Exploring How Young Adult Somali-Americans Are Constructing Identity in Post-9/11 America

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Running Head: SOMALI-AMERICAN IDENTITY

Exploring How Young Adult Somali-Americans Are Constructing Identity in Post-9/11 America

Jack W. Turner

GeorgeMason University

[May 2011]

NOTE: Some appendixes removed - JT



SOMALI-AMERICAN IDENTITY 2

Table of Contents

Title Page: «««««««««««««««««««««««««..««««««««.1

Table of Contents««««««««««««««««««««««««««..««««..2

Abstract ««««««««««««««««««««««««««««.««««««..5

Introduction ««««««««««««««««««««««««««««.«««.«.6

Rationale««««««««««««««««««««««««««««.«««««.«9

Literature Review««««««««««««««««««««««««..«««««.«9

Brief History of Somalia««««««««««««««««««««...««.«.«9

Forced Migration and Social Discrimination«««««««......................«10

Methods and Procedures««««««««««««««««««««««««««...«11

Qualitative Methodology«««««««««««««««««««««...«««12

Mindfulness and Uncertainty«««««««««««««««««««««««13

Experiencing Muslim Informality««««««««««««««««««15

Co-Researcher Recruitment ««««««««««««««««««««««.«16

Description of Co-Researcher Demographics«««««««««««««««.«.17

Place of Birth, War Memories, and Family Structure««..««««««..«17

Recruiting Through Social Networks«««««««««««.«««««««..«18

Enhancing Trust Through Online Transparency«««.«««««.«««.19

Protecting Confidentiality and Offering Compensation .«« «««.««.«20

Triangulation and Bracketing««««««««««««««.«««««.««.«21

Interview Environments«««««««««««««.«.««««««..«21

Interview Question Creation««««««««««««««.«.««««««...«23




Reducing Transcripts into Themes: Orbe¶s Three Phases««««««««««.....24

First Review: Description««««««««««««.«.«««««..«..«24

Second and Third Phases: Reduction and Interpretation..«« ««««.«.25

Co-researcher Involvement««««««««««.«.««..«««««...«25

Results««««««««««««««««««««««««««««..«««««...«27

Theme One: Maintaining Strong Family Bonds««««««««.««««..«..«28

Family Conflicts and Religious Practices««««««««««««.«....«29

Parents Talk and Guidance «««««««««««..«««««««....«30

Civil War and Diaspora«««««««««««...«..«««««««««31

Theme Two: Keep Your Culture««««««««««...«..««««««««.«33

Somali-American Communities: Everybody¶s Watching«.«««««««.34

Qabiil: Intra-Cultural Racism and Politics«««...«..«««««««««35

³Not Black´ and ³Politically Black´ ««««««...«...«.«««««.««36

Theme Three: Keep Your Religion«««««««««...«..««««««««..«37

Wearing Hijab ««««««««««...«..««««««««««««..«38

Theme Four: Privileging Diversity «««««...«..«««««....««««««.«39

The Racial Discrimination Question«...«..«««««..««««....«««.41

Dialectic Relationships with Native African-Americans...... ««««««.«42

Awareness of Racial Hierarchy and Handling It«««......««««««..«44

Discussion««««««««««««««««««««««««««««««.««.«..45

Family Bonds and Somali-American Identity«««««««««««««.«.«...46

Cultural Awareness, Maintenance, and Challenges«««««..««««««.««48

Diversity: Intercultural and Interracial Friendships«««««.««««««««50




Islam and Intercultural Friendships«««««««««««««««««...««.53

Religion, Healing, and ³Allah¶s Place´. «««««««««««.««««««.«.53

Privileging Diversity and Intercultural Explorations. ««««««««««.««..55

The Racial Discrimination Question««««««««««..««««««««.«.57

Conclusion««««««««««..«««««««««««««««.««««««««59

Limitations«««««««..«««««««««««««««««««««««61

Implications for Future Research «««««««««««««««««..««..«62

References««««««««««..«««««««««««««««««««....«««.64

Appendix A««««««««««..««««««««««««...««««««...........«.73

Appendix B««««««««««..««««««««««««...««««««««....«.91

Appendix C««««««««««..««««««««««««...««««««...........«.93

Appendix D««««««««««..««««««««««««...«««««««.....«.112



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Abstract

Previous research has suggested that thirteen - to - eighteen year old Somali-Americas must

negotiate several barriers in American culture in order to attain a successful balance between

their Somali culture and mainstream American culture. The barriers include racial stereotypes,

post-9/11 discrimination toward Muslims, and the social status of refugees and immigrants.

This phenomenological project explores how eighteen ± to ± twenty-six year old Somali-

Americans are constructing and negotiating their young adult identities in American culture.

Identity theory provides a holistic explication for the way cultural, interpersonal, and

contextual factors influence the construction and negotiation of Somali-American identity.

A primary goal of the study has been to describe Somali-American¶s interactive experiences of

identity from their standpoint, and in their voices. Results from ten participant interviews

reveal significant themes related to intercultural identity construction and negotiation during

young adulthood. Participants have voiced descriptions of strong family bonds, a sense of

obligation to their culture, commitment to Islamic faith, and an attraction to diverse cultural,

racial, and ethnic social networks. Implications of the results and suggestions for future

research are discussed.

Keywords: Somali-Americans, identity, phenomenology, acculturation, Muslim




Exploring How Young Adult Somali-Americans Are Constructing Identity in Post-9/11 America

Previous research in American and Canadian high schools (Forman, 2002; Husain, 2008;

Shepard, 2008) suggests that adolescent children of Somali immigrants experience significant

challenges negotiating cultural and social barriers existing in their daily living environment. In

the United States, thirteen to eighteen year old Somali-Americans are reported to be

marginalized by their religion, race, status as children of immigrants, and their youth (Husain,

2008; Shepard, 2008). This project explores identity construction and negotiation among young

adult Somali-Americans, eighteen to twenty-six year old, and how this process may be related to

the acculturation difficulties reported by Husain (2008) and Shepard (2008).

This project advances beyond adolescence and seeks to answer three basic questions.

First, how do young adult (18 to 26 years old) Somali-Americans construct identities that

function well in communication with non-Somalis and non-Muslims while also functioning

successfully within their Somali culture? Second, what effects have their interactive experiences

with others, within and outside Somali-American groups, had on negotiating and shaping their

identities? Third, what does it mean to be a young adult Somali-American growing up in, and

adapting to, American mainstream culture? By asking these questions, this study also seeks to

describe, from the standpoint of young adult Somali-Americans, ³the diversity within and

between cultures and what makes intercultural contact effective or ineffective´ (Hecht,

Jackson&Ribeau, 2003, p.6.)

Rationale

This investigation is important because it could help researchers, educators, and social

service organizations better understand how young Somali-Americans experience acculturation

between Somali and American culture. The project focuses on providing a space where the

voices and perspectives of young adult Somali-Americans can be heard, valued, and understood




by those of us outside their social and cultural borders. Results from this research may reveal

communication approaches and strategies that are more effective at creating satisfying and

successful acculturation experiences for young adult Somali-Americans.

Similar to Orbe and Harris¶s (2006) position on successful interracial communication, I

believe that learning about and accepting similarities and differences between Somali culture and

American culture is necessary to understand how young adult Somali-Americans attain their

personal, professional, and social goals from a marginalized position in the United States. This

project uses a phenomenological approach (Dewitt, 2007; Martinez, 2000; Orbe, 1998;

Sokolowski, 2000), Orbe¶s (1998) co-cultural theory, and the communication theory of identity

(Hecht et al. 2003) to discover, explicate, and value thedifferences and similarities between

Somali and American culture. This trio of theories and methods has provided the necessary depth

and scope to discover and analyze how the noted differences and similarities forge young

Somali-American¶s identities and shape their adaptation to American culture.

First, phenomenology acknowledges the perceived reality of young Somali-Americans as

it is experienced in daily interactions and accepts their lived experience as data (Dewitt, 2007;

Martinez, 2000), which is referred to as capta by Orbe (1998). Second, Orbe¶s co-cultural

methodology serves as a framework for exploring young Somali-American¶s intercultural

communicationexperiences and how this has resulted in their communication choices and

strategies in relation to the dominant culture in the United states. Orbe and Harris (2006) suggest

that the dominant culture privileges white European - American cultural values (P.76). Finally,

Hecht et al.¶s (2003) communication theory of identity provides a holistic explanation for the

way complex cultural, interpersonal, and contextual factors influence the construction and

negotiation of a successful Somali-American identity.




This project analyzes personal narratives for essential themes, and presents the themes in

the voices of young adult Somali-Americans. The main purpose of this study has been to

investigate the different ways that young Somali-Americans, as a marginalized group (Orbe,

1998), construct and negotiate their identities between two cultures. Identity is a dynamic nexus

of an individual¶s culture, family relationships, social interactions, and negotiation decisions in

relation to other individuals, social groups, and the existing dominant culture (Hecht et al.,

2003). This project focuses on identity because it is the culmination and inter-relation of

previous value and behavioral decisions that determine an individual¶s current choices

concerning group membership, communication behavior, and personal goals (Hecht et al., 2003;

Ting-Toomey, 2005).

The project has included my own journey across cultural boundaries into the discursive

world of young adult Muslims and Somali-Americans. Impressions of my journey have been

recounted to provide richer description and validation for the project¶s results. I have attended

Muslim Student Association (MSA) (Muslim Student Association, 2007) events at George

Mason University and events sponsored by the Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA)

MSA. I have participated in prayers and lectures on the Quran at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center

in Falls Church, Virginia (the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center, 2001). Ihave also interacted and

exchanged information with young adult Somali-Americans through social networks such as

Facebook (Turner, 2011a) and Blogger (Turner, 2011b).

The remaining content of this paper is divided into five sections, followed by references

and appendices. A brief literature review is followed by a full description of methods and

procedures used to collect data. Next, a results section describes shared themes which have been

reduced from participant¶s interviews, using specific quotes from participants for examples. A

discussion section addresses the interpretations of themes derived from Somali-American co-




researcher interviews and triangulates their descriptions with previous research and with publicly

available data from Internet social networks. Finally, a conclusion section reviews major points

elicited from this project, discusses the study¶s limitations, and sums up implications for future

research.

For the remainder of this document, Orbe¶s (1998) co-cultural terms for this project¶s

participants and data derived from participant interviews will be used. Participants in this study

are recognized as co-resear chers who are primary authorities on their lived experiences and their

culture¶s traditions and rituals (Dewitt, 2007; Orbe, 1998). Data produced from co-researcher¶s

interviews and Somali-American online social networks , the accounts ofco-researcher¶s lived

experience and the meanings that co-researchers attach to their experiences, are labeled as

capta(Dewitt, 2007; Orbe, 1998).

Literature Review

This section begins with a brief history of Somali-American¶s ancestral homeland,

Somalia. It then focuses on the common effects of forced migration endemic to the Somali-

American population. Finally, it references unique cultural characteristics and social contexts

that influence identity construction and negotiation by Somali-Americans.

A Brief History of Somalia

In the 1980¶s, an opposition government was formed which eventually pushed

Mohammed SiadBarre, ruler since 1969, out of power in 1991 (CIA Factbook, 2011). Without a

unifying leader or government to keep clan rivalries under control, brutal clan warfare took over

Somalia. Within a year, it was estimated that several hundred thousand people had died, and

another 1.5 million (an estimated one quarter of the population) were on the brink of starvation

(Putnam &Noor, 1993). An estimated one million Somalis had fled to neighboring countries

such as Kenya, Ethiopia, and Yemen (CIA Factbook, 2011; Putnam & Noor, 1993). There has




not been a government functioning to serve the whole of Somalia in twenty years (CIA

Factbook, 2011).

Peace has come to Somalia intermittently since 1995, when the United Nations (U.N.)

finally withdrew its occupational forces after years of sustaining casualties. A tentative

government has been assisted by Kenya since 2000, and it now includes a Somali-American

president, Mohammed Abdullahi. The northern-most region of Somalia has declared itself a

separate country named Somaliland, and has enjoyed peace and stability for several years. It

remains to be seen if Somaliland will be recognized diplomatically by the U.N (Maloof&

Sheriff-Ross 2003; CIA The World Fact Book, 2005)

Forced Migration and Social Discrimination.Somali-Americans have experienced

difficulties common to previous refugee and immigrant populations in the United States,

including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (CDC, Gozdziak, 2002;Maloof& Sheriff-Ross,

2003;Tran &Ferullo, 1997), acculturation stress (Berry, Kim, Minde& Mok,1987; Shepard,

2008) and deficiencies in language fluency and educational skills (Shepard, 2008; Husain, 2008).

