Student 'ambassadors' tackle divide between Africans, African Americans

by Benjamin Herold

Photo: Benjamin Herold

Morton student Khadija Fofana is a native of Liberia who arrived in Philadelphia last year.

“The rebels are coming! You must leave now. You may take only five things with you. Hurry!”

For the nine children sitting in a circle at Thomas Morton Elementary School, the scenario in this classroom exercise is all too familiar. Each has immigrated to Southwest Philadelphia from West Africa, many after fleeing civil conflicts.

Despite the harsh memories the exercise may trigger, 11-year-old Khadija Fofana, a native Liberian who just completed fifth grade at Morton, seems unfazed. When it is time for her and her partner to report on the choice they have made, she speaks confidently. “We will bring food, water, shoes, and a gun.”

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Fofana says she and her family arrived in Philadelphia from Liberia in October 2007, after three years in exile in Cote d’Ivoire, or the Ivory Coast.

In Philadelphia, the Fofana family became part of a growing Liberian community – as many as 15,000 Liberians have now immigrated to the city, many fleeing two recent civil wars marked by human rights abuses and the crumbling of the nation’s infrastructure.

For refugees and asylees fleeing such experiences, “there is a tremendous need for basic social services that are delivered in a culturally sensitive way,” explains Richard E. De Gourville, director of educational programs for the African Cultural Alliance of North America (ACANA). Many families need help obtaining housing, enrolling children in school, stabilizing their immigration status, finding jobs, and acquiring literacy skills.

All the while, says De Gourville, they must adapt to inner-city communities struggling with limited resources, poor schools, and high levels of violence.

Children, in particular, face a radically unfamiliar school culture and set of rules for interacting with other young people. Their sense of identity can suffer when they are stigmatized for their language, dress, complexion, and social norms.

In Southwest Philadelphia, where the African population in Philadelphia is most concentrated and where intense poverty among the majority African- American population is endemic, a simmering tension between the groups seems to ebb and flow.

At times, mistrust and misunderstandings escalate to harassment and violence. The most notorious example was in October 2005, when five African- American youth attacked a 13-year old Liberian boy on his way home from school, putting him in a brief coma and fracturing his skull.

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Navigating these dynamics has been a big part of Khadija Fofana’s nine months in Philadelphia.

She has had to work hard to fit into her new school environment.

As a result of her schooling in Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire, she says, “I didn’t like to talk in class. I liked to listen.” Fofana, learning English as a fourth language, grew even quieter when she did not fully understand what was being said in class.

But she found that students and teachers interpreted her silence as laziness.

Fofana also struggled socially. African- American children, she says, “pick on us because we are African. They say, ‘Go back to Africa.’ When me and my brothers go to the park, they pick on us and try to make us fight them.”

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Eventually, however, Fofana began to find supports.

She moved her desk next to another Liberian student who had been in the country for several years and helped to explain things that Fofana didn’t understand.

Improved English skills from her ESOL class also helped her to feel more confident.

And Fofana signed up for the District’s African and African-American Ambassadors Program, where she met her best friend and found an opportunity to share her culture and experience with students and staff at Morton.