone business. He has coffee at Farafina Coffee Shop on 116th Street every morning. The bar, about the size of an average New York living room, has little décor. Rustic wooden shelves and plastic- covered bar stools make for most of the furnishing. Two wooden booths for international phone calls occupy the back of the establishment, which is run by Soumare's sister. Here he meets other immigrants from West-African nations like Mali, Guinea or Ivory Coast who share a similar culture and a common language, Mandeguo. No African-Americans frequent the bar. The woman behind the counter, Aisha Mint Muhammad, only speaks Mandeguo and French. She admits that living in New York with no knowledge of the English language is difficult and after seven months in New York, she wants to return to Africa.

Their seclusion hurts their relation to the rest of the community. Long-term residents like Daniel Perez, head of the land use committee of Community Board 10 in Harlem, are resentful. Perez has lived in the neighborhood for 53 years and does not see the Africans as part of the community. "Not until they change their ways," he said. Perez is annoyed by the Islamic call to prayer that disturbs him every morning at sunrise. "They call it prayer, I call it disturbing the peace," he said angrily.

Detective Dana Harper, Community Affairs Officer at the 28th Police Precinct in Harlem, is mainly concerned with hygiene problems in the restaurants and the sometimes reckless driving practices of some of the African gypsy-cab drivers. "They are just trying to make a living, but the cultural ignorance on both sides creates the problem," he said.

Cultural Ignorance
This cultural ignorance is what many Africans blame for the bad relations as well. "If you ask any Black American guy, he don't know anything about Africa," said Tadesse, but admits that the same goes for some Africans. "They don't want to know anything about America. Not the politics, not the newspapers, nothing."

"Some Africans and even Jamaicans you know, people from the Islands, they still have an air as if they are better than Black Americans," said Joyce Islam, African-American and a long term resident of Harlem. "I don't care what you call yourself. If you look like me, you're black! So I don't understand the arrogance. I don't understand the hate, period. Between any culture."

What is it that makes African-Americans and Africans so different? To put it broadly, their background. The first and most obvious difference lies in their pasts.

Colonialism and Slavery
European powers engaged in the slave trade off the coasts of West Africa as early as 1444, separating Africans in Africa from those sold into slavery. But it was not until 1619 that the first African slaves were brought to what was later to become the United States. In Africa the European powers for the most part established trading posts along the coast, but did not colonize most of the continent until the late 19th century, leaving the majority of the African population untouched by European influences for a long time after modern slavery began.

When European powers finally colonized the continent, the situation was in some sense still better than that of the exported slaves. Most importantly, the Africans who remained in Africa were not bereft of their culture. Unlike the American slaves, their family and social structure remained intact and their languages, traditions and cultures endured.

"It's a structure of white authority, but it is in a context of an overwhelmingly black society," explained Manning Marabel, history professor and head of the African-American Studies Department at Columbia University. "It was a racist society, but it was not a society in which whites defined the parameters of culture, tradition."

Africans brought to the Americas on the other hand, faced lives of servitude and were forced to adopt the western culture of their masters to a large extent. This New World was in no sense their world and over generations they were made to believe that they were inferior to the white people who oppressed them.

"Many Africans know the history of slavery," says Dr. Raymond Winbush, Executive Director of the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University. "They want to distinct themselves from the African-Americans, assuming that whites will make the same distinction."

Distinguishing themselves from the African-Americans for many Africans is a question of social status. Those emigrating to the United States are predominantly members of the educated middle class of their countries. According to the Center for Research on Immigration Policy in Washington, D.C., 47 percent of the African immigrants coming to the United States are college graduates, but only 14 percent of African-Americans hold a college degree. The median household income of African immigrants in 1990 was $30,907. That was considerably higher than the $19,533 the median African-Americans family made per year. "I think the black men in America, they represent the lowest class no matter what," said Joice Islam. "Maybe because they were slaves."

"They have to understand that we don't have the same experience," said Moussa Gueye, a Senegalese jeweler who spends a lot of his spare time at Mart 125 on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard with Senegalese friends. He clearly distances himself from the slavery past of the African-Americans. "A lot of them have no dignity because when you enslave somebody you take away their dignity. And even they're not born in slavery but the legacy is still there."

"Our roots are totally different because a lot of us were brought to this country as slaves," admitted Jeanne Swain, an African-American who volunteers at the National Black Theater in Harlem. "A lot of our knowledge of ourselves and a lot of what we think has been a program that has been placed in our heads by our 'ex-slave masters'. It's just like we just had Kwanzaa Festival and that's based on African roots so that shows you that there is a tendency for African-Americans to have a connection to Africa. Still, though we are connected through our heredity and our genes, we don't understand our culture."

