The Somali Bantu
Complied from Internet Sources

Slaves
The Somali Bantu have a hard history. Tracing their roots to Mozambique, Tanzania, and Malawi, their ancestors were enslaved by Arab sultans in the 18th and 19th centuries and brought to Somalia. The Somali Bantu, with their darker complexion, look different from most other Somalis, whose physical appearance is more Arab. Even today, they're sometimes referred to as Adoon, a Somali term for "slave."

Approximately 25,000-50,000 slaves came into Somali lands during the 1800s, settling in large agricultural areas near the Juba and Shabelle rivers. Even after they were granted their freedom beginning in 1895, they were basically forced to work for colonial plantations and remained at the lowest rungs of society.

For the past 200 years, Somali Bantu have been treated as second-class citizens, denied access to education and land. They settled in four villages along the Juba River, scratching out a meager existence in agriculture.

Throughout the 20th century, they endured varying levels of persecution and harassment interspersed with a few periods of relative peace and stability. Once Somalia gained its independence in 1960, life became more difficult again for the Bantu. During the war between Somalia and Ethiopia in the 1970s and early 1980s, Bantu were forcibly conscripted in the war effort. Then, in 1991, civil war started in Somalia, and things became very dangerous and difficult for the Bantu.

Background 
In the spring of 2003, the United States opened its doors to the first of 12,000 Somali Bantu refugees. Although the Somali Bantu encompass diverse backgrounds as a population, this specific group of Somali Bantu are primarily descendents of East Africans originally brought to Somalia and enslaved by the Sultanate of Zanzibar in the19th century.

As they escaped or were freed, they became subsistence farmers in the Juba Valley - the agricultural backbone of Somalia. Based on this background and a distinctive physical appearance, these Bantu have been heavily discriminated against in Somalia, and relegated to agriculture, manual labor, and mechanical work - all low-status jobs. Access to education was restricted, and the majority of adults have had very little formal education. This means that many adults are pre-literate and most have had little exposure to urban settings and Western cultures.

Barriers to intermarriage with politically dominant Somali clans left the Bantu without the protection of those clans and therefore extremely vulnerable to violence and displacement during the on­going civil war in Somalia. This violence included theft of their farms, rape, injury, and witnessing the murder of family and friends. Most Bantu spent ten to twelve years in refugee camps in Kenya, where they were targeted by bandits and continued to be discriminated against by the other refugees living in the camps.

Despite these difficulties, the Somali Bantu remain a highly versatile, adaptable, and hard­working people with a strong sense of family and community and many skills to draw upon. They highly value education and are eager to learn and for their children to be successful in this country. While in the refugee camps, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) helped prepare the Bantu for the transition to the U.S. by providing those over the age of fifteen with up to eighty hours of cultural orientation (CO) classes. Some adults began to learn English informally in the camps, and children were able to attend primary and secondary school and most began to learn to read, write, and speak English.

Fleeing
Somalia is a country that is comprised of several large clans. Following the overthrow of dictator Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia descended into complete chaos and civil war. When the civil war broke out, the various clans competed for power.

The Bantu were very vulnerable for several reasons:

• They did not belong to any of the dominant clans in Somalia, and therefore could not avail themselves of any clan protection during the fighting;

• They lived and worked in the most productive agricultural regions of Somalia and had large amounts of food stored. As the clans fought each other, they often raided the Bantu villages for food and to gain control of these very productive regions.

• The Bantu are of a different ethnicity and appearance than the dominant clan Somalis, and therefore were unable to “blend in” to any crowd. They were often the targets of violence, including beatings, rapes and murder.

As the war worsened, the Bantu fled to neighboring countries by the thousands. Many of the refugees suffered horrendous atrocities along the way. Militias showed up at night, abducting men and raping women. Some children were forced into labor, others witnessed their parents getting killed. Many died of starvation or thirst along the way; others walked on foot for 17 days or more to cross a border.

Many ended up in one of several camps in Kenya. Ironically, many Somalis also ended up in those same camps because they were also fleeing the violence. Their co-existence in the camps often led to more violence and harassment of the Bantu. By 1994, approximately 10,000 Somali Bantu refugees were living in four refugee camps in Northern Kenya. At their peak in early 2000, these camps held more than 160,000 refugees.

Things didn't get much better once they arrived at the mushrooming Dadaab refugee camp, near the Kenya-Somalia border. Today, there are 100,000 Somali refugees in Kenya. At Dadaab, the Bantu found themselves at the bottom of the pecking order, forced into menial jobs like cleaning latrines.

