From Mogadishu to Dixon

From Mogadishu to Dixon From Mogadishu to Dixon The Somali Diaspora in a Global Context edited by Abdi M. Kusow and Stephanie R. Bjork The Red Sea Press, Inc. Publishers & Distributors of Third World Books P. O. Box 1892 P. O. Box 48 Trenton, NJ 08607 Asmara, ERITREA The Red Sea Press, Inc. Publishers & Distributors of Third World Books P. O. Box 1892 P. O. Box 48 Trenton, NJ 08607 Asmara, ERITREA Copyright © 2007 Abdi M. Kusow and Stephanie R. Bjork First Printing 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechani- cal, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. Book and Cover design: Saverance Publishing Services Cover Photo: Hassan Adan, Toronto, Canada Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data From Mogadishu to Dixon : the Somali diaspora in a global context / edited by Abdi M. Kusow and Stephanie R. Bjork. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56902-285-2 (hard cover) -- ISBN 1-56902-286-0 (pbk.) 1. Somalis--Africa--Social conditions--Case studies. 2. Somalis--Europe--Social conditions--Case studies. 3. Somalis--North America--Social conditions--Case studies. 4. African diaspora. 5. Somalia--Emigration and immigration. 6. Somalia--History--1991- I. Kusow, Abdi. II. Bjork, Stephanie R. DT403.F76 2007 305.89’354--dc22 2007029529 IN MEMORY of the late Professor Nur Abdi Hussen, a pioneer of the Somali diaspora in the United States, without whose support and wealth of information, many Somali immigrants and refugees in Columbus, Ohio would have had a much harder road to travel and less knowledge of the American urban landscape to draw upon. May Allah reward him with Jannatul Ferdous. CONTENTS Introduction: The Somali Diaspora in a Global Context 1 Abdi M. Kusow and Stephanie R. Bjork PART I: AFRICA 1. From Tanzania to Somalia and Back Again: Twice Diaspora Somali Bantus 13 Omar A. Eno and Mohamed A. Eno 2. Transit or Dead End? The Somali Diaspora in Egypt 45 Gudrun-Katharina Kroner 3. Diasporic Somalis in Cairo: The Poetics and Practices of Soomaalinimo 71 Mulki al-Sharmani PART II: EUROPE 4. Globalizing Diasporic Networks: Somali Female Workers in Italy 97 Francesca Decimo 5. Diasporic Authenticity: Connecting Genes and Building Families through DNA-testing in Somali Family Reunifi- cation in Finland 119 Petri Hautaniemi 6. Modernity Meets Clan: Cultural Intimacy in the Somali Diaspora 135 Stephanie R. Bjork 7. Ambivalent Encounters: Negotiating Boundaries of Somaliness, Danishness and Belonging 159 Nauja Kleist From Mogadishu to Dixon 8. “Did You See Her Standing at the Marketplace?” Gender, Gossip, and Socio-Spatial Behavior of Somali Girls in Turku, Finland 181 Anu Isotalo 9. Continuity and Change: Somali Women and Everyday Islam in the Diaspora 207 Marja Tiilikainen PART III: NORTH AMERICA 10. Tradition and the Inner City: Somali Women in Regent Park, Toronto 233 Rima Berns-McGown 11. The Somali Diaspora in the United States: A Socio-economic and Demographic Profile 255 Franklin Goza 12. The Somali Diaspora in Minneapolis: Expectations and Realities 275 Cindy Horst 13. The Somali Diaspora in Small Midwestern Communities: The Case of Barron, Wisconsin 295 Jessica Schaid and Zoltán Grossman About the Authors 321 Index 329 viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I like to thank my wife, Alangti Umur Mad Aliyow, for her uncondi- tional love; and my children, Karima, Omar, and Abbas for being the wonderful children they are. A special and a deep sense of apprecia- tion and love go to both my mother Ina Cabdi Semed Aw Muxumed and my mother in-law, Alangti Aw Nurow Embed. —Abdi M. Kusow I thank my parents Thomas and Jacqueline Bjork and husband Thinh Le, MD for their continued support. —Stephanie R. Bjork Introduction THE SOmaLI DIasPOra IN A GLObaL CONTEXT Abdi M. Kusow and Stephanie R. Bjork or nearly two decades, and particularly since the civil war, Somali Fmen, women, and children have left the country in droves. Some sought refuge amongst long-established Somali communities in the Horn of Africa, the former colonial powers of England, France, and Italy, and the Middle East. Others journeyed to new destinations. Today, Somali communities are found in nearly every corner of the world from small rural towns like Barron, Wisconsin and Lewis- ton, Maine in the United States, to cities like Cairo, Johannesburg, Sydney, Rome, Helsinki, Minneapolis, and last, but not least, the famous Dixon high-rises in Toronto. Diasporic Somalis are just as likely to speak Afrikaans or Finnish as they are to speak Somali. The name Dixon in the title is not a coincidence. It represents the first significant destination of the Somali diaspora in North America. During the first influx of Somali refugees in Canada, Dixon--pronounced as Diksan in Somali--was known in refugee camps in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Yemen. Dixon was the Somali refugee dream city from 1988 to 1997. Even Somali immigrants who could obtain legal entry to the United States in the late 1980s often opted for resettlement in Canada. In the physical sense, Dixon is simply the name for a community of six high-rise buildings located at the intersection of Dixon and Kipling in Etobicoke, a city in the northern suburb of Toronto. The six buildings have a total of 18,000 units designed for a population of From Mogadishu to Dixon roughly 4,000, but soared to 5,800 residents as a result of the arrival of Somali refugees who fled the Somali civil war in the early 1990s. The arrival of the Somali refugees coincided with Transport Canada’s decision to allow planes taking off from Pearson Airport to fly over the Kingsview Village where the Dixon buildings are located. This decision apparently increased jet noise, and in turn forced many residents to move out, consequently lowering the value of the neighborhood. By 1995, Somali refugees accounted for 50% of the Dixon community. Social scientists in the United States refer to this phenomenon as white flight. White flight is an urban American condition in which poor black working class families--one family after another family--move into a predominantly white neighborhood. This process initiates a reac- tive out-movement of the white residents and results in a predomi- nately black neighborhood. This process occurred in the Dixon high- rises--the more Somali refugees moved into the complex, the more white Canadian residents moved out of the complex. Today, Dixon is predominantly inhabited by Somalis and it has qualities that are stereotypical of other poor urban neighborhoods in North America, particularly sub-standard elementary and primary education. Socially, however, Dixon represents a deeper and a more com- plicated Somali diaspora story. It represents the first major culture clash between the Somali diaspora and the Canadian society, and North America in general. This encounter initiated stereotypes and counter stereotypes between Somali refugees and white Canadian residents. Canadian residents implicitly accused the new Somali community of disrespecting tenant rules and overcrowding, spread- ing tuberculoses, and engaging in welfare fraud. Moreover, other residents accused Somali residents of painting anti-white graffiti on the swimming pools and parking structures. The culture clash between the new Somali community and other residents of the complex led the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to produce A Place Called Dixon, a documentary which immortalized this encounter. Dixon also represents the epicenter of Somali diaspora cultural production and the articulation of tension and conflict that charac- terize the Somali diaspora around the globe. The Somali community in Toronto initiated the reproduction of clan identities in the form of 2 The Somali Diaspora in a Global Context community associations in the diaspora. By 1995, there were scores of Somali associations in Toronto. Each association was managed by a particular Somali clan. This process is the modus operandi for Somali associations throughout the Somali diaspora from Helsinki, Finland to Durban, South Africa. This process has now elevated into a situation where some cities in Europe and North America have different clan concentrations. Dixon also experienced the first consequences of transformed gender relations among the Somali diaspora. Moreover, Somalis in Dixon also started to show a more pronounced devotion to Islam and Islamic values and identities. Dixon residents also exhibited a total obsession with the political dynamics of Somalia. In some cases, this obsession took the form of active political engagement where Somalis sent financial support to respective clan lords through remittances. This engagement was a central source of the now highly articulated global Somali diaspora networks.1 This book represents the first attempt to map the social and cultural contours of the Somali diaspora in a global context. Using case studies from Somali communities in Africa, Europe, and North America, the contributors to this volume construct a global com- parative framework for studying the Somali diaspora. The framework simultaneously compares dispersed Somalis in different social contexts, and captures the fluid, transnational context of the Somali diaspora. The central questions that guide the volume are: how do the different cultural, economic, political, social, and racial contexts inform identity formations and opportunity structures that diasporic Somalis face? Consequently, how do the making and remaking of diasporic identities affect their respective host communities as well as the homeland communities they left behind? We pursue answers to these questions by constructing an empiri- cally grounded global framework that holds the source country, Somalia, constant and compares the effects of the different processes, conditions, and spaces under which the Somalis diaspora is consti- tuted. By holding the source country constant, we can specifically interrogate social transformations and opportunity structures under different contexts.

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