"There has been a tradition of continued interest in Africa within the black community dating from the time that African captives were first brought to the shores of what is today known as the United States," wrote William B. Helmreich in his 1977 compilation Afro-Americans and Africa.

In 1815 Paul Cuffe, a black shipowner from Massachusetts, was one of the first African-Americans to organize a return to the "homeland." An initial attempt to settle in Sierra Leone failed, but in 1822 American settlers founded Liberia, which became a destination for many African-Americans wanting to return to Africa.

In the early 20th century W.E.B. Du Bois' Pan-African Movement promoted the dialogue between Africans in Africa and abroad and Marcus Garvey's "Back to Africa" movement drew a large following. "There are many examples of this cross fertilization," said Marabel. The flow of ideas always went both ways he said. Important African leaders like Ghana's first president Kwame Nkruma and John Dube, the founder of the African National Congress, were educated in the United States.

On the other hand, modern African leaders like Nelson Mandela inspire African-Americans. "Many African-Americans connect well with the struggle and the attainment of independence in Ghana or the struggle for equality in South-Africa," agreed Nkosinathi Sibanda. "But there is no push within to actually correspond with the high school student in Kenya and develop a friendship across the Atlantic. There is nothing on that level of 'tell me about yourself.'" South African born Sibanda is co-author of the soon to be released book Building bridges, Confronting the gap between the black African and the African-American.

Even during the early years of exchange between African-Americans and Africans, it soon became evident that cultural differences had arisen, which divided them profoundly. In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois pointed this out as early as 1903. "One ever feels his twoness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings. [...] The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, this longing to attain self-conscious manhood." This "twoness" makes it clear that African-Americans can no longer simply return to their homeland Africa. They have developed their very own distinctive culture. This distinctive culture was profoundly influenced by the experience of slavery and race-discrimination, a concept that is difficult to understand for many Africans.

"For us a white man or a black man, it's the same," said Tadesse. "We didn't go through all the pains that they are complaining about. We don't know about slavery. That makes us different than the blacks in this country, completely different." Professor Marabel sees the experience of slavery as one of the main issues dividing the two groups. "Part of the ambiguity and the tension is derived from the fact that Africans who come here, except for South-Africans, have not lived in societies in which they have experienced racialization." He thinks that African-Americans tend to interpret negative experiences as racial discrimination that Africans might not see in that context.

Despite the significant cultural differences between African-Americans and Africans, there seems to be agreement on the fact that the key to resolving the tension between the communities lies in better communication and a better understanding of the other culture. "Once people get to know each other and understand each other, then you'll find there is not really that much difference between people," thinks Mrs. Swain from the African National Theater. She has gone on several trips to Africa, which have helped her to better understand the African mentality.

Religion bridges the gap
One area where a dialogue between the two groups is lively is religion. While Soumare and most of his friends attend a mosque in the Bronx, where most congregation members share a similar ethnic background, most of the Senegalese immigrants on 116th Street attend Malcolm Shabazz Mosque at the corner of 116th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard. The plain building is topped by a giant green onion dome and rimmed with the Harlem Business Outreach Center, a Jewelry store and other businesses, run by the mosque. The members of this, initially African-American, congregation come from all around the world including countries like Pakistan, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia and Russia says Imam Izak-El M. Pasha, one of its spiritual leaders. "As far as the relationship between the Africans and the African-Americans, it's a growing relationship." While he acknowledged the cultural differences, the Imam said the common religion helps to bridge the cultural gap.

Minister Kurtis Reeder of the Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic Church on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard heads a similarly diverse congregation. "We welcome all," he said. The tiny storefront church maintains ties with both Muslim and Jewish organizations in addition to having members from the Caribbean as well as Ethiopia, Israel and the United States.

"I think people are beginning to realize that they are here to stay," said Pasha, referring to the African immigrants. "And they are a very progressive group of people who wants the dignity of work and that kind of progress and they are going nowhere. You might as well find a way to cross the cultural barriers because they are gonna be your neighbors. So I think that's beginning to take place. Difficult, but it takes place."