Shepard (2008) and Husain (2008) have included Somali-Americans who did not personally

experience war environments and refugee camp living. Shepard and Husain both indicate a

position that young Somalis share common cultural reference points from refugee trauma and

acculturation stress that are passed down in their cultural memory. I have followed the same

reasoning in this project.

Somali-Americans inhabit a marginal position within American culture due to post-9/11

discrimination against Muslims (Muedini, 2009; Sirin& Fine, 2007; Watanabe &Helfand, 2009;

Yee, 2005),continuing racial barriers against people of color (Orbe& Harris, 2006) their status as

the newest, youngest, and poorest African immigrants now living in the United States (Husain,

2008; Shepard, 2005; U.S. Census Bureau, 2000), and a stereotyping negative image in the U.S.




news and popular media (Finn &Hosh, 2011; Hedgpeth, 2011). Most anti-Muslim experiences

are reported by people who are of Middle-Eastern descent, or people who have physical

characteristics that are presumed to be Middle-Eastern (head covering, swarthy complexion, and

so on (Boorstein, 2006). However, Shepard (2008) and Husain (2008) recount Somali-American

experiences with anti-Muslim discrimination in U.S. schools, as well as racially-based

discrimination (sometimes from U.S.-born African-Americans). In the mass media and news

programs, Somali-Americans are referenced mostly in terms of Islamic insurgency threats (Finn

&Hosh, 2011) and Somali pirates (Hedgpeth, 2011). These unique and negative factors may

provide a significant burden for young adult Somali-Americans trying to negotiate American

culture successfully.

Methods and Procedures

This project became a concrete plan on October 11, 2011, when I spoke with a local

Imam, a recognized community and religious leader who may also lead prayers (Imam, 2011).

After I described a project about exploring the identity construction of young American

Muslims,Imam Mohammed (a pseudonym) quickly and coherently advised me to focus the study

on Somali-Americans. He said Somali-Americans were all Muslims1 , or at least he had never

heard of, or met, a non-Muslim Somali. Mohammed, who was comfortable being addressed by

his first name, referred me to a local American Muslim professor who had researched Somali-

Americans, and suggested I start attending MSA events.

From that point, I contacted the Muslim professor, who supported my research concept

and also advised me to meet young adult Muslims by attending MSA events. He advised me to

communicate about my research project through these interactions and ask MSA executive

1During this project, every source of information about Somalis, Somali-Americans and Islam-human sources, blogsand online discussions, journal articles and news items- stated that almost all Somali-Americans were Muslim. Noreport of a non-Muslim Somali-American has emerged from any of these sources during this study.




committee members if they knew any Somali-Americans. I jokingly referred to this conversation

as ³my marching orders.´

I contacted Muslim Student Association (MSA) officers and other members at George

Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College by attending their scheduled

events. I explained the research project and asked for introductions to Somali-American contacts.

I attended six MSA events over about six weeks to help build a trusting relationship and support

for the research from the MSA community. I also attended six or more prayer meetings at the

Dar al Hijrah mosque to become more familiar with Muslim cultural practices and religious

rituals.

While I was attending Muslim events to make contact with Somali-Americans, I created

an Internet social network presence to reach out beyond the geographic area of northern Virginia

to Somali-Americans in other states. More details about the online web pages used for the project

are in the ³Co-Researcher Recruitment´ section because it became a significant factor in

attracting female Somali-Americans to the study. Another unexpected benefit of the online

promotion was that it created another important reference point for demonstrating respect and

legitimacy to potential co-researchers. The qualitative methods used in the project are discussed

next.

Qualitative Methodology

Following qualitative methodology, specifically phenomenology, I have been the

principal investigator, interviewer, and data collection instrument for this study (Creswell, 1998).

This project¶s data collection demonstrates phenomenological theory in respect to the observer

(me) and the ³object, ´ or phenomenon, being observed, which includes my co-researchers,

Muslim rituals, and so on (Sokolowski, 2000). According to phenomenological theory, the act of

observing and the phenomenon being observed create a dynamic and recursive experience




(Sokolowski, 2000). Phenomenology embraces subjectivity and proposes that observation of an

object, or phenomenon, creates an experience of reality that is the total sum of the observer¶s

individual history and culture, the context of the observation (such as time and place), and the

object (Sokolowski, 2000). Thus, the researcher¶s perception of reality is never completely

separated from what, or who, he is studying (Sokolowski, 2000).

An assumption of phenomenology is that researchers are immersed in the lifeworld they

are observing (Orbe, 1998). A phenomenological perspective has guided my exploration of the

religious culture of Somali-Americans as a way to understand and acknowledge how Somali-

American¶s standpoint and communication behaviors inter-relate with Islamic beliefs and values

(Dewitt, 2007; Orbe, 1998). Respectfully exploring Muslim communal space also has helped

create a trusting relationship with the Muslim community that surrounds Somali-Americans.

During my exploration, I have practiced ethical intercultural communication, and fully disclosed

my role as an interested and respectful researcher at all times (Martin, Nakayama, & Flores,

2002).

Another major component of phenomenology and co-cultural theory (Orbe, 1998) is the

reduction and refinement of participant¶s accounts of their lived experiences into essential

structures of meaning or essence (Martinez, 2000; Orbe, 1993). The essence of a person¶s lived

experience, the meaning created and how it is understood by that person in his or her culture, is

discovered by linking co-researcher¶s experiences to a specific understanding or meaning. When

the interview transcripts have been scrutinized for shared meanings until the smallest number of

meanings (usually a phrase or short sentence) are related to the smallest number of shared

experiences, an essence has revealed itself. An essence is important because it describes a

relationship, communication strategy, value, or belief that is uniquely bound to the study¶s

participants (Creswell, 1998; Hecht et al, 2003; Orbe, 1993).




The qualitative methods I have used in this project are much different from my

undergraduate experience using quantitative methods (Creswell & Miller, 2000). Primarily, this

has been the case because the qualitative method has required much more attention to my

interactions during data collection. For example, an essential part of Orbe¶s (1998) co-cultural

approach is reflexivit y, or the self-reflexive process (Creswell & Miller, 2000). Being reflexive

means not only reflecting on one¶s perspective and bias while performing data collection, but

also examining one¶s motivations and cognitive processes that lead up to decision-making and

judgments (Orbe, 1998)

I enacted my understanding of reflexivity by regularly and consistently questioning

whether or not I have described communication experiences in the voice of the participants, and

not my own. I made it a regular practice to record my impressions and understandings after every

MSA event; when I had a conversation with another Muslim I had just met; after any social

interaction that was significant in some way; and after most of the interviews. In this way the,

meaning and importance of reflexivity revealed itself step-by-step during the project. The

significance of practicing mindfulness and handling communication apprehension is discussed in

the following section.

Mindfulness and Uncertainty

The personal interactions within the Muslim and Somali-American cultures I have

experienced as a human data collection instrument have involved learning and negotiating

cultural differences and navigating different cultural spaces. This relates to another important

concept for communicating across cultural boundaries: mindfulness. Mindfulnesshas

beendescribed by intercultural communication researchers Ting-Toomey (2005) and Gudykunst

(2005) as demonstrating respect for, and maintaining consistent attention to, another person¶s

culture.




During this project, I have endeavored to be mindful at all times by demonstrating

openness and honesty, asking questions about Islam politely, listening attentively, sharing my

knowledge about the value Somali and Islamic culture, and always participating in events

dressed in a suit and tie. Literally, mindfulness has been a component, and a function, of this

human data collector.

I have been especially concerned with building trusting relationships with people who

could be potential recruits for the study and/or people who could introduce me to potential co-

researchers. This has included any Muslims I have interacted with at MSA events, at lectures on

the Qur¶an, and at prayer meetings or other functions at the mosque. In fact, much like the

uncertainty of intercultural communication theorized by Gudykunst (2005), I was continually

anxious about committing an embarrassing or, even worse, offensive f aux pa s during my initial

interactions with Muslims and Somali-Americans. My anxiety was abated substantially by

several weeks of sincere kindness, generosity, friendly curiosity, and openness to diversity

offered by my many Muslim benefactors. The pleasant surprise of open and informal

communication practices in Muslim culture is discussed next.

Experiencing Muslim Informality.One day I was invited into the office of the mosque¶s

white haired and bearded director, who is a M uf t i S heik : Mufti meaning he is a qualified

interpreter of Islamic law, and Sheikh meaning he is a respected elder and speaker (Mufti, 2011;

Sheikh, 2011). ³Come, sit«´, he said, and gestured with his hand toward an empty chair next to

another slightly graying man in a prayer cap, brown leather jacket, and blue jeans. The Mufti

Sheikh, wearing a prayer cap and ankle-length thawb, a long-sleeved cotton robe, laid length-

wise on a small couch across from me and asked ,´So, you have a family´? The other man turned

out to be a construction contractor who had another career back in Egypt as a physical therapist. I

enjoyed a pleasant conversation about my research and various religious issues with these two




gentlemen, the Mufti Sheikh dozing intermittently between friendly questions and quotes from

the Qur¶an.

My experiences with the Muslim community - at MSA events, prayer meetings and

Qur¶anic lectures at the mosque ± eventually imbued me with positive expectations about future

interactions with Muslims of all races and ethnic backgrounds, and with Muslims at all levels of

status and authority. On a couple of occasions, I stayed at the mosque after a prayer meeting and

spent several hours relaxing and studying in the comfort of this spiritual place. I was never alone,

because as co-researcher Omar (pseudonym) has stated:

You know, in a mosque, there's always somebody there for all five prayers. There's

always somebody there, something going on during the day. I think in a Christian church,

people aren¶t there. There's a lot of time when the church is empty. I'm not sure about

that. Is that true?

I can only speak from my experience in the context of the Muslims I have interacted with

at George Mason University, Northern Virginia Community College, and the al darHijrah

Islamic Center. If these groups are a normal example, it is quite easy for me to understand why

Muslims are not only outraged, but feel real emotional pain at the way Muslims have been

stereotyped as primitive, violent, and oppressive (Friedlander, 2004; Yee, 2005). After the tragic

attacks of September 11, 2001, I experienced for some time a fear of individuals I thought might

be Muslim. My experiences in Muslim communities have completely alleviated that fear, with

the practical caveat that there will always be a few misguided, destructive people in any

community. The project¶s co-researchers are described by demographics and family history in

the next section.

Co-Researcher Recruitment

Co-researchers for the project have been recruited after receiving approval from George




Mason University¶s Human Subjects Review Board. (Appendix A)Multiple recruitment

strategies have been used, including personal introductions through MSA members; the creation

of ³Somali-American Identity Project´ Facebook (Turner, 2011a) and Blogger (Turner, 2011b)

pages to promote the study on the Internet; and multiple links to my professional and educational

contact information I have used ³snowball´ sampling whenever possible, through face ± to - face

interactions and through Internet interactions. I have been inspired to try online interviews by

Dewitt¶s (2008) use of an online format for conducting focus group interviews.

Description of Co-Researcher Demographics( Appendix B)

The project¶s purposeful sample (Frey, Botan, & Kreps, 2000) is composed of four

female and six male 18-26 year old Somali-Americans. One co-researcher is finishing high

school, six are completing one to three years of their bachelor¶s degrees, two are finishing

bachelor¶s degrees, one has completed two years of college and is currently unemployed, and

one is a professional counselor with a master¶s degree. Half of the co-researchers are employed

full or part time or work without salaries for non-profit organizations. When given a choice

between American, African, African-American, Muslim, Somali, and Somali-American

identities (adapted from Shepard, 2008), eight co-researchers chose ³Muslim´ as the identity

most salient to them. One co-researcher chose ³Somali-American´ as most salient, and one chose

³African-American´ first and ³Muslim´ second.

Place of Birth, War Memories, and Family Structure. Three co-researchers were born

and raised in northern Virginia, six were born in Mogadishu, and one was born in London,

England. Five of the immigrant co-researchers are from families who fled the civil war in

Somalia as forced immigrants or refugees. One participant has personal memories of civil war

violence and the resulting family upheaval; one has personal memories of refugee camp life; and

the others have heard civil war and refugee narratives from older siblings and parents.




All of the co-researchers have large, extended families. In some cases, they have met

people who are introduced to them as aunts, uncles, and cousins that they have been previously

unknown to them. Three of the co-researchers have divorced parents; two co-researchers have

single mothers who remained unmarried after the father¶s death; and one of the co-researchers

has parents who have remain married while living in separate countries. Four of the ten co-

researchers have married parents who live together.

Family structures have been affected by the Somali diaspora. Four of the co-researchers

have described their extended families¶ complete exodus from Somalia, naming relatives in

Sweden, Norway, and Eastern Europe. Six co-researchers have anywhere from a few relatives to

many relatives still living in Somalia, and twoco-researchers have visited relatives in Somalia the

past five years. The next section opens up the topic of using online social networks for recruiting

co-researchers for research studies.

Recruiting Through Social Networks

In order to promote dialog about Somali-American identity between myself and Somali-

Americans, I created a Facebook page (Turner, 2011a), Blogger website (Turner, 2011b), and

Twitter account (Turner, 2011c) dedicated to attracting young adult Somali-Americans to an

explorative dialog about Somali-American identity This type of promotion is in line with social

networking strategies described by Brogan and Smith (2009) and is being used to recruit

participants for other studies. For example, companies are now offering social networking

services to medical researchers for the purpose of recruiting participants for medical trials (Sfera,

2011).

The blogger page (Turner, 2011b) functions like a web page, with an ³About the Somali-

American Identity Project´ opening page , and several other pages explaining in more detail the

project¶s goals and displaying the project¶s ³Informed Consent Form,´ and other project




documents. Every Blogger page (Turner, 2011b) is linked to each other and to other web pages

such as the project¶s Facebook page (Turner, 2011a) and my professional information on a

LinkedIn page. By practicing complete transparency with my educational and professional

information, I basically showed as clearly as possible that I had nothing to hide. In the next

section, trust issues and the use of transparency with online web pages is discussed.

Enhancing Trust Through Online Transparency. Having nothing to hide has been an

important issue ever since an MSA executive member and a co-researcher both stated,

separately, that I needed to be careful around Muslims because ³they might think you¶re a spy.´

(Personal conversations with author, November, 2010 and January, 2011). The project

web pages have coordinated links to Somali-American YouTube videos, the present research

project documents, and previous academic research about Somali-Americans in a professional

display (Turner, 2011b). It has been obvious to any viewers that a respectable amount of

consideration, research, time and energy went into creating the web pages. Together, the factors

of professionalism, transparency, and interesting links created a perception that the project was

serious and respectful toward Somali-American culture.

I interacted with a number of Somali-Americans through the project¶s Facebook page

(Turner, 2011a). Internet capta has contributed significantly to the triangulation (Creswell &

Miller, 2000;; Frey, Botan, & Kreps, 2000) of interview capta provided by co-researchers. In

particular, because female Muslims are often limited in their interactions with males (El-Amin

Naeem, 2009; Evans, 2010), I conjectured that Internet and phone interviews would work best

for this segment of the sample group. Since three female co-researchers outside of Virginia were

recruited and interviewed in exactly this way, it would appear that electronic communication

channels may be a productive strategy for future intercultural interviews.




Even though the Blogger website (Turner, 2011b) has not been used so far as a

communal communication site by young Somali-Americans, it has turned out to be a significant

symbol of legitimacy for potential co-researchers who visited the page. I found the power of such

a symbol on the perceptions of a group a generation younger than me intriguing as a persuasive

strategy and baffling from the viewpoint of my age-related culture. The Twitter account (Turner,

2011c) connected me with a few Somali-American teenagers and a Somali-American radio show

host, but did not result in recruiting any co-researchers. The next section discusses the protection

of co-researcher¶s confidentiality and the need for offering compensation to co-researchers.

Protecting Confidentiality and Offering Compensation. For personal interviews,

informed consent was obtained from co-researchers in person by this researcher. Internet co-

researchers read the informed consent agreement on the Blogger page (Turner, 2011b), and I

discussed it in detail with each co-researcher. Online co-researchers then gave their consent

verbally to the researcher and sent a signed, printed copy to the researcher by mail or email

attachment. All co-researchers received a copy of the Informed Consent Form as well as a

detailed information statement fully explaining the research project (Appendix A)co-researchers

were asked if they had any more questions or concerns at the end of each interview.

Confidentiality has been maintained by keeping access to all documents strictly limited to

myself and my adviser. All audiotapes, video recordings, and transcripts have been kept in a

locked facility at all times when not being analyzed by this researcher. All co-researcher names

used in this project report are pseudonyms in accordance with the informed consent agreement.

No co-researchers or potential co-researchers have at any time been misinformed or misled in

any way during this study. At any time during the study, anyone viewing the web page sources

or holding a signed consent form could have contacted my university adviser and/or employer to

check my credentials.




After two uncompensated co-researchers completed their interviews, I had no contact

from potential co-researchers for two weeks. Compensation was offered in order to attract

participants to the project within the planned interview schedule. One $25.00 gift card, or a

$25.00 donation to a charitable or non-profit organization of their choice, was offered to co-

researchers who completed a 45-60 minute interview. Compensation was mailed toco-

researchers one to two weeks after they completed the interview, or a $25.00 contribution was

sent to their non-profit of choice. Triangulating sources of data and the bracketing of personal

bias is discussed in the next section.

Triangulation and Bracketing

Other sources of information have contributed to the validity of this study. By using

triangulation (Creswell, 1998; Frey, Botan, & Kreps, 2000), capta from the interviews has been

compared with data from Somali-American Internet discussion forums and blogs, Somali-

American educational videos, previous research on refugee and immigrant populations

(including Muslims), and news stories concerning Somali-Americans. Triangulation serves an

important role in qualitative research by providing similar data from multiple sources, providing

additional validity to the researcher¶s interpretations of capta (Creswell & Miller, 2000).

During data collection and analysis of interview transcripts, I have bracketed or set aside,

my personal opinions and judgments by concentrating on the unique character, perspective, and

experiences of each context and each human being (Dewitt, 2007; Orbe, 1998). In accordance

with Orbe¶s (1998) co-cultural methods, I acknowledge that at the present time I am a fifty-five

year old heterosexual male of White ± European descent, married with two adult children, and

holding spiritual beliefs that correlate well to Zen Buddhism. If pressed for a description of my

culture, I would say that my worldview is informed by a liberal, Southern, and Christian




upbringing that has been broadened significantly by my travels and experiences as the child of a

a U.S. military officer.

I found bracketing, also called invoking the epoque¶ (Martinez, 2000), to be a difficult

challenge when it came to reading about Islamic prohibitions on female behavior and hearing

them reified during lectures about the Qur¶an and Muslim identity (El-Amin Naeem, 2009;

Evans, 2010). Particularly, it was difficult to bracket my personal opinion when it came to issues

of personal safety. For example, it is forbidden for Muslim women to be alone with a single man,

because a third person ± S ha ytan(Satan) ± will be present to encourage sinful behavior (Evans,

2010; Author¶s personal conversations with MSA members, 2010).

In fact, MSA members have been lectured that it is prohibited in Islam for a man to walk

a young female Muslim student to her car at night, even if the intent is to insure her safety

(Evans, 2010). Shaking hands with a non-Muslim female at a business meeting has also been

defined as an act prohibited by rules against touching anyone of the opposite gender except your

spouse (Evans, 2010). Despite my incomprehensibility of a few singular occurrences such as

this, on the whole I found the Muslim environment and the participant¶s life stories so

fascinating that I seldom dwelled on my personal viewpoint. As Orbe and Harris (2006) have

made clear, sometimes the best approach in communicating outside your comfort zone is to

accept that you will not understand everything you hear. The next section discusses the format

used for interviewing participants.

Interview Environments. Interviews were conducted in three different environments

during the project. Six face-to-face interviews were conducted at different geographic locations,

including George Mason University, Northern Virginia Community College, and an Indian

restaurant; two interviews were conducted by telephone; and two interviews were conducted

with Skype video calls (one with the video turned off, at the request of the female co-




researcher). Different environments were used in order to take advantage of electronic

communications and to demonstrate respect for co-researcher¶s comfort, particularly female

participants.

All interviews were recorded with a digital voice recorder that made MP3 file storage

possible. All voice recordings were transcribed. Interviews lasted from fifty minutes to two and

one- half hours. Most interviews lasted about ninety minutes.

Interview Question Creation

Interview questions (Appendix A) were mainly related to Hecht et al.¶s (2003)

communication theory of identity and Husain (2008) and Shepard¶s (2008) research findings

about cultural barriers experienced by Somali-American adolescents. Interview questions that

were related to the communication theory of identity (Hecht et al., 2003) inquired about personal

and family history; relational and social communication; communication within and outside of

Somali ± American culture, and values and beliefs. Interview questions that were based on

Husain (2008) and Shepard¶s (2008) research included languages and language fluency,

experiences of racial and religious discrimination, 9/11 experiences, and diversity of friendships

and social groups.

Some questions related to identity were adapted from Hackshaw (2007) and asked

whether or not co-researchers perceived a more salient affinity with native African-Americans or

with American Muslims. Questions asking co-researchers to ³switch places´ with native African-

Americans and white European-Americans were created independently by this author. Many co-

researchers who imagined what it was like to be a member of a different cultural group gave

enhanced descriptions about their perceptions and beliefs concerning African-Americans and

white-Europeans. Additionally, some responses about ³being Somali-American´ changed , or

were more descriptive, after this exercise .




Interview questions were created to collect capta about young adult Somali American¶s

communication standpoint derived from their lived experiences; accounts of Somali culture;

perceptions about white-European American and African-American culture; accounts of Muslim

culture; and how these experiences influenced their construction and negotiation of identity.

Questions were specific and open ended, meaning that questions elucidated specific experiences

of interpersonal and intercultural communication and provided space for co-researchers to

describe the meaning of their experiences in their own voices.

After each interview, I reviewed notes to evaluate how well questions were providing the

data needed for the project. Ineffective questions were omitted, some questions were changed,

and some were added to provide deeper and more detailed descriptions of experiences. For

example, as a theme of qabiil (tribalism) emerged, I began asking a question about tribalism and

allowing for open discussion about this issue. By the third interview, questions for each

interview remained essentially the same. I transcribed each interview and, as described in the

next section, I followed Orbe¶s (1998) co-cultural method of reducing the transcripts into

themes.

Reducing Transcripts into Themes: Orbe¶s Three Phases

First Review: Description. During the periods between interviews, I made notes about

some specific incidents and experiences from each interview that reflected aspects of identity

construction and negotiation. I became aware of redundancies in the interview questions and of

questions which did not provide the capta the study was attempting to discover. In accordance

with the concept of following emerging themes from the interviews, I omitted redundant and

unproductive questions and clarified others (Dewitt, 2007, Orbe, 1998, Witteborn, 2007). By the

third interview, certain themes had emerged that would remain consistent in later analysis, and

more would emerge from the reduction process.




I followed three steps outlined by Orbe (1998) during the descriptive phase of reduction.

First I transcribed all interviews (Appendix C, example of completed transcript), andread each

transcript individually without making notes.

Second, I highlighted words, phrases, and narratives that appear to be essential to the lived

experiences of co-researchers. In the case of the present study, these experiences will be related

to questions about identity construction and negotiation through personal interactions.

In the third step of the description phase, I bracketed themes from the first transcript

before moving on to the next transcript. More or different themes are expected to emerge from

each new transcript, because each co-researcher¶s lived experience will point out their individual

standpoint, including how they view the worlds around them and shape their own reality; how

they perceive others and how they think others perceive them (Dewitt, 2007); and how they

negotiate who they are in the different contexts of their worlds (Orbe, 1998). I read most of the

transcripts a second time in this phase to be certain I was following Orbe¶s (1998) method

correctly.

Second and Third Phases: Reduction and Interpretation. For the second phase of

reduction, I read every transcript again to become more familiar with themes highlighted in each

transcript. Ieliminated themes that were not essential to participant¶s lived experiences, and I

began to consider specific themes that were consistent across all interviews. After completing

this task for each transcript, I advanced into the third phase of theme reduction (Orbe, 1998).

In the third phase of reduction, I started to interpret themes that had been identified, and

discovering how they connected with the viewpoints of different co-researchers. I reviewed

essential themes drawn from interviews and constructed concepts that demonstrated how the

themes related to one another. Reflexivity, how one starts with an initial interpretation and




interrogates that interpretation, became more familiar a process as I continued from one

transcript to the next and back again (Dewitt, 2007; Orbe, 1998).

As suggested by Orbe (1998), I used creative thinking to explore how broad concepts

might explicate the themes more logically and thoroughly in the voices of the co-researchers.

Unique phrases began to emerge that described how the themes were interconnected and related

from one co-researcher¶s experience to the other. During this phase, a unique and unexpected

theme I labeled ³Privileging Diversity´ began to emerge.

Orbe (1998) states that once a researcher has completed this process, he should

understand that a complete reduction of the themes is not possible, because the

phenomenological approach assumes that the researcher¶s involvement with the capta is

intersubjective. Orbe states that in the phenomenological method, the researcher¶s worldview is a

continuous and dynamic part of the interpretive process, to the extent that interpretations of capta

are similar to an ongoing dialog between the researcher and the data. In this sense, the reduction

can never be completed because the conversation is never completed.

The conclusion of the phenomenological process provides researchers with an

understanding of a specific group¶s standpoint and voice by thoroughly examining their reports

of day-to-day experiences. Phenomenology (Sokolowski, 2000), which recognizes multiple

perceptions of reality, and Orbe¶s (1998) co-cultural theory, allow researchers to bring a

marginalized group¶s voice and perspective into the dominant cultural discourse. Orbe¶s co-

cultural approach acknowledges the lived experiences of marginalized groups as an acceptable

form of data (Dewitt, 2007), or capta.

Co-researcher Involvement. Four co-researchers volunteered to review and evaluate the

themes and interpretation produced by this study. Two co-researchers, Hanad and Sufia

(pseudonyms) were available for a three-person phone conference with the author on April 28,




2011. Hanad and Sufia read the thematic analysis I sent to them by email, and we systematically

discussed each theme in a fifty-minute conversation, verifying the accuracy or inaccuracy of its

language, voice, and viewpoint. As a result of this consultation with my co-researchers, some

changes have been made to the final analysis.

My co-researchers, for example, judged a theme about privileging the father¶s personal

advice over the mother¶s, labeled ³Wisdom of the Father´, to be unrealistic. Another theme had

poignantly described a perceived helplessness and isolation experienced by native African-

Americans. The first example was omitted from the themes because of my co-researcher¶s

invalidation, and the second because a transcript review revealed it did not reach enough

saturation from participant¶s transcripts (Creswell & Miller, 2000). This procedure helped

validate the study¶s findings because it verified the most important dimension of the analysis:

The unique voice and standpoint of my co-researchers. According to Dewitt (2007, pp. 89) this

method ³values the perspective of the Othered, uncovers unknown and useful information, and

has practical application for fostering productive dialogue.´

Results

This section lists and describes four main themes reduced from co-researcher interviews.

The themes were derived from questions and prompts about communication and social behavior

occurring around culture, religion, race, ethnicity, family members, social groups, and beliefs

and values. The questions were based on findings from previous studies by Husain (2008) and

Shepard (2008). They also correlate with concepts proposed by Hecht et al.¶s (2003)

communication theory of identity. The four main themes are ³Maintaining Strong Family

Bonds,´ ³Keep Your Culture,´ ³Keep Your Religion,´ and ,´ Privileging Diversity.´

The main themes are bridging concepts or frameworks that interconnect several sub-

themes. The main themes and sub-themes have been expressed through co-researcher¶s




descriptions of communicative experiences and social interactions related to identity

construction. Examples of co-researcher¶s lived experiences, voiced in their words, provide a

glimpse of their construction of reality and their negotiation of identity within that reality

(Dewitt, 2007; Orbe, 1998; Witteborn, 2007). Each main theme is presented in a separate section

with its sub-themes and quotes from co-researchers that demonstrate the themes. All co-

researcher¶s names are pseudonyms.

Theme One: Maintaining Strong Family Bonds

I first named this theme ³Keeping the Family Together´, but after revisiting the

transcripts, ³Maintaining Strong Family Bonds´ appeared to be a better representation.

³Maintaining Strong Family Bonds´ reflects how family members stay connected to each

through difficult and challenging experiences, such as forced and voluntary migration, the

diaspora from Somalia, and internal family conflicts. Hanad, an ambitious eighteen year old male

born in northern Virginia in his last year of high school, had started a non-profit organization two

years before with a high school friend to help children in Somalia. Hanad recounted how his

family of divorced parents, two grandparents, five sisters and four brothers worked together and

stayed together through hard times.

I have eight brothers and sisters. We live together with our parents and grandparents. In

the past we were pretty poor. We were on food stamps and stuff like that. In 2008, we

have three college graduates with jobs in the house. That¶s why we¶re middle class now.

We all contribute everything to the family.

Ali, an intelligent, friendly, and funny twenty-six year old from a family of divorced

parents and six adult siblings, sprinkles his answers with American slang terms like dude and

µbro. Sounding somewhat world-weary, Ali has experienced his baby sister¶s shooting death

while fleeing the civil war and his family¶s decline from upper class privilege to middle class




status. Ali admires the strong bonds to his extended family that saved the rest of his immediate

family from perishing after they fled from the civil war in Somalia.

I had an aunt that I never knew [before]. We sent her here [the U.S.] for surgery«and

she just stayed. Whenever we were at a place that had communication, she sent us some

money. So, the older people came first. She got a house in Ohio, and we went to Ohio.

Brave woman. She saved the whole family.

Omar, a proud and assertive twenty year old college sophomore with married parents,

two sisters and four brothers, spent eight years in Egypt with his family before immigrating to

the U.S. in 1998. His older siblings remember running from gunfire with two-week- old Omar in

their mother¶s arms. Like many co-researchers, Omar often described how cultural and religious

values reified by his family¶s internal communications connected with perceived obligations to

his relatives. Here, Omar has recounted an experience that demonstrates the importance his

parents placed on helping family members in need:

My mother's brother got in trouble in Sweden and my father had to go to Sweden and

help him. He was there for a long time helping my uncle, and the company he works for

said he had to come back or they would have to fire him. And my mother and father said,

³You know families are more important than this job.´ So my father lost this good

opportunity in order to help my uncle.´

Family Conflicts and Religious Practices. A consistent sub-theme related to strong

family bonds has been the maintenance of those bonds despite serious conflicts between the

parents and their children. Aasha, a smart, independent 22 year-old female university senior

born in Mogadishu, has married parents, three younger sisters, and one younger brother. Aasha

has recently left her parents¶ house to live on campus so that she can feel more comfortable not

wearing hijab, the head covering most Somali-American and American Muslim women wear as




a symbol of religious commitment. Aasha¶s conflict with her parent¶s values extends to a

dialectic relationship with her religion, with Somali culture, and with her concept of self-

expression. Aasha has stated,

I have a hard time with « how strict my parents were. I could only go out at certain

times, and come back at certain time. During the winter break I could've stayed on

campus. I decided instead to go back and live at home [during the break] so my mom« I

just wanted her to feel like I'm still around.

For me, I first rejected [hijab] because I felt for a long time that I can¶t express myself.

My mom and my dad expected me to wear hijab, and long skirts and long shirts and so

on. It was like, a sort of self-expression that doesn¶t make any sense. So I wasn't able to

do any of that.

Walii, a gregarious and energetic twenty-five year old male university senior with a

single mother (his father died over twenty years ago) and four brothers, remembers living in a

refugee camp and how much he liked his ten years in Islamabad, Pakistan before moving to

northern Virginia in 2001.Walii¶s description of one of his family¶s conflicts, and its resolution,

has been typical to this group of co-researchers.

My mother and brothers [and I] stayed together. It was a conflict between what my

brothers wanted and the way my mom sees the world. Parents would think, ³I'm going to

lose my kids in the society. They're not going to practice their faith.´ We had to

constantly tell my mom, ³No I'm not going to do that.´ So after that, it turns out that it's

not that bad after all (laughs).

But if I got married right now, and my brothers moved out, I would be the first one to

move back with my mom. That is a cultural thing. We would never have our parents in

the old folks home or something like that.




Parents Talk and Guidance. Many co-researchers talked about having regular, open

communication with their parents about moral values and behaviors that are acceptable or

unacceptable. This was also tempered with open discussions about international events and

politics. Some co-researchers deferred to one parent for guidance with serious problems, while

others commented that both parents were equally approachable for discussions and advice about

serious matters.

Zahra, an optimistic and resilient eighteen year old female college freshman born in

London, England and now in Massachusetts, has seven siblings and married parents who

currently live in separate countries. Her father lives in New York City and her mother (with five

of her younger siblings) lives in Kenya. Despite the geographical separations, Zahra feels close

to her immediate and extended family. She recounts how her father has been the ³talker´, the

parent most likely to encourage conversation, in her family.

In my family, ever since I was a little kid we would sit down and talk about our day with

my father. We¶d tell him something that happened, or try to explain something. We¶re

talking about drugs and alcohol, how it affects people, stuff like that. About drugs, my

father would say ³Well, I don't do that stuff and I'm happy. So you know, you don't have

to do that stuff.´

Civil War and Diaspora.Hanad suggested that Somalia¶s civil war might be a major

theme for Somali-Americans, because ´ ³We just got here in the early µnineties , and we¶re still

new in this country [and not far removed from the war].´ Co-researchers such as Omar and Walii

related the civil war to stress on family bonds, the diaspora from Somalia, refugee experiences,

lowered socio-economic status, and narratives about perseverance. A history of civil war and

diaspora appears to permeate, implicitly and explicitly, many co-researcher¶s current worldview.

Personal memories, family narratives, and cultural memories of Somalia¶s continuing violent




struggle are indicated in co-researcher interviews as a cause for despair over personal and

political losses as well as a reason to be proud for persevering through disastrous circumstances.

Ali¶s story is a tragic, and, unfortunately, common war refugee narrative (Tran &Ferullo, 1997;

Godziak, 2002). Because he is the one co-researcher who has recounted his conscious

experiences with personal losses from the civil war, it is appropriate and valuable to give some

extra space for Ali¶s narrative.

Ali:

Yeah, I remember my little sister got shot. We were in one of those dumpster

trucks, you know? We were traveling, and somebody blocked the road and tried to rob us.

And so the driver just took off [through the roadblock]. And they indiscriminately fired

into the back of the truck and my little sister got shot, and she died. What's really weird

about that, man, like, I mean, when you think about something like that. The whole

family was happy that it was her, because she couldn't help« You know she was a baby

and she couldn't help in danger and stuff like that. You know, it's the difference between

what if my father or mother died, or if we« Because we're helping ± we¶re fetching

water and stuff like that. You know it's a hellhole when you have to decide, when you're

thinking like that. At least she was so young, and she was not vital for survival.

Most of my family is here, or in Europe. Iwould say that most of my family, nine-

five percent, are out of there [Somalia].

Like dude,« Having a chauffeur and then having nothing, it's kinda hard to get

used to. My father was a [highly-skilled, well-paid professional] back home. When we

came to the United States, he met someone, and my mom and him got divorced. There¶s

a lot of tension, you know, being in a new country, so he just took off. He couldn't

handle it. My mom was like, ³Get a job!´, and my father was like, ³I'm a professional!´




Like, ³ I'm not going to be holding doors for people. ³Everyone hates him, because we

did not have anything and he just kind of disappeared during a really bad time.

Walii fled the civil war with his single mother and three brothers. Walii has recounted his

family¶s experiences in a refugee camp, and the culture shock he felt moving from one culture to

another. Walii stated,

Yes, my mother and brothers stayed together. In the refugee camp, some mothers would

tell the camp officials that their husband was dead-killed in the war-so they could get a

visa to leave faster. Even if the husband was living in the camp, they would say he was

dead, because [the officials] assumed that if he was alive, he was still fighting. So it was

faster if you¶re a single mother.

Going to Pakistan was culture shock at first, because the other kids had never seen black

people for, and thought they were covered with dirt and tried rubbing your hands. But,

they turned out to be very generous.

Theme Two: Keep Your Culture

Co-researchers consistently expressed that holding on to Somali culture was important in

their daily lives. Language use, specifically speaking and reading the Somali language, emerged

as one of the most consistent factors influencing the maintenance of co-researcher¶s culture from

one generation to the next. Sufia, a loquacious, energetic, creative twenty-three year old college

sophomore, has divorced parents living in two countries - her father in New York City, and her

mother in India. Sufia¶s sister lives not far away with their aunt , and she has four brothers in

Kenya, and one brother in Europe. Sufia speaks fluent Hindi with her mother ³every day´, and

fluent Somali with older relatives living nearby and with her ³aunt in Norway.´ Sufia describes

the importance of language to her generation.




For those of us who left when they were very young, we don't even remember the culture.

There¶s no memory of the country, so there's an element of holding onto the culture,

because that is all that you have. The language, that¶s the only thing that distinguishes

you from other cultural groups. If you don't speak the language, Somalis will tell you. «

right to your face, ³If you are not speaking the language you are not one of us (laughs)´.

Aasha shares a similar experience with her parents: ³With the language, my parents always

enforce the fact that they like, want [my younger brother] to speak both languages, to

speak Somali and things like that.´

Comments by Hanad and Omar are notable because they appear to reflect aspects of a

collective culture (Hofstede, 1980). Also, I was impressed by the similarity of Hanad and

Omar¶s comments, and the fact that they are spoken by two very different people. Hanad stated,

³I think [everybody working together, helping each other] is much better than going off and

being alone-a much better way to live.´ Omar stated, ³It's better to get along with people than to

be alone. Keeping Somali culture is important to me because we Somalis, the young ones, won¶t

remember important people in our history and our Somali culture.´

Somali-American Communities: Everybody¶s Watching. Only two co-researchers

reported this particular aspect of Somali-American culture, but their descriptions of two

northern Virginia Somali-American communities were consistent and detailed. Also, Omar and

Aasha¶s experiences were remarkably similar to Shepard¶s (2008) findings from Somali-

American youth in Boston. Omar stated,

Yeah, everybody knows everybody. Like, if the neighbors see somebody¶s son do

something bad, they're going to tell them. That's not good for the younger generation,

they don't like that. It gets really annoying (laughs). The older generation, « they stay

outside, walk around. They will look at you for the longest time« you know, trying to




figure out if you're Somali or American or something like that. They will just stand there

and look (laughs).

