From Africa to America: Religion and Adaptation among Ghanaian Immigrants in New York 0814786391, 9780814786390

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From Africa to America

Religion, Race, and Ethnicity Series General Editor: Peter J. Paris Public Religion and Urban Transformation: Faith in the City Edited by Lowell W. Livezey

Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church Darnise C. Martin

Down by the Riverside: Readings in African American Religion Edited by Larry G. Murphy

Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society Edited by Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas

New York Glory: Religions in the City Edited by Tony Carnes and Anna Karpathakis

Daddy Grace: A Celebrity Preacher and His House of Prayer Marie W. Dallam

Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction Edited by Craig R. Prentiss

The Methodist Unification: Christianity and the Politics of Race in the Jim Crow Era Morris L. Davis

God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving Immigrant Community Kenneth J. Guest Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert The History of the Riverside Church in the City of New York Peter J. Paris, John Wesley Cook, James Hadnut-Beumler, Lawrence H. Mamiya, Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, and Judith Weisenfeld Foreword by Martin E. Marty Righteous Content: Black Women’s Perspectives of Church and Faith Daphne C. Wiggins

Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism Jonathan L. Walton American Muslim Women: Negotiating Race, Class, and Gender within the Ummah Jamillah Karim Embodiment and the New Shape of Black Theological Thought Anthony B. Pinn From Africa to America: Religion and Adaptation among Ghanaian Immigrants in New York Moses O. Biney

From Africa to America Religion and Adaptation among Ghanaian Immigrants in New York

Moses O. Biney

a NEW YORK UNIVERSIT Y PRESS New York and London

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2011 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Biney, Moses O. From Africa to America : religion and adaptation among Ghanaian immigrants in New York / Moses O. Biney. p. cm. — (Religion, race, and ethnicity) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978–0–8147–8639–0 (cl : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–8147–8641–3 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York (New York, N.Y.) 2. