Milko Abdurahman Narrator Ayano Jiru Interviewer October 16, 2016 Saint Paul, Minnesota Interview conducted in English Milko Abdurahman -MA Ayano Jiru -AJ AJ: I’m Ayano Jiru recording for the Minnesota Historical Society Oromo Oral History Project. Today is Sunday, October 16, 2016. We are in the city of Saint Paul. I’m here with Milko Abdurahman, who is representing Oromos born in America in this project. Milko, thank you for sitting with me for this interview today. Welcome. MA: Thank you. Thank you for having me. AJ: Milko, I really appreciate you for doing this project with me. Your perspective in this will be very different from the rest of the group I have because you’re born in America and you also visited back home. We will talk about it and how that will make your Oromo history in modern day time. To begin our interview, let me ask you this question off hand. Where were you born? MA: I was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. AJ: Sioux Falls, South Dakota. MA: Yes. AJ: What year was that? MA: Nineteen ninety-four. AJ: Nineteen ninety-four. Were there many Oromos around here? MA: There were about, like, ten. AJ: Ten, in Sioux Falls? MA: Maximum, ten. 1 AJ: In Sioux Falls? MA: Yes. AJ: How long did you stay in Sioux Falls? MA: Four months. AJ: Four months. Where did you move? MA: Saint Paul, Minnesota. AJ: Saint Paul, Minnesota. The home of the Minnesota Historical Society. MA: Yeah. AJ: Yeah. You were an infant when you moved here. How was it like growing up here in Saint Paul? MA: It’s pretty diverse. A lot of different people from different areas of the world, including Oromos. It’s not bad. I enjoyed it. AJ: Your parents came from where in Oromia? MA: My parents. My dad came from Dodola—well, the countryside of Dodola [in the Oromia region of Ethiopia]. They call it Tuticha or Jafara. AJ: Jafara. MA: Yeah. And my mom is from the countryside of Adaba, which is called Hunxee Alola [in the Oromia region of Ethiopia]. AJ: Hunxee Alola. How did they come to America? What year did they come to America? MA: My dad came in, I believe, 1992, and my mom came in ’93. AJ: In ’93, and then they had you right away. MA: Yeah. They got married, and then nine months and four days later, I was born. [Chuckles.] AJ: Do you know what they did in Oromia, what kinds of jobs your parents had in Oromia? What did they do there? MA: Gosh, my dad could tell this when I was growing up. I don’t remember. They sold cows, they sold animals. They do like profit. They’re like the middle man. What do you call it? Nagade [merchant]. 2 AJ: Nagade, yeah. Do you know why they had to leave Oromia? MA: Poverty and war. AJ: War and poverty. MA: Yeah. Growing up when we were younger, they always told us there was a war and that was why they left. My dad came through Kenya. They escaped, and then they made it here. AJ: When they made it here, how was the life that they had. Did they have a hard time adjusting to life in America? I mean, you were born after, obviously, they adjusted, but how does it look to you now? Have they really adjusted to the America life as you may know it now? MA: I mean, they work fulltime jobs, they have their own house. I’d say they’ve adjusted. Through struggles, of course. When they tell us stories of how they raised us, the differences from the nineties and now are very different. They came, and they didn’t know anything. They didn’t know English. They had to learn how to drive, they had to learn how to communicate, they had to learn how to use money, and then raise kids—because they had us right away. It was me and my sister who were the first. So it was very difficult on their terms, but for us it was never difficult because when we were growing up and adjusting to everything, everything was already there. AJ: As you came up in Saint Paul as a child of an immigrant family, what is it like? What was it like as a kid, as an Oromo kid? MA: You balance two lives. You juggle two worlds. You’re Oromo, and then you’re African American. It’s two different worlds. At home you speak Oromo, you live the Oromo lifestyle, you eat Oromo food, and then you go out and you’re having a burger and you have a little slang to your tone and the way you talk. Everything is different. You have to balance it. I did it very good, but it’s not easy. AJ: It’s not. The interesting thing is you said African American. What about the American life? Why African American? MA: Because of my skin color. I’m black. That’s the circle I chose to hang out with. The other people I got along with were African American people. But from the color of my skin, I’m black, so I have to juggle being black and being African at the same time. It’s two different worlds. I have that culture, and then I have this culture. It’s like I have a culture you have to understand because I’m African, and then I have a culture you don’t understand because I’m black. It’s two different worlds. AJ: Yeah. Eye opening. A lot of people have a hard time balancing the two cultures, like you’re saying—the Oromo culture and the African American culture. But for you, also, it seems like there are two Oromo cultures. There is the Oromo that is back home and the Oromo that is developed here in America. And then there is the American view of an Oromo taken for African American, or like some people say to me they take me for Somali. What do you see in that? 3 MA: Some people take me for Somali, but I don’t pay attention to that. I let them know what I am. I tell them I’m Oromo. But when it comes to balancing the different Oromo life—because I’ve been back home, you know. So when you balance from back home to here, it’s very different because as a woman back home, you have to do a ton of things. You’re the one who does laundry, you’re the one who does the cooking and the cleaning. You do everything there. Over here, growing up here, your mom does everything. You don’t do anything, even in the Oromo household. They taught us as a woman, you’re supposed to do this and this, but when they tell us, they tell us you do it for your husband—you know, when you grow old and move into your own home. But in Africa, even little kids do it. That’s the difference between back home and here, being Oromo. Between Oromo and the African American culture, there’s tons of differences and tons of things that you have to juggle at once. AJ: So at home you learned your Oromo ways from your parents. MA: Yeah. My mom and dad. How do I say it? They taught us the language. We speak the language. But growing up they always said, “Adaa keetii mitii [it is not our culture],” which means, “That’s not your culture. That’s not how you do it in our culture.” But they never said, “Well, this is how you do it in our culture.” For instance, when we take on the African American ways or talk a certain way or act a certain way, they say it’s, “Akka gurrachaa godhanii [behave like an African American].” You know? You’re acting like a black person—adaa keena mitii [it’s not our culture]. That word comes in again. It’s not our culture. But they never sat and showed us our culture or taught us this is the way you act, this is the way you respect people, have manners. We didn’t have any of that. It was just always adaa keena mitii. Then what is our adaa [culture]? Show us. There was none of that. AJ: You know how they say it takes a whole village to raise a child? It sounds like what your parents teach you at home and when you go out to the American mainstream, it’s different. MA: It didn’t apply. AJ: Yeah, it doesn’t apply. MA: Yeah. That applies back home. [Chuckles.] Their culture applies back home, not here. AJ: So back home, you went back home you said. So what year was that that you went back home? MA: The longest I went was six months. That time was in 2014. AJ: You went more than one time? MA: Yeah. AJ: How many times did you go back home? 4 MA: Four. AJ: Four times you went back home? What’s the shortest time you stayed there? MA: A month. AJ: A month is the shortest. The longest is six months. MA: Yes. AJ: So how did you see that culture—what the parents teach at home—when they go out to the Oromo mainstream it applies? MA: Like, respect. That applies. Because here in America, you can tell somebody to shut up, that’s fine.