Reaching out
Many Africans say they are being rejected by the African-American community, yet almost all attempts at communication and reconciliation between the groups come from the African-American side. "We encourage them [Africans] to be more involved in community-wide civic activities," said William Allen. "Not to segregate themselves to themselves but join other community-wide activities, so we can all grow as a community. And that's the biggest challenge for that strip [116th Street]. What it is, is a lack of communication and I have to admit both sides are guilty. All this money that is in the community. Somebody could be funding someone to walk around creating a coalition."

Jackie Wilson of the United TIL Coalition of Harlem is doing just that. "We try to reach out to some of the leaders of the African community," she said. "So far we haven't been too successful, but I hope it will develop. We both need to understand each other. There are too many misunderstandings right now. We organize a meeting and they don't come. The Department of Health offered free classes to educate them about the regulations, many of them are restaurant owners, but they don't come. Some come, but the majority doesn't, even though they said they would come." In several cases in the past, meetings were jeopardized due to cultural misunderstandings. When Wilson organized an event on Friday afternoon, none of the Africans showed up. For them as Muslims, Friday afternoon is like Sunday morning for a Christian. Time for prayer.

Wilson, has been actively seeking a dialogue with the African community for several years. Being a native of Jamaica herself, she understands the problems the Africans face upon arrival here. "When you come to a new country where everything is new and different and you don't have any friends, you'll be with people that are like you. That eat the same kind of food and listen to the same music. They are viewed as outsiders coming in. When you find animosity from the community you come to, you will stay away."

Wilson thinks it would be a shame if the Africans remained separate from the African-American community. "They could be an asset to this community and they need to know that," Wilson explained. "But in a community you have to give back, you have to get involved. It makes no sense to look, we need to interact."

One of the people who followed Wilson's invitation is Adoul Karim Meite, the first vice president of the Muslim community of Masjid Salam. On Friday afternoon he sat on one of the countless colorful carpets in the middle of the spacious first floor room that is Salam mosque. The walls are tiled in green and white. Naked neon lights span the ceiling. The women are guarded behind a partition on the far end of the room while an open bathroom takes up the opposite wall. Muslims are required to wash hands, feet and face before each of their required five daily prayers.

Meite sat in a group of men that was gathered around an aluminum tray with rice and fish, Senegalese food that they all shared. The men dug into the food with their hands while chatting cheerfully in French.

"Our mission is to put everyone together," Meite explained later. "Because that's the meaning of Islam. That goes for any people." The cultural differences go deep but Meite is willing to try to cooperate more. His mosque and its community are his main concern he admits, but he sees that they cannot seclude themselves from the world that surrounds them. Still, he wishes that the African-Americans respected their culture more as well.

Growing closer
Africans are slowly adapting to the community that surrounds them and social contacts are beginning to grow not only in mosques and churches. "Many Africans have African-American girlfriends," said Soumare. "The young men like 25 to 30, they come here. You know you don't have a job at home, you look somewhere else. That's why the immigrants from Africa they came here. Almost all of them are men."

Petersen Appiah originally came to New York from Ghana. He has been dating African-American women for several years but finds that they often lack an understanding of his culture and don't appreciate it. "When I tell them, let me take you to Africa, they say oh no, it's such a long flight. If I wanted to take them to Florida, they would go right away." He finds that their understanding of the roles in a relationship often differs strongly and their concept of family as well. He sees himself as the head of the family, a position that his African-American girlfriends question. While he sees having many children as an investment in the future, the African-American women he has dated saw them as "too expensive." He wants to save money to send home to his family but his girlfriends want to go out to eat.

Daniel Diakanwa is a consultant to the Cross-Cultural Ministries Department of the Salvation Army in New York and has counseled many interracial and intercultural marriages. "When it comes to cross-cultural, I would say it is easier for white Americans to marry black Americans than for black Americans to marry black Africans because there is a lot of similarity in your culture," he said. "Just because they are both black... I mean their cultures are far different from one another."

While cultural problems persist in intercultural relationships, Africans who were raised in the United States, often have less problems interacting with African-Americans. Chito Adanna Ifeoma Mgbako is a spokesperson for the African Students Association at Columbia University and a second generation Nigerian-American. "Especially my mother doesn't feel an affinity towards African-Americans," she said. "I don't think she identifies with African-American women at all. My father is a little better but all of their friends are Nigerian, whereas I feel a total connection with African-Americans and I embrace that as my culture as well."

"Eventually we are going to mix and to some degree they have started already," said Wilson. "Young African-American girls are dating young African men. They are going to blend. They will get married and have babies. We need to begin to like each other, understand each other and respect each other. I think we could make this a very unique community."