Running Head: from ZIMBABWE to the USA

1

From Zimbabwe

Running Head: FROM ZIMBABWE TO THE USA

Moving from Zimbabwe to the USA

Identifying an Individual

Gabrielle Hart

AlbionCollege

Moving from Zimbabwe to the USA

Identifying an Individual

Description of Cultural Context

Matthew is an individual who was born in the province Mashonaland, Zimbabwe in Africa. He grew up in similar conditions that children in the Unites States grew up in. He lived in a house with his mom, his dad and his little sister. When he was growing up his dad was a biochemist and his mom was a school teacher. In his culture, family values are very important. In Matthew’s family, uncles were treated like fathers, aunts were treated like mothers and cousins were treated as siblings. While he was growing up he was very close to his grandmother who strongly influenced his spiritual beliefs. Matthew grew up with a wide range of spiritual beliefs. Today Matthew describes himself as a Christian, but when he was growing up there were multiple religions in the family including Christianity, Islam, Voodoo and Wicca.

In Zimbabwe the British educational system is used. Matthew started attending school at the age of four. In his country, the first school you enter is called an elementary school. Most students were in the elementary schools for about two years from the ages of four to six. The elementary schools resemble what we would call preschool and kindergarten. After completing elementary school the student then enters primary school. Primary school is what we would refer to as elementary school, which is usually grades one through five. After primary school the student then advances on to secondary schools, just like students in the US do. In Zimbabwe the students have fourteen years of formal education before graduation from what we would call high school. The fourteenth year of school for students in the US is usually their first year of college; this is the same for students in Zimbabwe. The fourteenth year is at the college level, but is part of their secondary education.

Before Matthew entered what we would call high school he moved to Lansing, Michigan. The first year that Matthew was living in Michigan he entered the US educational system. It is not uncommon for most ESL students(English as second language) to be put behind a grade when they enter in our educational system, but this was not the case for him. Matthew was placed in the eighth grade, which was the same grade he would have entered if he were to continue his education in Zimbabwe.

Matthew was a great model for my case study because I learned a lot from him. The schools I attended were pretty diverse, I met a large range of minority students, but I had never met a student who had transferred from Africa. Though the schools I attended were diverse, they weren’t always like that. The neighborhood I grew up in, Livonia, is predominantly White, and for a long time so were the schools that are in my neighborhood. Over the years, the Clarenceville district became an open district allowing students from surrounding cities such as Redford, Southfield, Detroit, and Farmington to attend the Clarenceville schools for a minimal fee. Minority students started to attend Clarenceville for various reasons ranging from academics and sports to safety reasons. By time I got to high school there were a larger number of minority students attending my school.

During my years at Clarenceville High School I had made friends that were African American, Mexican, Venezuelan, Polish, Albanian, and Lebanese among various others ethnicities. I feel that even though I had a diverse experience, I was still somewhat sheltered from the world. I think Matthew was a good choice for a participant because I hadn’t met a Black person who was African (not African American) until I came to AlbionCollege. I have not had African friends, so I knew that by choosing him I would learn a lot. Choosing Matthew allowed me to personally challenge myself because, unlike various other cultures, I have never been exposed to the Zimbabwean culture and never having doing so caused me to work harder and dig deeper for this case study.

Data Collection

Information for this project was collected through research and interviews. The “study” portion was collected through numerous sources such as books from our Education 202 collection, professional journals and websites. The “case” portion was collected over multiple interviews with Matthew. Before any interviews were conducted, Matthew signed a paper called the document of informed consent (see appendix). By signing this document, Matthew was giving me written permission to interview him. The consent from stated which class this research was for and the purpose of the study. After signing the form Matthew was offered a copy of the document. Matthew said it was unnecessary, but took the copy anyways because I had made one for him.

I call the first interview the principle interview because this was the more structured interview where the majority of the information was collected. The principle interview took place on Tuesday, November 7th. I interviewed Matthew in his dorm room because I wanted to interview him at his convenience where he was most comfortable. The principle interview was semi-structured. By semi-structured interview, I mean that, before the interview I had a predetermined set of questions, but I did not limit the interview to the set questions. If I heard something that was interesting for my case study I followed up with other questions. Most of the follow up questions were spontaneous, but were very crucial to the interview. After the principle interview, I had followed up with a less formal interview. This interview was less formal because it was more like a conversation than an interview. I used this as an opportunity to dig deeper on what we had previously discussed. The follow up was very beneficial because I was also able to clarify some of the data from the principle interview.

