African Students Open Window on Their Lives

Silver Spring Show Tells A Cross-Cultural Story

Living in Silver Spring and attending Springbrook High School as a student of African heritage, Aminata Sesay wanted her classmates to understand how her life was different from theirs.

So she decided to write a play with her friend and fellow Springbrook senior, Gifty Addai.

The resulting work, "Who Am I?," explores the issue of identity through the viewpoint of an immigrant teenage girl who is being raised by her African father in the United States. Switching between the settings of an unnamed, war-torn African country in 1968 and the present in the United States, the story deals with the timeless issue of communication between parents and teens -- compounded by cultural clashes.

"The idea was already in all of our minds, to express how we felt as African American students," said Sesay, an 18-year-old whose family left Sierra Leone 13 years ago. "We wanted to show everyone what we go through every day."

Addai, who was born and raised in the United States and whose parents are from Ghana, said that she wanted to explain how she sometimes feels torn between the influences of her family and those of her American friends.

"It's important because a lot of people are not really informed about the whole traditional ways of Africans. You are kind of stuck between two worlds," said the 18-year-old from Silver Spring. "That's one of the reasons why we did this play, so they can understand where we're coming from."

The play, starring Sesay and with Addai in a major role, was performed last week at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring by the Springbrook High School African and Haitian Club. It was the main feature of a talent showcase that included African drumming, a fashion skit and poetry readings by students from African clubs at Montgomery Blair and Cardozo High School in Washington as well as Springbrook.

The showcase was a fundraiser for the African Immigrant and Refugee Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Washington that helps African immigrants make the transition into American society and provides programs to support "their productive, sustainable integration into their new homeland," according to organization officials.

The school clubs were established by the foundation under its Catching Up program, which provides tutoring and support for African students who need help assimilating and reaching par academically for their grade.

"Some of the kids we deal with have had an interrupted education because they are coming from war-torn countries," said Bertha Hyera, program manager for Catching Up. Some of these students are "placed in a high school level when academically they are in elementary school."

The program provides tutoring on Saturdays at its Washington offices, she said, and staff members meet with club members once a week at their schools. Other county schools involved in the Catching Up program are White Oak Middle School and Broad Acres Elementary School, both in Silver Spring.

The club meetings provide a social setting where students can talk and write about their experiences and perfect their English. "The strength of the group gives more self-esteem" and convinces them that "I think I can handle living here," Hyera said.