African heritage, regardless of whether it is recognized, accepted, or self-defined by a biracial person, would take precedence in defining the identity of people of multiracial ancestry. One CWC participant of African heritage who worked in the public school system and happened to be married to a continental African, explained that “one of the issues for the public school system in working with multiracial children is that eventually—sometime usually when they are teenagers—the African inside of them comes out. They’re searching for their African self but don’t know how. As result, they sometimes act out in school, but the school system doesn’t know how to work with parents to help them.”14 According to this participant, the latent African inside the body will eventually come out—this African identity was stronger than the other identity of biracial children and will naturally and ultimately direct the identity of people of mixed ancestry.
However, not all “Black” participants who would be described by the CWC leadership as “of African heritage” agreed with this perspective. For example, Joanne, a health professional with a Ph.D. who described herself as “ethnically African American,” was married to a “White” man, and had a biracial biological child and an adopted child whom she described as “looking black,” had a very different perspective. Joanne, in her forties, was an executive at a large public health agency. Her approach to identity was also informed by her stay in Haiti and Benin as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1980s. Joanne made a distinction between her “ethnic” identity and her “cultural” identity.
Ethnically I am Black or African American, but I’m more a part of middle-class American professional culture. Practically—I mean on a day-to-day basis—that’s how I practice my culture. I would say that as someone married to a White person with a biracial and a Black child, I just represent a late twentieth-century African American and all the contradictory, mixed up things that involves.
I would not say that I’m African because I’m not. I lived in Africa for several years in Benin as part of the Peace Corps. Although that was a long time ago—over twenty years—I know that there are a lot of cultural differences. In fact, the people there thought of me as White although to most people here I definitely look Black. I also worked in Haiti in some villages and I would say that Haitians are closer to African than African Americans, although I could fit in better there because people often saw me as part of the Creole intelligentsia since I was considered light and am well-educated.
I don’t believe that you’re suddenly African because you wear African clothes, look black, or have lots of African art. It’s more than that and there are real cultural differences. My children are African American but they are not, culturally speaking, African even though some of their ancestors are African. American society will see them as African American—with all the stigma that’s attached to that category—whether they like it or not. What about my husband’s ancestors? So, I can’t say that they [the children] are exclusively African.15
Mavis, another participant who described her identity as “African American,” and who would be described as “African” or “of African heritage” by the CWC leadership, made an implicit distinction between political and ethnic identity. Mavis, in her thirties, worked as a clerk at a hospital and had moved to the Twin Cities about ten years earlier from inner-city Milwaukee. She was also part of a CWC support group for people with diabetes.
For me, being African American means dealing with stress and a lot of illness and an economical situation where you don’t have a lot of money. It is also means not being able to step out of your door without being bothered by people. I would say that my ethnic group is African American, but to me African American and black are the same thing. African American means that I am American because I was born here and I should have the same rights as any other American person. Really I’m American—a black American. Anyway, that’s what the government says; you know the whole thing that if you have even one drop of African blood you’re black. So, in a way, if a white person is born and raised in Africa, they’re a “white African” just like I’m a black American—their ancestors are European, but they are African citizens. But you know for those white Africans, they are usually rich and make the black Africans suffer and then they [black Africans] end up needing to come over here. But yeah, I guess you would still call them [white Africans] “African” …
The African or black part means that my ancestors are from Africa. In fact, that’s what I’ve been told by my mother and father—that their ancestors in the South [southern United States] were from Africa. But you know how we are. My father is a mixture of African and Indian, but he was always claiming that he was Irish or something else. But for black folks—somebody—somewhere down the line—came from Africa, even though people don’t accept it …
Some people are really into the African stuff and because their ancestors are African, they say that “Africa is my home”—even though they might be from the south side of Chicago. For me, my ancestors are African, but Africa is not my home. I would be lost if I went there because I can’t speak the languages. Some people are into the African stuff, but I’m realistic. Being African American means that you have this special understanding and identify with what your African ancestors had to deal with, but personally I’m from Milwaukee—I’m American and want my due here.16
This participant, while conscious of an African ancestry, would not describe herself as “African” because, for her, place of birth or political citizenship was the most significant component of identity. Therefore, even though she acknowledged that she had African ancestors, she defined herself as African (for ancestry) American (for place of origin) to underscore her rights as an American citizen. She did not see the “African” part of her identity as relevant in terms of her current lifestyle or cultural practices—only as a referent for ancestry and the North American racial classification of a “black” person.
For many CWC participants who described themselves as “Africans born in America,” the term “African American” was explicitly rejected as an accurate descriptor of cultural identity. Nefertiti, the CWC’s African dance instructor, represented this perspective well. “If you ask Black people about their identity, they will claim that they are anything else but African—Irish, Indian. They’re so quick to be in line with everything else … But when you begin to understand what “American” really stands for—this whole false history about the land of the free and brave stuff—how can you say you are both African and American [as in the term African American]? … I prefer to say “people of African descent.” This is a more holistic name. You can choose to take on a nationality but your culture stays with you.”17
In the very early phases of this study, I asked the CWC’s medical director, who is a licensed pediatrician and a Haitian woman of African heritage, to review an initial version of my research plan. Throughout the document, I used the term “African diaspora” as it is commonly used in scholarship to include individuals with historical origins, however defined, based in the African continent. The medical director, who self-identified as “African,” explained to me, “We just prefer the term ‘African.’ There are so many ways to divide us: ‘African American,’ ‘Afro-American,’ etc. that we just say that people are ‘African’—basically all these people are Africans.”
I went on to explain how the term is used in anthropology and that my goal was to accurately represent CWC participants’ understanding of their own identity, not impose my own. However, I would need to use terms like “Africa diaspora” to translate the CWC’s worldview into terms nonparticipants could understand. She accepted my explanation, but throughout this research I was careful to use and document participants’ self-descriptors. This approach, while occasionally the focus of gentle ridicule, helped me to establish and retain credibility as a native ethnographer while exercising the discipline’s expectation that I present the emic perspective.
Elaine described herself as both “African” and “African American” depending upon the context:
… I would say that I’m African in terms of how I personally see myself. Being African refers to how I got here—my connection to the Middle Passage. It’s also my skin color. I don’t care how White people act and how considerate