People of Special Interest 
The U.S. government agreed to resettle the Somali Bantu only after efforts by the United Nations to move them to Mozambique failed. The 12,000 Somali Bantu are now the only people categorized by the U.S. government as a "special interest" group, making them automatically eligible for asylum.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, refugee admissions have slowed to a trickle. Only 27,000 refugees out of a quota of 70,000 arrived in the United States last year. Even fewer are expected this year.

Refugee advocates blame government red tape. U.S. government officials were not even allowed to travel to Dadaab to screen refugees because the camp is considered too dangerous. So the Somali Bantu had to be transported to another Kenyan refugee camp, Kakuma, near Sudan.

Coming to America 
Contrary to what many Americans may think, the majority of these Bantu refugees did not “dream of coming to America.” Instead they wanted to return to the countries of their ancestors: Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi. The United States and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees tried to make arrangements for return to those countries, but since those countries already sheltered thousands of other refugees and are not very wealthy, they denied entry to the large majority of Somali Bantu. After those efforts failed, the United States designated the Somali Bantu as a group with a well founded fear of persecution and made them eligible for resettlement in the U.S. Over the next few years, a tremendous effort went into identifying and processing an initial group of about 12,000 Somali Bantu refugees, the largest single group to be resettled in this manner.

The effort included moving thousands of refugees from the dangerous border camps to a larger camp called Kakuma, about 600 miles away. They went by hot, dusty bus trips or, for pregnant women or women with small children, by plane.

Once in Kakuma, they were assigned housing and the processing began. Refugee processing includes a series of interviews by Overseas Processing Entity staff and U.S. Department of Homeland Security officers to determine a refugee’s identity, family relationships, and for background checks. Since the Bantu are mostly preliterate with little documentation, this step presented enormous challenges. In addition, the Bantu are typically polygamous and have looser definitions of “family.” Before being approved, a polygamous male would have to choose one wife and “divorce” the others. Needless to say, the challenges were many.

After individuals were approved, they underwent medical checks and attended cultural orientation prior to traveling. Stateside, the Department of State and the National Refugee resettlement agencies determined which communities around the United States would be appropriate for this very challenging group. Resettlement agencies in local communities had meetings with various local and state government agencies, schools, medical providers, employers and other who would potentially be impacted by this new group. The number of Somali Bantu assigned to a particular location depended on that community’s capacity to serve them well. The first Somali Bantu families finally began arriving in the U.S. in April 2003.

Culture 
The Somali Bantu are made up of people who have kept many different tribal and linguistic practices despite centuries of slavery and persecution. Broadly speaking though, there are some common characteristics:

• They are multilingual, some speaking four or five languages.

• Most are Muslim, having converted upon entering Somalia centuries ago. They are not, however, as strictly observant as some of the dominant clan Somalis. Men and women have fairly clearly defined roles in the family and the community, and in large gatherings, typically do not sit together.

• Their social networks are very strong and they often employ group decision-making processes when confronted with a problem or concern. Tribal elders or chiefs have a central role and their decisions are usually respected. Within a family, the adult males are typically the decision-makers for the families. When there is a single-female headed household, she will often seek advice from other men in the community. Having said that, the women are very outspoken and do not usually sit by quietly.

• Bantu families are large, and women are usually married as teenagers and begin having children early. Children are seen as a blessing and a gift from Allah. Older children are very involved in watching over the younger children; this practice has caused a few issues with child protection services when American-born adults see an 8-year old in charge of a 2-year old.

• Due to their longstanding second-class citizen status, most adults are not literate and have little if any education. However, the parents are very eager for their children to attend school in the United States.

• Both men and women are eager to work (unless a medical issue prevents it) for the most part, although placing someone in a job who speaks little English and has few transferable work skills has been quite a challenge. The Bantu have been used to working hard, and typically apply that work ethic here.

• Similar to many people around the world, the Bantu use a mix of traditional healing methods, spirituality and modern medicine to cure medical complaints. Several of the healing methods leave scars, so it is not uncommon to see children and adults with unusual scars on their faces or bodies. Many women have undergone the procedure of ritual female genital surgery (also known as female circumcision/female genital mutilation) because is it widely practiced in Somalia, but they are not insistent that it continue here (possibly because they have learned that it is illegal, or possibly because it is not a tradition in their original culture).

• Music, especially drumming and dancing, is an integral part of their gatherings. Since they come from a culture with a strong oral tradition, music and storytelling have been important tools in recording their history and stories. Many Bantu can recite their family history several generations back.

• Few of the Bantu have ever lived with the many modern conveniences that Americans take for granted, but that is not so much a cultural convention as a result of their lack of access to those items.