Banjul meets Pittsburgh.

Picture it. Boston. 1975.

My parents had already met a few times before when they both ended up at an after party for Hugh Masakela. My mother, born and raised in the steel town of Homestead, PA, had already earned a masters degree and lived in Chicago, Salt Lake City, and the Bay Area. My dad, born and raised in The Gambia, had come to the United States to attend Hamilton College, migrated to Brooklyn and Harlem, and was in an African dance troupe based in Boston. 

As the story goes, my mom had turned down my dad's previous requests for her phone number, but fortunately for us all, he persisted and they became a couple. My mother eventually moved to Banjul, joined the Peace Corps, married my dad and had me in 1978. We returned to Homestead in 1979 and I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA.

Growing up in the United States with a Gambian parent and a distinctly 'African' name added an additional layer to being Black in America. I grew up fully rooted in the Black American experience, an 80s and 90s kid obsessed with Hip Hop and R&B, eating benachin, yassa and domada with people speaking Wolof in the background.

I’m a proud Pittsburgh girl who is fiercely protective of the idea of Africa and how others perceive it.

I know that there are women like me out there with very similar experiences. Some of us grew up in the United States as the daughter of African immigrants. Some of us were born in the states and have spent a significant amount of time in Africa, or were born in Africa and have spent a great deal of time here in the states.

So many of us have stories to tell...stories that are interesting, rich and important. 

These stories will be elevated and celebrated here.

Abeokuta meets PG County.

When Dr. Bonike Oloruntoba was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1984, she was already an American citizen. Her mother Olabisi had primarily been raised in Ibadan, but she was born in United States while her father was at the University of San Francisco studying on a soccer scholarship. Upon graduation, he returned to Nigeria with his wife and daughters.  

Bonike’s father Oladeji  was born in Ijesha. He owned a bakery, but in the late 1980s the president of Nigeria banned most foreign imports, which had a detrimental effect on his business. When her parents decided to move the family to Brooklyn when she was 5 years old, they were certain that it would be a temporary relocation, but life unfolded unexpectedly. Their stay in Brooklyn lasted only a few months because the family did not have any significant connections there, and shortly after arriving, their home was burglarized. They continued on to Prince George’s County, MD, an area that had an increasingly large Nigerian community, and Bonike and her older brother Damilola grew up there.

Maryland brought the Oloruntoba family a much different experience than what they had in Brooklyn. They experienced familiarity in a large community that they were immediately able to tap into. For Bonike though, she often felt like she was living in two different worlds. During the week she was going to school and trying to assimilate into American culture, but on the weekends she was completely immersed in Nigerian culture-mainly through the church her family belonged to. She tried hard to fit in with her Black American peers, but she was acutely aware that she was perceived as different; especially when she would be called disparaging things like ‘African Booty Scratcher’ and teased because of her clothes, hair and complexion.

During her elementary school years Bonike didn’t necessarily feel ostracized, but she felt like she had more in common with the children of other immigrants from places like Korea and Iran. She went through a period of wanting to change her name because of the difficulty Americans always seemed to have with properly pronouncing it. She felt the need to prove that she was not an ‘African Booty Scratcher’ by not associating with more recent African immigrants. She also excelled in school, so there was also the stigma associated with being labeled a nerd.

Bonike felt most comfortable around other Nigerians, but there were times where she didn’t feel fully part of that community, either. She went from primarily speaking Yoruba as a child to no longer being able to speak the language at all, which brought feelings of separation. There were also times when she has experienced something that is all too common in the Black American community--colorism. She has heard relatives make negative remarks about her dark complexion, and lighter skin is often held in the highest regard.  Bonike was also aware of the practice of skin bleaching, which is very prevalent in the Nigerian community, but something she has considered doing.

While Bonike had challenges with identity in elementary school, high school marked a positive turning point. Her older brother Dami played basketball and had already established himself at their school, so she was accepted as his little sister. There were also other Nigerians at her school that she knew from church who were popular and considered to be ‘cool kids’, so she had well established connections. She was able to come into her own during this time through running track, being in the band, participating in school spirit activities, becoming a school leader, and having more Black teachers.

During her college years she noticed what she refers to as a definite awakening amongst her Nigerian peers. They began to embrace Nigerian culture and pride in a way that they had not before, and this was most evident in her friends who remained in Maryland and DC to attend college. She experienced a similar awakening during her time at Washington University in St. Louis, where she encountered many fellow Nigerians. She also found herself connecting in ways she never had with her Black American peers, especially through being part of a close knit Black community on campus, and through her membership in Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

When she returned to Maryland for medical school, she was able to fully experience her growing excitement and pride in her culture. Bonike attributes this enlightenment to two things: maturity and community expectations concerning marriage. College brings a change in priorities for Nigerian parents. Prior to college, the goal is to get into a good university, but once that has been accomplished, the focus shifts to finding a suitable mate. People are actively dating, experiencing life as young adults and choosing to celebrate the culture that connects them.

When it came to her finding a mate for herself, she’d always been encouraged to marry a fellow Nigerian. Someone she could pass the Yoruba language to her children with, as well as someone who was already a part of their tight knit Nigerian community. Still, she didn’t know if being married to a Nigerian would work for her. She's a self-described “non-traditional Nigerian woman,” and she was wary of the pressures that could come with maintaining privacy within their close community.

While she did not set out for this path, she found her ideal mate in a Black American named Darrell from North Carolina. They met in a book store after she complimented him on the King of Zamunda shirt he was wearing--a reference to her favorite movie, Coming to America. As things got more serious with Darrell, she received some push back from family and community members. After all, her prestigious career makes her a “prized catch” in her their circle. Still, in Darrell she has found the perfect man for her. He reminds her a lot of her dad, who has passed away. He has fully embraced her Nigerian culture, and the most important part is that her mother loves him, which is all that matters to her.

These days, Bonike is demonstrating her Black Girl Magic as an Assistant Professor of Medicine for Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Duke University Medical School. Her community is extremely proud of her accomplishments, and most importantly, she has come to a place of being able to fully reflect on the experiences that have made her the confident and successful woman she is today.

Monrovia and Banjul meet Pittsburgh.

When Ramatoulie and Fatima’s great grandmother, Mary Black, met an American soldier in her native Liberia, she probably didn’t know that she was about to chart a course for her descendants that was different than the one she had experienced. She married that soldier and had a daughter named Georgia, who was born and raised in Liberia. She eventually moved to the United States, but she was not accepted by her husband’s family. The union did not last, yet she remained in the country and spent the rest of her life here. She migrated from the South and ended up in Pittsburgh. Eventually she brought her granddaughter Roberta over from Liberia to live with her and finish her last year of high school.

At a party hosted by African students, Roberta met a fellow African immigrant from The Gambia, Ouse Rashid. He had also come to Pittsburgh as a teenager to live with a family friend and complete high school. They eventually married and remained in Pittsburgh where both of their daughters were born and raised.

(Quick history lesson: Ramatoulie and Fatima’s mother is from Liberia, which is a West African country founded by citizens of the United States and ex-Caribbean slaves as a colony for former slaves and their free black descendants. Because of Liberia’s origins, their mother’s native language is English. Their father’s native language is Wolof.)

Although Ramatoulie and Fatima are a decade apart in age, their experiences growing up in Pittsburgh were very similar. They attended schools that were either predominantly or significantly Black, they always had a strong connection to the Black community in Pittsburgh, and they both feel that they had a strong African upbringing despite being raised in the United States. Fatima was always aware that everyone knew that their parents were African, and though never ashamed, she always felt distinctly different from her peers because of it. Both sisters were called the commonly used ‘African booty scratcher’ slur, but Ramatoulie remembers how everyone in elementary school seemed to get teased for something. That happened to be what other kids zeroed in on with her.

Each year on the first day of school, Ramatoulie was prepared for teachers to hesitate when they came to her name during roll call. After years of going through school with the same group of kids though, she humorously recalls classmates yelling out, ‘It’s Ramatoulie!’ before the new teacher could even attempt the pronunciation.

Ramatoulie and Fatima's parents didn't allow them to do the same things that their friends were doing. They ate primarily Liberian food, trips to fast food chains like McDonald’s were a rare occurrence, and when it came to sleepovers, their father could not understand why he should allow them to sleep somewhere else when they had a perfectly good home of their own. When friends would visit their house, they found it odd when they had a difficult time understanding their mother when she talked. While they knew that she had an accent and a rapid cadence when she spoke, they of course had no difficulty understanding what she said.

Despite these experiences, they never felt ostracized or shunned because they were the daughters of African immigrants.  There was just always an awareness that the culture and norms inside of their household were different than those of the outside world.

College brought on a noticeable shift for both Ramatoulie and Fatima. They may not have had many friends in Pittsburgh who shared their same experience, but they encountered many people in college who did. Fatima, who graduated from Howard University, tapped into a community on campus where there was a thriving African Student Association, people proudly wore African clothing, and there was no shortage of African centered programming and events. Although Ramatoulie graduated from Oberlin College in rural Ohio, she encountered a similar community there, specifically as part of an African dance troupe called Dance Diaspora.

During college they found themselves embracing the Afrobeats movement and  growing to love the music that they used to plead with their mother to turn down while riding in the car (these pleas usually made her turn the volume up). They found music made by artists their age, who sang about things relevant to them. Adulthood brought opportunities to travel back and forth to Gambia and Liberia, and an evolving consciousness that while most Black Americans had to search for their cultural heritage, they already knew theirs.

Both Ramatoulie and Fatima agree that their biggest cultural influence has been African dance. It was such a dominant part of their upbringing that they don’t remember a time when they weren’t dancing. They point out that many Africans use dance to celebrate and enjoy life, and that it is part of their everyday lifestyle. They danced constantly growing up, and there was a time when Fatima had aspirations of becoming the next Fatima Robinson, the iconic choreographer associated with such artists as Aaliyah, Mary J. Blige and Michael Jackson. They both felt the pressure to major in fields that were perceived as more stable and potentially lucrative, but they have always come back to dance.

Ramatoulie and Fatima currently reside in Prince George’s County, MD, and have channeled their unique perspective and lifelong passion for African dance into a tangible business. They are the founders of Dance the Royal Beat (DTRB), an Afrobeats dance-fitness company based in Washington D.C. The mission of DTRB is to provide their community with cultural activities to enrich their lives and their future, with a vision of empowering their community globally. They are fulfilling lifelong dreams and pursuing their passion in a way that honors their cultural heritage. At this point in their lives, both Ramatoulie and Fatima feel privileged to have grown up in the United States the daughters of a Liberian mother and Gambian father. Having always had a direct connection to their native culture and traditions, they both feel that they have had the best of both worlds.