Asha stated,

You always feel like every Somali individual is judging you in a sense, or scrutinizing

you. It leads to something like teens thinking ³Where are the spots I can go to where

there aren¶t any Somali people, so it doesn't affect my mom´?

Qabiil: Intra-Cultural Racism and Politics. There is a hostile, alienating, and

prejudicial aspect to maintaining Somali culture that has been described by many co-

researchers. It is an ethnocentric tribalism, called ³racist´ by Zahra, Sufia, and Omar, and

known as qabiil to Somalis and Somali-Americans. Aasha recounts a typical narrative.

It's like, maybe this lady's son wanted to marry the other family¶s daughter and they're

from different tribes back in Somalia, and those tribes don't marry each other. And they'll

say something like, ³Well our daughters in school ´and« whatever, and they'll keep it

from happening.Tribalism is very much alive. People say it isn't, but it's very much alive.

Ali, mostly cheerful and funny during his interview, turned suddenly grave when the

subject of qabiil was raised. Ali recounted another narrative typical to this group of co-

researchers: That qabiil is responsible for the war that has caused so much damage to Somalia

and its people. When asked about tribalism, Ali stated:

That's a subject I stay away from. I am so anti-tribal. I think it's what took our country

down. It really sucks. The younger people in college right now, they could care less. You

hear the older people talking about, ³We need to build that city back up.´ And I'm like,

³We¶re in America. The whole family is here, who cares?´ A lot of people care about

family ties and bloodlines. I really hate them, man. Look what they did to the country, a




nice country. Like, I went from having a bidet in my house to shitting in the woods and

dodging bullets because some people, greedy people, wanted power.

³Not Black´ and ³Politically Black´. To clearly identify the cultural groups described

in co-researcher¶s language, I have used Sufia¶s definition for a group commonly known as

A frican- Americans: ³African-Americans are people who are from Africa, but they have been

here for a really long time´. I have labeled the group Sufia has described as nat ive African-

Americans. A frican- Americansis a term most often used by co-researchers to describe

morerecent immigrants from the African continent. Bl ack is a termoften used neutrally to mean

³native African-Americans´, but sometimes co-researchershave used Bl ack derogatorily to mean

³gangsta,´ ³ghetto,´ or´ low-class´ native Africa- Americans.

Guleed, a philosophical, inquisitive, and friendlytwenty-one year old male university

sophomore born in northern Virginia, has a ³small«for a Somali´ family of married parents, one

sister and one brother. Guleed has described a significant component of maintaining Somali

culture in this project¶s sample group, among one and a half generationas well as second

generation Somali-Americans born in the U.S. One and a half generation refers to co-researchers

born outside the U.S. who have lived in the U.S. for five years or more, and second generation

means borne and raised in the U.S. (Husain, 2008). With one exception, co-researchers have

uniformly described their conscious cultural differentiation from American ³Blacks´. Here,

Guleed describes his experience with native African-American and immigrant Africans.

A lot of Africans don¶t identify themselves as [native] African-American. They say ³No,

I¶m African´. I don¶t know when there was this consensus on what¶s Black, you know,

who that encompasses-African-American, Black, Negro.

I¶ve always considered myself as African-American. But you¶ll hear a lot of Somalis

saying ³Oh you know those Blacks«´(looks down over his glasses and lowers his voice)




and I¶ll say, ³You know, we¶re black to. Aren¶t you black? You sure look black to me

(laughs)´. Is it because of different cultures? I don¶t know.

I¶ve had some of my black friends who¶ve said, ³you know, you¶re not really black

(laughs).´ How am I not black? I¶m African and I¶m American. I¶m American! I don¶t

think [my friend] was trying to classify [me]. He was saying, ³You¶re just not one ofus´

(laughing).

A concept related to this theme that emerged from many interviews is one I have labeled

³Politically Black.´ When it comes to racial identification from dominant (particularly white

European) American cultural members and institutions, Somali-Americans in this study

unequivocally express a conviction that white European-Americans perceive them as native

African-Americans or low-class Blacks.Sufia and Zahra, who have never met, spoke each other¶s

viewpoint almost word-for-word. Sufia stated, ³The first thing they see in this country is your

color. If you're black, your black. I don't think they differentiate between immigrants and black

people and native-born African-Americans. Zahra stated, ³When you're black, people won't take

the time to figure out what you are. They think you're black, you are black.´

Theme Three: Keep Your Religion

Husain (2008) has reported that religion is a major influence and on the daily lives of

Somali-Americans, a foundation from which family and community relationships are defined

and built. Shepard (2008) has stated that religion was more important to Somali-American

adolescents than she had expected before starting her research. In this project, all co-researchers

have described the strong influence of Islam on their moral values and beliefs, gender role

expectations, andpatterns of social communication. Co-researcher Maka has clearly described

other co-researcher¶s commitment to Islam in her transcribed remarks.




Maka, a confident, mature, religious twenty-six year old female with a master¶s degree in

social science, lives with her mother in Massachusetts (her father died in 1989) and works as a

professional youth counselor. Maka has described open, tolerant personal beliefs which are

thoroughly informed by Islamic teachings, and by her hajj to Mecca in the previous year. Maka

has expressed the ideals of inclusiveness and acceptance intrinsic to Islam and to Muslim

communities:

My religion is first, so I feel most strongly about anything that affects Muslims. I went on

Hajj to Saudi Arabia in 2010. And you know, you do not have nationality or race when

you go to Mecca. You check that at the airport (laughs). Everybody is saying, there is no

race, no nationality. Everybody is there to worship God, and everybody is there to

complete their task. Everybody is wearing the same clothing. My strongest values are

Islam. There is no God but God. There is one God and Mohammed is his messenger.

What we try to do in Islam, is we do not judge people.

Sufia, who often described Allah¶s guidance in her life, surprised me with a broad, non-

judgmental perspective on moral values that sounded almost secular. Sufia stated, ³You don't

have to be religious to have good moral values. Islam helps me be a better person, but it is not

the main component that makes me a good person.´

Wearing Hijab. As described by co-researchers and Muslim teachers, hijab is modest

dress for men and women that covers most of the body. For most Muslim women, it means

covering the head as well, and for some the niquab, or veil covering the face (El-Amin Naeem,

2009; Evans, 2010; Ibrahim, 1997). Hijab is a highly visible message in American culture that

transmits to public onlookers the fact of a woman¶s commitment to Islam. Three female co-

researchers wear hijab and one co-researcher has, for now, rejected wearing a head scarf.




Females that cover are called hijabis(El-Amin Naeem, 2009). Maka¶s description reflects the

comments of the other hijabis in the sample group.

The scarf is something we are required to wear. God told us to wear it, so we have to do

it. You don't have to do it. But, it's in the Qur¶an and we are supposed to. Normally in my

religion you start wearing [hijab] at puberty, but « I wanted it to be my decision. So I

waited until I was 18. I got a lot of support from my non-Muslim friends when I

explained it to them and I really appreciated that. But [my parents] never forced me to

wear hijab. They just had faith that I eventually was going to get it, which I did

(laughing).

Considering the small size of the sample group, it is interesting to note that Sufiaµs

experience with hijab is virtually the opposite of Aasha¶s (pg.27). Sufia states:

My mother didn't teach us that we have to do that. So I read the Qur¶an«for a

year. I came to believe that I should be wearing hijab. My sister said, ³You don't actually

have to do it,´ and I said, ³But I want to!´

Sufia has also offered an insightful explanation for how Somali and American cultural

members identify women wearing hijab through a lens of their values and beliefs. Sufia has

stated:

There is a thing in the Somali community where the girls that cover are considered the

good ones, and the girls that don' t cover are considered the bad ones. Non - Muslims who

see women that don't cover think that women who do cover are the o ppressed ones. I

think it has much more to do with your character than what you're putting on your head.

Theme Four: Privileging Diversity

All co-researchers have expressed in various ways a preference for membership in

multicultural or intercultural social groups rather than membership in Somali-only groups. Both




one and a half and second generation co-researchers generally do not align their identities with

native African-American culture, nor do they try to assimilate to white-European American

cultural expectations or stereotypes. Many co-researchers also noted that they lived in culturally

diverse neighborhoods and/or attended culturally diverse schools. I have labeled this unexpected

theme as ³Privileging Diversity´.

All co-researchers in this project described themselves directly or indirectly as open-

minded and interested in other cultural groups, several reporting close friendships outside the

Somali-American community. Five out of the ten co-researchers remember several years of

immersion in other cultures due to their families¶ migrations. Previous immersion in other

cultures may have encouraged these co-researchers to privilege membership in multicultural

social groups. However, the otherco-researchers, three of them born and raised in northern

Virginia, have not experienced immersion in other cultures (Abukar has been outside the U.S.,

but that was a family trip to Somalia).

Zahra has described how she confidently looked beyond differences when she was a

child. Zahra continues to experience and explore the differences between her culture and others

with an optimistic perspective. Zahra states:

I wouldn¶t be like- ³Oh, I¶m different,´ and get all depressed or something. If the kids

were playing, I¶d go play and if the kids were doing something, I¶d go do it too. I

wouldn¶t like- just because I¶m different, or just because they don¶t like me, that doesn¶t

stop me from doing what I want to do. Being different is not always a bad thing. No

matter who you are, Somali, Muslim, or anything, you might have to work hard, get

through a lot of obstacles. It's the little things that you do every day that will show

people.´




Hanad and Guleed, both American-born, describe the same type of multicultural

friendships that appear to be privileged by co-researchers born outside of the U.S. In fact, Hanad

is the one co-researcher who expresses his discomfort with social groups that are mono-racial or

mono-cultural. Hanad states:

If I¶m in a group that¶s all one race I feel more uncomfortable. Publicly I try my best not

to avoid Hispanics, Caucasians and other races and ethnics. Over the years, I¶ve noticed a

pattern of how I can relate more to Asian-Americans, Africans, and blacks.

Guleed names several cultures among his friends. I found it necessary to keep careful notes

during interviews in order to keep track of the many cultures my co-researchers listed among

their friends. Guleed states, ³My best friend is half Egyptian and half Caucasian-he speaks

perfect Arabic. Another good friend is Somali. A Sudanese, a Kurd. Those are my close friends.

Out of the close circle, I have a wide variety of friends-Hispanics, Asians.´

Maka has described an exceptional amount of diversity in her immediate family that has

heightened her sensitivity to, and appreciation of, other cultures. Maka has reported that she

spends a lot of her free time socializing with her family. Maka states:

My uncle's white, so I do know « how white people see black Muslims, because we can

talk about it. We didn't change anything in my family in regards to white people, or any

other type of people who are family. My uncle has been to Somalia, and he speaks

Somali. [My aunt and uncle] look after the grandkids. And they get the kids presents for

Muslim holidays, and the kids give aunt and uncle Christmas presents out of respect for

their religious holidays.

The Racial Discrimination Question.Seven out of ten co-researchers in this study had a

difficult time remembering any sort of experience with racial discrimination. Zahra, Sufia, and

Omar reported clear incidents of racial and/or religious discrimination, but their experiences




were were the exception in this sample group. When an experience of taunting or some form of

imposed inequality was related to their race or skin color, co-researchers often stated they did not

know if it was really discrimination or just another way to bully someone.Only after further

prompting did a few stories emerge regarding experiences that co-researchers thought mig ht have

been racial discrimination. Here, Hanad relates a typical experience shared by co-researchers.

Well, when I was ten or eleven years old, we would cross a big fence to go over to a

higher class neighborhood to play basketball with some friends. Most of the people were

Caucasian. This old lady stopped me and my younger brother one day and questioned us

very severely about where we were from and what we were doing there. Then she told us

to get back to our side of the fence.. . she said we shouldn¶t be there, didn¶t belong there.

I think that was racism, but it¶ s the only t ime I can remember an ex perience like that

[author¶s emphasis].