Participant’s Voice

Cultural and Family Background

You can trace the roots of our family back to the Bantu, but today we are called the Shona people. Shona is my primary language, but I grew up speaking multiple languages. The languages I can still speak are Shona, Ndebele, and Xhosa. Back home we started to learn English when we entered elementary school (age four), so the languages I spoke the most were Shona and English.

Most people misinterpret where I am from. I didn’t live in a mud hut and my school didn’t have 100 people in a classroom. I grew up in a house similar to the one we have here in the States. I lived with my mom, my dad and my little sister. Family values were very important to us. In my culture, extended family didn’t exist. We treated our uncles like they were our dad, our aunts like they were our mom and our cousins like they were our brothers and sisters. I was also very close to my grandma.

Yeah there were differences between that, in our culture women were treated as second class citizens. The men held higher positions and were considered to have more power. Now that was for a normal family, not for ours. In my family the women were treated the same as the men. We (the kids in this family) were taught to respect women and treat them with the same respect that we treated the men with.

Back in Zimbabwe my dad was a biochemist or what some might call a scientologist. My mom was a school teacher; she was even my teacher at one point, in the second grade. When I was growing up, my family would be considered what you guys call middle class. Well we were better off than a lot of families so maybe we were high class, or maybe in between. We had enough money to live in a good neighborhood where we could go to good schools. Back home money was everything. Your money wasn’t safe unless it was secured in a national bank. Everything in Zimbabwe revolved around money. The health care was more expensive there than it is here. Insurance doesn’t exist there. The amount of medical attention you got was based on what you could pay for. When I was living in Zimbabwethe doctors and nurses were on strike, so the health care was on the poor side compared to what it is in the States right now. That’s why my mom so unfortunate, it was the wrong time for her to get sick. She had spinal meningitis, the kind that could have been treated. We had the money to get her what she needed, but having money wasn’t enough with all of the doctors on strike. Health care was horrible when they were on strike.

After she died, my grandma and I became closer. My grandma was very protective of me. See these marks on my head? One on each side of my head, one on the forehead and one on my chin (he made the shape of the cross when he was showing me the scars). Those are the ones you can see, but I have them all over. My grandma gave me those to protect me. This was part her religions, Voodoo and Witchcraft. She made the cuts with a razor, mixed a potion made with herbs, and rubbed the potion into the cuts. By doing this she was protecting me. She did this so that the guardians could protect me from the evil spirits and any other evil that people wished upon me. Yeah we had witch doctors, but it’s not what you guys think, Voodoo is a religion based on spirituality not craziness. No, not all Africans celebrate Kwanza, we celebrated the big holidays like Christmas, the new year and Easter.

Our family was different. We had our own traditions in addition to the Shona and Zimbabwean traditions. For major holidays we would kill a bull for our feast. Another traditional dish is called sadza. Sadza is kind oflike grits, but harder, it was a central part of out diet, kind of like bread is important in meals here. Other than that we ate a lot of beef and greens. Oh and chicken too! Our chicken is so much better, it tastes better because we let them run around before we kill them. Instead of being locked up in the hen house, we let them loose to exercise; healthier chickens taste better!

Now that I’m in the states I practice Christianity. I don’t have a lot of time to go to church while I’m at school, but when I have the chance, I go. Over the summer I usually go with my sister, my uncle and my aunt. Yeah he used to live here, but after a couple of years my dad went back home and left us with my aunt and uncle.

Educational and Recreational Background

In Zimbabwe there was no such thing as a free education. The quality of the school you attended depended on how much money you had. Yeah, some people did go to schools that had huge classrooms, but that was if they couldn’t afford to go to other schools. Our educational system was just as good as the system in the States. We used the British system which is like two grades ahead of the American system. If we would have used a different system I would have probably been put back a grade when I got here, but I was right with my class. I was really smart, but I wasn’t what you would call a good student. I acted out a lot. I would physically go to school, but my mind was in other places. I wasn’t mean or anything, I didn’t bully anyone, but I guess you could say I was the class clown. I loved to make people laugh…just sometimes when I made them laugh the teacher happened to be talking.

