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The Spirit and Strength of Somali Youth in America a DISSERTATION SUBMITTED to the FACULTY of the GRADUATE SCHOOL of the UNIVER

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The Spirit and Strength of Somali Youth in America a DISSERTATION SUBMITTED to the FACULTY of the GRADUATE SCHOOL of the UNIVER The Spirit and Strength of Somali Youth in America A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Jill M. Leet-Otley IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Timothy J. Lensmire, Adviser; Bic Ngo, Co-Adviser December 2012 ©Jill M. Leet-Otley 2012 i Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. First, I would like to acknowledge the influence of H. Ganse Little and Mark C. Taylor, my religion professors at Williams College who set me on the path to thinking deconstructively. I would also like to thank the professors at the University of Minnesota who served on my committees: Cynthia Lewis, Martha Bigelow, Misty Sato, and Bic Ngo, all of whom are leading experts in their fields and wonderful teachers. A special thanks to my extraordinary advisor Timothy Lensmire who (with his big laugh and big heart) reassured me that the stories I wanted to tell about Somali youth were worthy and that I should not be afraid to capture the joy as well as the pain. Finally, this journey would not have been possible without the emotional and intellectual support of Louise Covert, my colleague, ‘critical friend,’ and genuine friend throughout this long and sometimes lonely process. I would also like to thank members of my family: my parents and parents-in-law for their far-flung support; my four children, Taylor, Kendall, Grant, and Keller for putting up with a sometimes harried mother; and my husband Clark for his love and abiding support. I extend a special thank you to Taylor for editing and providing insightful feedback on several chapters of this dissertation. And finally, I extend my deepest gratitude to the students, teachers, and families of Future Academy, for sharing their stories, their struggles, and their hopes and dreams. ii “You don’t know how strong you are until strength is the last thing you have.” (Safia, October 1, 2012) iii Abstract Somali youth experience significant amounts of racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia in our schools and communities. In addition, Somali girls are seen as being monolithically oppressed by their culture and religion. My dissertation research demonstrates the spirit and strength of Somali youth as they respond to these marginalizing discourses. My year-long ethnographic study took place at a K–8 charter school that was founded by the Somali community in order to meet the academic, cultural, and religious needs of Somali students. I was primarily interested in how fifth and sixth grade Somali youth experience racialization, and how Somali girls make sense of Somali and American gender norms. Findings reveal that racialization was highly gendered. Somali boys took up some Black cultural discourses, such as listening to rap music and speaking in Black stylized English, but resisted identifying as Black. Instead they created hybrid Somali American identities. At the same time, parents and elders worried about Somali boys “sagging their pants” and “acting like African Americans.” African American youth culture became synonymous with the negative aspects of American youth culture such as drugs, gangs, and violence. Meanwhile, fewer girls engaged with Black cultural discourses. The greater concern within this community was that Somali girls who wore pants or tight clothes would start ‘acting like White girls.’ The concern with ‘acting like a White girl’ was a trope for being sexually promiscuous; in other words, for not being Muslim. Experiences with racialization were necessarily bound up with hegemonic notions of White masculinity and femininity. iv Although the hijab is often seen as a symbol of oppression in the West, I show how the girls embraced the veil and subverted the discrimination they experienced, insisting that they are equal to boys. Wearing the veil allowed the girls to challenge some gender norms while remaining connected to their families, their faith, and their community. My research shows how the girls wove together American, Somali, and Muslim gender discourses based on their homegrown experiences and unique desires and interests. The most significant way in which the girls embraced gender equity was in the high academic and professional goals they had set for themselves. Very little research exists on immigrant youth of this age and almost no research is available on second generation Somali American youth. My research breaks new ground, both in terms of my participants, and in the ways in which I attend to their creativity and strength, and their determination to succeed in America. v Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE: Introduction and Literature Review ...................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO: Doing Ethnography Otherwise ........................................................... 23 CHAPTER THREE: “Kiss my black ass!” ....................................................................... 48 CHAPTER FOUR: “What the hell is wrong with your hijab?” ....................................... 87 CHAPTER FIVE: “Power to the girls!” ........................................................................ 125 CHAPTER SIX: Conclusion........................................................................................... 163 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 175 APPENDIX A: Interview Protocols .............................................................................. 188 1 CHAPTER ONE: Introduction and Literature Review The borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy. (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 25) I have a memory of my childhood that is foggy at best, but nonetheless significant as I reflect on my upbringing and what motivated me to become involved in education and social justice. I was raised in a very small town in upstate New York. There were more cows than people we liked to say, and everyone knew everyone. So it was definitely unusual to find a stranger knocking at our door one day. He was elderly and disheveled, perhaps homeless or just disoriented. Regardless, my father, who has an enormous heart, let the man in, settled him into a chair in our living room and talked gently with him. I sat in the living room watching, perhaps a little afraid of this unkempt man and what he might do. After what seemed like a really long time the police came and guided the man out the door, presumably to help him find his way home. I hadn’t thought about this incident in years, but my father taught me, with that seemingly inconsequential act of kindness extended to a stranger, that understanding starts by opening your door and letting ‘strangers’ in. And so I am grateful to the Somali community, the sixth grade class of Future Academy,1 and their unflappable teacher Ms. Z. for taking a chance and letting me into their lives. In return I hope that my work will crack open some doors in Charlestown where I currently reside and where this story continues. * * * * 1 Future Academy is a pseudonym as are all the names and places used in my research. 2 The first incident happened over ten years ago. A Somali boy was beaten in a park not far from where I lived by white men wielding bats. The second incident was even more brutal – a Somali man beaten and killed by two white men in an alley downtown. Other less tragic but equally hateful incidents followed – swastikas painted on the mailboxes, driveways, and garages of Somali families who lived in predominately White neighborhoods. Eventually the number of hate crimes in Charlestown rose to a level that triggered an inquiry by the FBI. My own children told me of the racism and animosity directed towards the Somali students in their schools. It seemed as though the influx of Somali refugees in this conservative, White, Midwestern city was challenging latent discourses of xenophobia, racism/White privilege, and Islamophobia. My commitment to social justice compelled me to take action. I began volunteering one day a week at Future Academy, a charter school launched by the Somali community in 2005. I felt a special tug towards the community, as I had spent a semester during college in neighboring Kenya, home to many Somali refugees. There, I lived for a short while with a nomadic family and experienced first-hand the hospitality and generous spirit of East African people. In contrast, my own community was displaying flashes of open hostility. As I spent time at the school and got to know the students, the idea of doing an ethnography for my dissertation research began to take shape. At first I was wary, not wanting to recreate the colonial story of a White, well-meaning but dysconsciously racist (King, 1997) person out to ‘save the poor African.’ Rather, I wanted to learn more about what it is like for Somali boys and girls living in Charlestown in the hope that their stories could teach us a thing or two about creating a more just and humane community. 3 What follows is my interpretation and retelling of their stories. In this first chapter I set the stage for my research and review the existing literature. In chapter two I explain my methodology, how I went about gathering, analyzing, and writing about the data, and how I responded to the myriad ethical dilemmas that arose, as they inevitably do in cross-
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