Abukar, a self-described ³happy and quiet ´ twenty-year old university junior born in

northern Virginia and having married parents and three sisters, truly surprised me with his

ignorance of native African-American¶s experiences with racism. I mentioned that every native

African-American I have known had not one, but usually multiple personal stories about being

discriminated against because of their race. Abukar¶s response was to study my face. After a

moment¶s thought, Abukar said, ³I find it kind of hard to believe that African-Americans have

all got stories about being discriminated against - experiences like that.´

Dialectic Relationships with Native African-Americans. This group of young adult

Somali Americans has described a dialectic relationship with native African-Americans. They

describe appreciation for native African-American¶s history of slavery and their struggle for civil

rights, and they express admiration for civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, jr. and

Malcolm X. Co-researchers have acknowledged that culturally they do not have the burden of a




history of slavery and the struggles required to attain the socio-political powering this country.

Ali described a common perspective among the project¶s co-researchers when he stated,´ If it

weren't for the other African-Americans, I wouldn't be here. It¶s because of the struggles they

went through that I'm actually able to be here.´

On the other hand, some co-researchers have described Somali American immigrant¶s

tendency to recognize West African physical features among native African-Americans.

According to co-researchers, East Africans, including Somalis, have historically felt some sort of

disrespect for West Africans, and this can extend to native African-Americans. Co-researchers

have stated that some Somali Americans think West Africans, and native African-Americans

with similar features, have been corrupted or diminished by their history of slavery. Omar has

recounted his rejection of a common ³ghetto greeting´, for lack of a better term, because of his

perception that it insinuates an unsavory connection to slavery. Omar states;

"One thing Somalis say, they¶ll say ³Hey, what's up nigga´? And I say ³Hey, I'm not a

nigga.´ Like, I'm African. And I¶ll say ³Hey bro¶, where do niggas come from?´ And

they'll say, ³From back in Africa, and I'll say, ³People from East Africa [includes

Somalia] were never slaves.´ [Some Somali-Americans] are just ignorant. With us, we¶re

not supposed to be offended when somebody says nigg a. It's just a term.

Friendships,

Several co-researchers named native African-Americans among their friends, and two co-

researchers reported close, long-term relationships with native African-Americans friends.

However, with the exception of Ali, co-researchers describe distinct differences between native

African-Americans and Somali American cultures. Friendships between Somali Americans and

native African-Americans young adults were basically described in the same way as friendships




between Somali Americans and Asian Indians, Sudanese, and other Muslims. Among my co-

researchers, nine out ten described no particular membership in native African-American culture.

Awareness of Racial Hierarchy and Handling It. Co-researchers have described an

awareness of their position in the social hierarchy of race in the U.S.(Orbe& Harris, 2006), and

they appear to have no illusions or misconceptions about their status as children of African

immigrants. Concomitantly, they have expressed no bitterness or anger about being less

privileged or wielding less power than members of the dominant white-European culture (Orbe,

1998). Additionally, this small group of co-researchers has described their communication

experiences with other cultural members, including white European-Americans, as generally

comfortable and even-sided.

This group of young Somali-Americans seems to perceive racial inequities as a challenge

they can work with more than a problem they are powerless to solve. Most co-researchers

described racial discrimination as a problem more applicable to native African-Americans, while

at the same time acknowledging matter-of-factly that their status as children of African-

American immigrants is not high in American culture. Guleed describes a viewpoint on the

social hierarchy of race in the U.S. that has been explicitly and implicitly expressed by

severalco-researchers.

I'm not bitter against any one group in that hypothetical food chain where some people

are better off than me. Just because Caucasians aren¶t interested in the problems of

immigrants it doesn¶t mean that their callous or their jerks. You¶re thrust in that role; it's

just not your main priority. I can understand why that happens.

On the other hand, Aasha described a communication strategy Orbe (1998) refers to as

³Overcompensating´ (p. 16). Aasha recounts her parent¶s advice about dealing with racist

attitudes.




The way my parents raised me, they said ³You're going to see racism in your life, but it's

the way you deal of it. If you let that person make you feel inferior, then they win.´ So,

like from an early age, I was taught that I had to be better than, and I had to be on time. If

work was at 7:20 I had to be there at 7:00. I better not give anybody any excuse to deny

me anything I wanted to do, any goals I wanted to accomplish. You had to be exemplary.

However, Sufia describes a perception closer to most co-researcher¶s, that white European

Americans are closed off from other cultures and too dependent on cultural perceptions

transmitted to them by mass media images.

[White people] are in a country that has never had interaction with other places. Your

perceptions are very narrow. You have images of Muslims only from what you see in the

newspaper or on television that are not always accurate. You have images of black people that

they are in the ghetto, they are prison, and so on.

Finally, Omar demonstrated an intercultural or pluralistic viewpoint of white European

Americans and their distinctive characteristics. Omar stated.

What I like about white people is, they're not too different from Asians, because they're

both smart and they both have one goal. The difference is that Asians don't take action,

they are quiet. They don't stare at you. But white people, they like separate you-

indirect ly. You come [looking for] a job from a white boss, and they say ³Well, we don't

have anything right now. We¶ll call you«´

The next section discusses the interpretation of themes reduced from co-researcher interviews.

Discussion

This section reports my interpretations of the themes which have emerged from my co-

researchers¶ interviews. Previous research and publicly available data from Internet sources,

including social networks, is used to triangulate the capta from co-researchers. The themes are




interpreted mainly through this project¶s framework of communication identity theory (Hecht et

al., 2003), Orbe¶s co-cultural theory, and the findings of Husain (2008) and Shepard (2008).

It is important to note Orbe and Harris¶s (2006) observation that there is a great deal of

overlapping and intersecting between the relationships, values, personal and cultural histories,

and lived experiences that develop together into a personal identity. There are so many

intersections, according to Orbe and Harris, that these variables of identity are impossible to

isolate from each other. This interpretation of co-researcher capta follows the organization of

experiences from my co-researcher¶s perspective, which means that significant factors of identity

construction such as family conflicts, religion, and culture often are melded together into one

dynamic and dialectic experience.

Aasha, for example, recounted this type of layered experience when she described her

rejection of hijab (p. 27). The point here is that identity and its negotiation are not composed of

clearly demarcated influences and straightforward logic: We are human beings, after all. In order

to describe my co-researcher¶s standpoint on construction and negotiation of identity in their

voices, this interpretation at times may exhibit contradictory values, beliefs, and experiences, all

described by my co-researchers.

³Maintaining Family Bonds´ includes staying connected to family members through

difficult experiences like forced and voluntary migration, family conflicts, and lack of

employment and financial resources. It includes parental guidance about racism and

perseverance, and family communication, and the civil war/diaspora.

Family Bonds and Somali-American Identity

Hecht et al. (2003) and Ting-Toomey (2005) point out that family structure is one of the

most important factors in creating and maintaining cultural identity. The stronger a family¶s

bonds are, the more likely a family¶s cultural practices and beliefs will be maintained from




generation to generation. Hecht et al.¶s communication theory of identity proposes that cultural

identity exists in a shared space where larger cultural structures intersect with, and dominate, the

smaller distinctions of a family¶s structure. Personal identity is strongly influenced by a salient

cultural identity and is constructed and negotiated through interactions with family members,

members of the same culture, and with members of other cultures (Hecht et al., 2003; Ting-

Toomey, 2005). According to this perspective on identity, strong family bonds described by my

co-researchers may have helped to reify a well-organized foundation of meaning from which co-

researchers could confidently negotiate their identities.

Eight out of ten co-researchers have stated that their primary reference for identity is the

practice of Islam and membership in the Muslim community (also known as the ummah , or

worldwide Muslim community). Alternatively, Hanad stated, ³Somali-American describes who I

am´ and Ali has self-identified as ³African-American.´ Somali culture and Islam are so

intertwined that it is often difficult to separate them, and the personal identities co-researchers

have described have been permeated with Muslim culture. A Muslim/Somali identity monitored

and encouraged by parents, has given most co-researchers in this project clear rules and

boundaries for proper moral behavior, gender-specific behaviors, and an appreciation for other

cultural groups (Ibrahim, 1997).

Ting-Toomey (2005) points out that social identity (Tajfel& Turner, 1979) is defined by

communication with others outside the family. Ting ± Toomey states that family communication

reifies values, defines power relationships, teaches acceptable emotional expression, and

demarcates gender-based behaviors. Among the 10 core assumptions of identity negotiation

theory, three have been significant to the interpretation of this project¶s capta: 1) emotional

security, 2) creation of predictable interactions across different contexts, and 3) creating trust and

feelings of being understood, respected and valued (Ting-Toomey, 2005). These assumptions




about family communication are played out for young Somali-Americans in a Somali-American

produced documentary, C ul t ur al C ollision, that reifies traditional Somali relationships and

interactions (Jama, 2010).

Strong family bonds and membership in the Islamic culture and community creates a

vital sense of belonging and emotional security from which my co-researchers have been able to

confidently construct and negotiate their identities. Predictable interactions across several

contexts are possible for co-researchers within the ummahof Islam as well, and a logical

progression from such predictable interactions could be accepting less predictability over time in

order to exchange more information with the dominant culture of the U.S. Finally, strong family

and community connections forged by migration, refugee experiences, constant vigilance, and

shared values, has helped co-researchers experience feelings of trust, understanding, and respect

from the people in their daily lives.

Cultural Awareness, Maintenance, and Challenges

³Keeping Your Culture´ is about maintaining traditional relationships and gender roles,

about the Somali community works with families, and how communities can sometimes feel

annoying and dysfunctional. The negative side of tribal networks is revealed in this category, and

dialectic relationship between Somali-Americans and native African-Americans emerges in this

theme (Benson,2006).

Somali American communities described by co-researchers are remarkably similar to

descriptions in Shepard¶s (2008) study of adolescent Somali-Americans in Boston . According to

Shepard, everyday communication within the community, being the most frequent

communication, reifies communicative practices, norms, rules, roles, and accepted behaviors in

the Somali American community. Shepard states that older Somali-Americans continually

observe and monitor young adult Somali American's behaviors and interactions, exercising a




powerful disciplinary gaze similar to Foucault's (1991) concept of pano pt icism. This is basically

the same narrative shared by Omar when he described the ³older generation´ standing watch in

the neighborhood and reporting any wrongdoing to the ³younger generation¶s´ parents (p. 31).

Shepard also describes the community relationships she has observed between Somali-American

children, parents, and families as a collective culture (Hofestede, 1980) that plays a significant

role in growing up as a Somali-American.

Community is a basis for friendships and social group membership; identification of

ingroup / outgroup boundaries (Tajfel, & Turner, 1979); and intracultural and intercultural

communication strategies. From a communication theory perspective, when young Somali-

Americans recognize shared values and beliefs outside the boundaries of their family

relationships and attain cultural awareness, the location of their identities moves into a larger

communal sphere (Phillipsen, 2002). A larger communal space secured by common values and

religious traditions adds complexity to young Somali¶s concepts of membership and belonging.

At the same time, a communally-shared location offers a relatively safe, monitored

interactive space among other cultural members to continue a more nuanced construction and

negotiation of their identities (Phillipsen, 2002). This concept of moving through communication

environments incrementally to develop personal identity has some similarities to Erik Erikson¶s

(1968) popular theories about identity formation (Orbe& Harris, 2006, p.72). I have created a

structural diagram to help explicate a process of Somali-American identity being carried

progressively into larger discursive spaces for further construction and negotiation (Appendix

D).

Diversity: Intercultural and Interracial Friendships

Lee (2006) and Orbe and Harris (2006) have stated that in their searches for relevant

literature about intercultural and interracial friendships, there was little to be found. Fortunately,




their research studies have provided data that helps explain the process of creating culturally and

racially diverse friendships. Lee¶s (2006) study of intercultural friendships found that languages,

food, cultural values, and cultural beliefs of others were popular interests for individuals

involved in intercultural friendships. While exchanging information about their respective

cultures, participants created a comfortable flow of conversation that often would evolve into an

educational experience. Participants in Lee¶s study were able to use this open and friendly

discursive space to explain the inaccuracies of stereotypes about their cultures.

Orbe and Harris (2006) have stated that stereotypes are one of the most significant barriers

to interracial friendships in our country, because American society is preoccupied with notions

about race and racial stereotyping. Co-researchers in this study have shared different attitudes and

perceptions regarding native African-Americans: some reflecting stereotypes, some indifferent, and

some indicating warm friendships. According to Orbe and Harris, sensitive historical issues like

slavery and racial discrimination should be acknowledged with honesty and with sensitivity to

racial member¶s feelings and perspectives to have a worthwhile and successful interracial

friendship. Although most co-researchers in this project have a expressed a dialectic relationship

with native African-Americans, their communications with native African-Americans about things

like ³not being Black,´ have been described as open and honest.

