Reminders of an Unknown Past

As a Black American, my heritage is uncertain. All I know is that my ancestors were captured and enslaved through the Transatlantic Slave Trade 200-something years ago. Therefore, it has been very surreal being in Ghana, one of the first countries that African people were captured from.

From the moment I stepped off of the plane in Ghana, it felt oddly familiar. As I was giving multiple airport employees my name, most of them greeted me with “As Salaamu Alaikum”, a universal Islamic greeting, saying that Sakina is a very common name here, especially for Muslims. When I arrived at my program house, one of the staff told me that I looked Ghanaian, and to not be offended if people don’t immediately recognize that I’m a foreigner.

This is a minute example, but in Black American culture, women often do not want to get their hair wet & we will go to great lengths to shield any water from touching our hair. I had always assumed that this stemmed from how much work Black women often put into doing our hair paired with American respectability politics. But, since being in Ghana, I have noticed that this is also an aspect of culture here, making me think about other aspects of Black American culture that may have stemmed from African practices. It makes sense, as Black Americans are obviously descendants from Africa, but at times Black culture seems so far removed from African culture that it is still beautiful to witness the connections still present.

I took a class at Colby last semester about the African Diaspora, which basically asserted (in multiple different ways) that descendants of African enslaved people can find pieces of themselves in cultures all over the world. Being in Ghana has really asserted that diasporic feeling for me, and although I don’t yet know exactly where I am from, I love having this opportunity to explore possible lineages.