In elementary and primary school the same teacher taught everything. You stayed in one classroom, with one teacher the whole day. When you got to secondary school, it was almost the same as it is here. Different teachers taught different subjects, but instead, the teachers switched classrooms instead of the students. So we did switch teachers, but we were still in the same classroom with the same people (referring to other students) all day.

One teacher who impacted me the most? Haha. It was actually my mom. I had her for my second grade teacher. She was the best out of all the teachers, she wasn’t the coolest, well she was cool, but you know what I mean. She wasn’t the coolest but I got the most out of her class. When she taught, I had to listen because she was my mom. I felt like she was harder on me because I was her kid, but it ended helping me in the end. When I was in her class I had to behave or I would be in trouble when I got home. I know it was only second grade but she taught me more than school work, she taught me discipline that a normal teacher couldn’t have done.

When I was younger I played soccer, rugby, track and tennis. I practiced track the earliest because when I got in trouble my mom would chase me (smiles and laughs). She was really good in track too. She always wanted me to be a runner. Sometimes I think she would chase me just so I would practice running!

When I moved to Lansing I couldn’t do all of the sports I did in Zimbabwe. Here you have three seasons for sports so I was only able to play three sports. My freshman year in high school I played soccer, rugby and track. After that year I still played three sports, but I played football instead of soccer. I switched because soccer isn’t big here like it was back home. I remember for a while I was the fastest runner, for a while I was number one in the area, then another guy started to catch up to me. It was always me and him fighting for first in all of the meets. Sports kept me on the right track. Sports took up a lot of my time so I didn’t have too much time to get into trouble. I wasn’t involved nt much else in high school. I was actually kind of shy back then.

Of course I still run track. In college, sports are more competitive and take up more time so I only do one sport here. Other than being on the team, I’m part of ACSU (African-Caribbean Student Union) and Delta Tau Delta. I’m in the fraternity, but I don’t live in the DTD house because I’m a Resident Assistant in twin. Even though my moms not here to keep me inline I’m a good student. I get pretty good grades and I get involved on campus.

Race and Ethnicity

My dad is really dark, the color of his skin is much darker than mine and my mom’s is lighter. When you compare me and my mom it looks like I am in the middle, but when you compare my skin color to my dad’s, my skin color looks closer to my mom’s. Her side of the family has Portuguese decent. My race?When it comes to race, it’s hard for me to have an identity. I don’t know many other students who are from Zimbabwe. If I had to pick one I would say ethnicity. I’m not African American, I’m African. I was born in Africa and both of my parents were born in Africa. You say American, meaning you are from the States, even though there are a lot of countries in the Americas. Africa is not a country; there are many countries in Africa. It’s better to be called African than African American, but calling me African doesn’t say much about me, except that I wasn’t born in the states. I prefer Zimbabwean or Shona. I’m not black. My couch is black. And your not white, that piece of paper is white. What is race? Why classify people by skin color? If you are going to do that, then I’m Brown.

Interpretations/ Reflections Based on Nieto

Multicultural Education Perspectives

The case study of Matthew has strong ties to chapter two of Nieto’s Affirming Diversity. In chapter two, Nieto describes the situation of a second generation Mexican. The student was born in the United States so she was a US citizen, but both of her parents were of Mexican decent. She was full blooded Mexican US citizen. What do you call an individual in this situation? How do you identify her with out offending her? If you call her American, you are stripping her of her Mexican heritage. If you call her Mexican, you are taking away her citizenship as a US citizen. In this situation, Nieto says that we need to ask the individual what they want to be called. It may seem very straightforward, but straightforward isn’t always offensive, in a situation like this it is actually respectful. What do you want to be called? Do you prefer the term Mexican American or do you prefer Chicana? By asking the individual you are showing that you care. You are showing that individual that you care about how they identify themselves. If you are not in the same situation you obviously can not completely understand what they are going through, but you can show them that you are trying.