Lee (2006) identified several types of breakthroughs occurring in the development of the

intercultural friendships he studied, including (1) positive regard and respect for other people¶s

culture; 2) self-disclosure; 3) networking between different cultures; 4) exploring cultures and

languages; 5) emphasizing similarities and exploring differences; and 6) resolving conflicts. Zahra

has described how she confidently acknowledges cultural barriers and looks beyond differences to

resolve conflicts that may arise from other people¶s perceptions that differences are undesirable.

Zahra stated,




Being different is not always a bad thing. No matter who you are, Somali, Muslim, or

anything, you might have to work hard, get through a lot of obstacles. It's the little things

that you do every day that will show people.´

According to Lee, (2006), intercultural friendships create a relational identity that is

unique to the shared reality, or mini-culture, constructed by interactions, information exchange,

and lived experiences shared in the friendship. This reality exemplifies the values, rules, and

emergence of an intercultural friendship and helps maintain the friendship. Lee states that

relational identity provides rules for behavior within intercultural relationships in much the same

way as a country¶s culture defines rules of behavior for its citizens. Lee states that relational

identity should be considered an important, if not critical, component of a successful intercultural

friendship.

Based on Orbe¶s (1998) descriptions of co-cultural communication behaviors, the

identities young adult Somali-Americans have constructed and negotiated through intercultural

and multicultural interactions and relationships may have resulted from their use of three

strategic co-cultural communication practices. First ´ dispelling stereotypes´ includes

interpersonal and small group interactions characterized by honest, spontaneous representation of

self, or ³just being yourself, that counter myths about a groups attributes.´ Second,

³communicating self ´is a communication strategy used to interact with dominant culture

members openly and sincerely, and requires´ a strong self-concept´. Third, intragroup

networking involves ³identifying and working with other co-cultural members who share

common philosophies, convictions, and goals.´ (Orbe, 1998, p. 17).

Orbe¶s (1998) co-cultural communication behaviors describe the kind of social activism

recounted by at least three co-researchers. Maka counsels young adults and interacts with diverse

cultural and religious discussion groups. Hanad, co-directs a Somali educational non-profit and




works with other Somali-Americans and financial donors who support the non-profit. Finally,

Sufia, also runs a small non-profit related to Somali culture, tutors Somali adolescents, and

works with a social justice non-profit.

Hanad, Guleed, and Maka indicated a certain reality defining their intercultural

friendships and memberships in social groups. Hanad stated, ³If I¶m in a group that¶s all one race

I feel more uncomfortable.´ Guleed¶s description of his closest friendships has reflected several

of the breakthroughs stated by Lee (2006): ³My best friend is half Egyptian and half Caucasian-

he speaks perfect Arabic. Another good friend is Somali. A Sudanese, a Kurd. Those are my

close friends.´

Maka has described an exceptional amount of diversity in her immediate family, and

described the diversity of cultures she exchanges information with on a regular basis. Makahas

described a certain ³ mini-culture´ (Lee, 2006), created by her network of intercultural,

interracial, and inter-religious friendships.

My uncle's white, so I do know « how white people see black Muslims, because we can

talk about it. I have many friends in the Muslim community of different ethnicities from

different countries. Irish, Americans, [native] African-American Muslims, white

Muslims, some of my friends are Jewish, some Catholic. Some are Baptist. I love to talk

about interfaith dialogue. I'm involved in a lot of roundtable discussions about different

cultures and religions, stuff like that. One of my Jewish friends that I went to college with

actually converted to Islam. I would say that I have a well-rounded diverse amount of

friends who are Muslim and non-Muslim.

Islam and Intercultural Friendships

According to Orbe and Harris (2006), much research about interracial friendships suggests




that similarities are an important factor. Similarities include affiliation with the same school, living

in the same neighborhood, membership in the same church, speaking the same language, being the

same age, and so on. This brings up the question of what similarities the young adult Somali

American co-researchers in this study are sharing with intercultural friends and their intercultural

social groups.

The most prominent similarities in intercultural friendships derived from co-researcher¶s

capta are 1) being Muslim; 2) immigrant and/or refugee status and the lived experience

associated with them; 3) school and neighborhood affiliation; 4) age; and 5) gender. Being

Muslim is the most salient similarity defining co-researcher¶s intercultural and interracial

friendships. Being Muslim creates a shared worldview influenced by Islamic values and beliefs,

particularly the equality of all races and ethnic groups as described in the Qur¶an 49:13: ³O

mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes

so that you ma y know one another (emphasis added).

Islam exists for this study¶s co-researchers as a framework to organize meaning from

lived experiences and Islamic values shape the perceptions and realities of co-researchers.

Abukar describes a typical perspective shared by all co-researchers in this study when he stated,

´ My religion is who I am. I guess I believe it is our purpose in life. If you don't have a

religion, you have a lack of purpose.´

Religion, Healing, and ³Allah¶s Place´. A notable characteristic about religious faith

and spirituality deserves some attention because it may serve a deeply healing purpose in the

lives Somali-Americans and other Muslim immigrants not touched on in this study. Gozdziak

(2002) has provided health services to Albanian Muslims refugees who had fled the war in

Kosovo and were being resettled in thein the United States. Gozdziak (2002) found that the




Muslim faith and spirituality of Albanian refugees gave them the power of acceptance and a

standpoint from which to identify themselves not as victims, but as survivors.

Gozdziak (2002) has reported that religion and spirituality are powerful tools for treating

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and symptoms of acculturation stress (Berry, Kim,

Minde, &Mok, 1987) commonly experienced by refugees relocating to the United States (Tran

And Ferullo, 1997). Additionally, Gozdziak points out that Western medical care providers have

consistently devalued and misunderstood the important role of religion and spirituality in healing

trauma and providing comfort to refugees. Godziak points out that American Vietnam war

veterans had labeled PTSD as a spiritual disease, but spiritual aspects of treating PTSD have

been ignored by western military physicians.

McMichael(2002)found that Somali women refugees in Australia focused their sense of

belonging on spaces of worship and social spaces shared with other female Somali refugees. The

Somali women maintained a daily schedule of five prayers, setting a spiritually-based rhythm to

their daily lives, meal times, house cleaning, social time, and so on. Shoeb,Weinstein, and

Halpern(2007)reported the same relationship to time and space among Iraqi Muslim refugees in

Dearborn, Michigan. Muslim refugees of different races and ethnicities, in geographic locations

on either side of the world, have organized the meaning of their experiences and daily living in

the comfort and solace of prayer rituals located in ³Allah¶s Place.´

Being Muslim also carries with it some built-in flexibility and encouragement for

learning about and exploring other cultures and religions. Muslims are taught about most other

major religions, and can often quote from the Christian Bible and speak authoritatively about,

among other things, Buddhism (Evans, 2010; Hajjaj, 2011a).Zahrah dispels the stereotypical

perception of Islam being inflexible and intolerant of other religions (Friedlander, 2004;

Muedini, 2009) when she states,




Being Muslim is just being like any other religion. Just because your Muslim doesn't

mean you have to restrict yourself from anything. You can go out there and learn about

different religions and cultures, and why people do what they do and why you do

differently. And I mean, being educated in that way does help (laughing). It really does

help (laughs) with your faith, you know. There's nothing else, I guess. Oh, accepting

other religions-there¶s nothing against that in Islam.

Privileging Diversity andIntercultural Explorations.³Privileging diversity´has been

the most interesting and unexpected theme to emerge. It is one of the primary foundations of

Islam¶s inclusive, empowering equality for all members(Hajjaj, 2011b; Ibrahim, 1997). One

influence on this theme may be the diversity of people in Somalia, which is more diverse than I

first realized. Co-researcher Ali has stated, ³In Somalia, you have every shade. You have people

that are really light-skinned, straight up Arabs. You have people that look like they're from West

Africa, Syria or Lebanon or something. They¶re all Somalis.´

Historically, privileging diversity has a successful history in the homeland of Somalia.

For example, The Somali Youth League (SYL) was formed in 1943. The SYL objectives were to

unify all Somalis, to create opportunities through education, to develop the Somali language, and

to safeguard Somali interests (Somali YouthLeague, 2011).Farah highlights this fact in an

article about young Somalis and Somali-Americans trying to bring peace back to Somalia. His

article includes plans minimizing problems with qabiil (YouTube 2006), and trying to use clans

and tribal relations for a constructive, working together, mutually beneficial governmentFarah

stated,

Why were the SYL successful, and how did they maneuver the clannish minds of the

Somalis? The SYL underst ood the power of diversit y (emphasis added) within the team and they




ensured that major clans were represented as they established constituencies of friendship and

trust between Somalis. (Farah, 2010).

From this project¶s results, privileging diversity and rejecting less diversity-especially

socializing only with other Somalis-may be young adult Somali-American¶s most beneficial way

to adapt to other cultures. In not only accepting diverse cultures, but encouraging interaction with

them, young adult Somalis may gain social and political capital while simultaneously not giving

up anything from their mother culture that they wish to keep. Young adult Somali-Americans in

this study seem to have negotiated identities and standpoints that provide optimum benefits from

both of the cultures they inhabit.

Abukar, Omar, and Zahra has described Somali-Americans in concentrated populations,

such as the Somali-American population in Minnesota, that do not appear to be attracted to

diversity, or to privilege diverse cultural relationships. According these co-researchers, Somali-

Americans in Minnesota stay amongst themselves because they have a dense population where

they can continue to speak their native language and they do not need to pursue social

relationships ± friendships and companionship - outside the Somali American culture. Abukar

has pointed out that recent Somali American immigrants seem to prefer it that way. Abukar has

stated

They have locations where all Somalis get together. They seem to have less reason

to assimilate, to learn English. Ones that just came over just talk Somali, so everyone

they associate with is Somali. That works for them. On the street you don¶t have to know

anybody by name. They address you in Somali for brother or sister. Brother is aboowe

[uh-bow-uh] and sister is abaa yo [uh-bay-ow].

For this sample group, privileging diversity represents anempowering and constructive

step that positions them in locations outside of insular Somali-American cultural borders.




Beyond those borders, interaction with other cultures and social structures are obviously more

likely. An abundance of opportunities for defining and negotiating their identities also exists

beyond the borders of Somali-American culture.

Privileging diversity clearly differentiates this project¶s of co-researchers from young

adult Somali-Americans in Minnesota described by Abukar, Omar, and Zahra. This driving

identity characteristic appears to have motivated co-researchers to reach beyond the boundaries

of Somali American culture, to claim membership in a larger cultural presence while still

retaining their Muslim faith and Somali culture. Privileging diversity might create more

communicative opportunities for a successful aAmerican acculturation experience by providing

an open-minded appreciation for other cultures not always exhibited in co-researcher¶s

descriptions of Minnesotan Somali-Americans.

They have been able to maintain Somali American culture as well as acculturate, or take

from American culture that which they need (Berry et al., 1987), which helps them function in

American culture and construct successful identities that were with American culture, with

interactions concerning dominant culture. So the significance of privileging diversity for this

project¶s sample group cannot be overstated.

The Racial Discrimination Question

Seven out of ten co-researchers in this study had a difficult time remembering any sort of

experience with racial discrimination. From my standpoint as a white-European male, I have

been quite perplexed by young adult Somali-American¶s responses about racial discrimination.

Even though I had read some of the few studies in extant literature that address racial

perspectives held by immigrants of African descent, I have to acknowledge my lack of

understanding concerning this issue. I also acknowledge that this lack of understanding is at least




partially due to my, until I became aware of it, unconscious and ill-informed assumption that all

people of color shared a clear awareness of racially discriminating behaviors.

Some research indicates that other immigrants of African descent exhibit the same

perspective as Somali-Americans in this project. Hackshaw (2007) reported that first generation

West Indian and Caribbean participants felt little cultural connection to native African-

Americans and experienced little awareness of racial discrimination. However, second

generation West Indian and Caribbean participants, born in the U.S., perceived themselves in the

same racial position as native African-Americans and reported feeling discriminated against

because of their race. In contrast, second generation Somali-Americans in this project¶s sample

have been just as likely as one and a half generation Somali-Americans to be unaware of racial

discrimination.

One co-researcher, Sufia, described another layer of perception defining a competitive

relationship between native African-Americans and recent immigrant Africans that has also been

reported by Esses, Dovidio, Jackson, and Armstrong (2001). Sufia stated,

I get this from my African-American friends. When they see African immigrants, they

think [the immigrants] are coming here to take their place. They think that immigrants

from the African continent come here looking down on native African-Americans

because of their history of slavery. [Native African-Americans] don't have a concrete

culture traced back to the African continent. African immigrants are very proud of their

culture and they can trace it right back to where they just came from. So finally, native-

born African-Americans are thinking, ³If African immigrants are coming here to take my

place, and they're looking down at me because of my history of slavery, then I don't have

any reason to like them.´




When the older generation says they don't see discrimination, and if you don't get the

thing you're trying to get, it's something you're lacking, [it¶s because] they don't have the

roots for seeing discrimination. Younger Somalis who grew up here are more aware of it,

racism.

Because most of the co-researchers appear to describe a successful negotiation of

American culture-whether born here or not- it is possible they are sharing lived experiences that

have shaped and constructed successful, highly functioning Somali-American identities. These

co-researchers stay connected to their families, despite conflicts, divorce, deaths of fathers, and

long separations of space and time. They connect regularly and stay connected with their

immediate family and a vast network of other family members. These young adult Somali-

Americans have strong commitments to their families and equally strong convictions that their

families support them unequivocally.

This group of co-researchers maintains their culture through their family, religion, and

sometimes annoyingly tight community structure. They keep their religion, a religion that locates

their suffering and forced migration within a history of such challenges and constructs for them

an identity of ³survivor´ instead of ³victim.´ Finally, this research suggests that successfully-

acculturated young adult Somali-Americans privilege interactions that bring them memberships

in diverse cultural relationships, friendships, and social groups.

Conclusion

One research result from Husain (2008) and Shepard (2008) has no bearing on this

project and will be noted here. Husain and Shepard have reported that adolescent Somali-

Americans they have studied experienced difficulties with language skills and educational

proficiency that negatively affected their acculturation into American society. Nine of the ten




young adult co-researchers in this study have college and university experience and one is

planning on going to college next year. This project¶s co-researchers have not reported any

current problems with language and educational abilities.

This research has explored three basic elements of young adult Somali-American¶s

experiences. First, I inquired into how young adult Somali-Americans have constructed and

negotiated identities that function well within their Somali culture and with interactions outside

their culture. Second, I inquired into the effects of intra-cultural and intercultural communication

on negotiating and shaping Somali-American identity. Third, I explored, with the assistance of

the study¶s participants, the meanings young adult Somali-Americans interpret from their

experiences growing up in, and adapting to, American mainstream culture.

Every co-researcher seemed to be sincere, truthful, and interested in sharing information

about themselves, Somali American culture, and Islam. I believe the bluntness that Somali

Americans are apparently renowned for, at least by the co-researchers in this project, assisted in

the collection of capta. I found it refreshing and stimulating to the interviews when co-

researchers were quite comfortable talking about race and cultural differences assertively and

politely.

The core proposition of the communication theory of identity is that identity is a

communication process and that identity should be conceptualized as a negotiation in which

messages and values are exchanged (Hecht et al., 2003). These messages shared symbols and are

a component of enacting identity. Your identity determines your behavior by defining who you

are and what it is you should be doing. From this project, I have come to view personal identity

as a dynamic intersection of family relationships and history, cultural values and beliefs, and a

compilation of interpersonal experiences, intercultural relationships, and contextual factors. All

of these components are used to construct and negotiate identity in certain contexts and




situations, and the salience of each factor, reacting holistically with the others, determines the

identity which emerges.

In the phenomenological method, the researcher¶s worldview is a continuous and

dynamic part of the interpretive process, to the extent that interpretations of data are similar to an

ongoing dialog between the researcher and the data (Orbe, 1998, p. 23). This project¶s holistic

nature has positioned the researcher inside the living culture and society of participants and has

promoted a socially active inquiry into their communication of identity (Zuberi, 2008). At times

during this project, I felt like I was in a conversation directly with the culture of the participants.

When I was analyzing themes from my co-researcher¶s capta, it was as if their history,

language, family lines, struggles, beliefs and values were expressing themselves to me through a

conduit of human translators. The concept of culture being carried almost biologically by human

beings through their lives and reified through their daily discourse had become a palpable

phenomenon: The work of refiningcommunication strategies for constructing identity had

revealed the living nexus of identity¶s components. In this sense, the reduction may never be

completed because the conversation may never be completed.

Limitations

A small purposeful and essentially self-selected sample resulted in a group mostly middle

class and well-educated, bright, industrious and motivated. Several co-researchers are socially

active in non-profits and school programs. It may be that the uniformity of this group of co-

researchers is due to their own shared interests in promoting more knowledge about Somali and

Muslim culture within the dominant cultural of the U.S. Seven out of ten co-researchers reside in

northern Virginia, which they describe as very diverse, and the three co-researchers spread

between Massachusetts and Michigan also describe interacting in diversely populated schools,

towns, and neighborhoods. Future research with a larger young adult cohort of Somali-




Americans using quantitative methods would help to validate if the findings of this project are

generalizable to larger samples of Somali-Americans and to other immigrant populations

Because I am white European American, I will never be completely confident that my

race and culture did not limit the amount of information exchange that occurred between myself

and my co-researchers. However, I can report that all co-researchers stated at the end of each

interview that they had learned something about themselves, about Somali American culture and

American culture, and/ or about African-American culture.

The immense complexity of overlapping and intersecting personal, familial, cultural,

social, and contextual factors that influence identity construction and negotiation created an

immense and sometimes confusing and frustrating amount of information to process and analyze.

This is both an advantage and limitation. The advantage has been the ability to create a holistic

concept of identity construction and negotiation as it proceeds and evolves across family and

community environments, across and between cultural and racial borders, through time and

space, and by interactions with religious and spiritual beliefs and values. The limitations have

been that each level and category of interaction involved in the identity development process

could easily fill a doctoral dissertation¶s amount of research, so this project provides a useful,

holistic analysis that is limited in scope.

Implications for Future Research

First, I will repeat again how perplexing and interesting ± like a puzzle ± I find the

difference in perceptions about racism and racial discrimination between Somali-American co-

researchers and native African-Americans. Ambiguities and dialectic logic seem to permeate

each cultural group¶s perceptions about racial discrimination and about each other¶s identities

and socio-cultural memberships. Several questions beg to be answered, including this one: Is it

easier for African immigrants to acculturate into American culture when they are not aware of




racial discrimination? If so, how does that work? Is it worse for African immigrant¶s

acculturation if they are unaware of racial discrimination or they minimize discriminatory

experiences? If so, how does that work?

This project has provided enough of a theoretical basis and previous research data for a

useful interpretation of the capta derived from the projects interviews. More research on the

dynamics of identity negotiation between and through progressive levels of interaction and

information exchange could possibly produce new or more nuanced communication theories

about intercultural and interracial relationships and friendships. As noted before, there is a

paucity of research on intercultural and interracial friendships, so this area is open and waiting

for more investigation.

The mass media can have a powerful influence on the construction of identity because it

transmits a continuous barrage of racial messages through television, magazines, books, movies,

and music (Orbe& Harris,2006). A significant number of these messages play on negative

stereotypes of marginalized cultural groups like young Somali-Americans (Forliti, 2011; Jama,

2011). Various mass media theories such as cultivation theory (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan,

&Signorielli, 1986) indicate that this can strongly influence individual¶s and society¶s perceptions

of race, ethnicity, foreigners, immigrants, Muslims, and Somalis. Mass media messages, because of

their repetition over time and reification in the general discourse of the dominant culture, can

negatively affect marginal culture member¶s self-image and self-esteem (Gerbner et al., 1986; Orbe

and Harris 2006).

Mass media representations of Muslims and Somalis are one of the challenges to

constructive development of identity faced by young adult Somali-Americans in the dominant

culture of the U.S. In fact, co-researcher Hanad has co- created a non-profit to help Somali schools

³because there was a lot of pain and suffering, and all you saw on the news was pirates, and




terrorists on the news. We felt like we were being overwhelmed by negative images coming from

our country.´

Future research in a socially active role could compile a temporal log of mass media

representations about Somalis, their culture, and their characteristics from newspaper and magazine

articles, television news stories, movies and books. A content analysis could provide evidence for

Somali-Americans perceptions that their culture and country are negatively stereotyped in mass

media and show the intensity, accuracy, and longevity of such stories. A second aspect of socially

active communication research would be to offer communication consulting assistance to various

Somali-American groups. This could help them create a more positive dialog with dominant culture

members and voice positive messages about Somalis and their culture within the discourse of

mainstream American culture.

.




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Participant Interview Questions

1. Please tell me something about yourself.

4. Who do you call your family (Mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, etc.)?

5. What language do you speak with your family members?

a. With Somali-American adults older than you who are not relatives?

6. What language do you speak with Somali-Americans in your age group who are not relatives?

a. with Somali-Americans younger than you?

7. Do you often interact with non-Somali-Americans?

8. Do you often interact with non-Muslims?

9. Please talk about your experiences with non-Somali-Americans who are Muslims.

10. Please talk about your experiences with non-Somali-Americans who are not Muslims.

11. How would you answer the question "Who am I" when:

a. You are with Somali-Americans who are 1) relatives, 2) friends, or 3) meeting you

for the first time.

b. You are in your 1) regular mosque, 2) a different mosque,3) a new mosque.

c. You are with Muslim friends who are not Somali-Americans.

d. You are meeting Muslim/s who are not Somali-American for the first time.




e. You are with friends who are not Muslims and not Somali-Americans (if

applicable).

f. You are meeting people, or a person, who are not Muslims and not Somali-

American for the first time.

12. Please talk about your experiences with the types of people mentioned before.

13. Are there times you feel like you are American / not American, Somali / not Somali, Muslim

/ not Muslim? How do you experience that?

14. . Are there times you act like you are American / not American, Somali / not Somali,

Muslim / not Muslim? Can you recall an experience?

15. Are there times you want tobe American / not American, Somali / not Somali, Muslim / not

Muslim? Please talk about an experience you have had.

16, What are some of your strongest beliefs and values?

a. Who taught them to you?

b. How did you learn them? Did you have experiences which reinforced your belief

and/or values?

c. Do you express your beliefs and values to other Somali-Americans? How? Why?

Is it important to you? To them?

d. Do you express your beliefs and values to Muslims who are not Somali- Americans?

How? Why? Is it important to you? To them?




e. Do you express your beliefs and values to non-Muslims who are not Somali-

Americans? How? Why? Is it important to you? To them?

Adapted from Husain, A. (2008) The impact of religiosity, ethnic identity, acculturation and discrimination on the

self-esteem and academic achievement of Somali youth in the United States , pp. 216. and Dewitt, L.J. (2007)

The other side of othering, pp. 137.



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Appendix D

Dominant U.S. Culture

Interaction with dominant cultural membersand social groups without underlying cultural

memories of racial discrimination and indigni-ties of slavery. Opportunities for constructive inter -

cultural communication strategies: Dispelling racialstereotypes and Communicating Self (Orbe, 1998).

---------------------------------- ----------------------Privileging Diversity

Comfortable with social groups of mixedrace & ethnicity. Broader opportunities for negotiat ing

identity & intercultural social networks. Separation fromhistory of racial discrimination. Minimization of racial

discrimination experiences. Dialectic relationship with native African-Americans; Awareness of racial hierarchy in U.S. &

perceived ability to negotiate attainment of goals within the hierarchy.--------------------------------------------------- ---------------------

Islamic Practices

Ideal values of tolerance & acceptance toward other cultures andcultural members. Opportunities fo r intercultural communication & identity

negotiation. Sense of belonging & membership in larger, worldwide ummah;ritualized behaviors with family, community, friends, & religious leaders.

-------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------Somali Culture

Reifies cultural values & beliefs, gender roles, & negotiated position of

individual identity. Community is a basis for friendships & social group mem -bership; identification of ingroup / outgroup boundaries; and int racultural andintercultural communication strategies. Qiibal , tribal/family membership defined.

Non-Alignment with native African -American culture.

-------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------Strong Family Bonds

Construction & Negotiation of Identity: Gender roles, acceptable emotionalbehavior, discipline, cultural values & beliefs, cultural memories, sense of belonging &

membership. A basis for intercultural communication strategies, support for strong self-concept.

Communication flow and presence of feedback loops between organized communication structures.

----- Semi-permeable membranes that moderate information e xchange between cultural/social structures.

The most significant, salient components of identity construction and negotiation are at the base of thepyramid, starting with ³Strong Family Bonds´. Salience decreases with distance from ³Family Bonds´.

Figure 1. A Structural Model for Successful Construction & Negotiation of S omali-American Ident

Adapted from; Hecht, M., Jackson, R., & Ribeau,S. (2003). Afr ic an Amer ic an communic at ion: Expl or i ng Ident i ty and Cultur e, 2

nd Ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates ; Orbe, M P. (1998). C onst r uc t i ng C o-Cultur al Theor y:

An expl ic at ion of c ultur e, pow er , and communic at ion. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage ; Ting-Toomey (2005). Identity

negotiation theory: Crossing cultural boundaries. In Theor izi ng About Inter c ultur al C ommunic at ion, Gudykunst, W.B.

(Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publica tions, 211-233. ©2011 Jack Turner



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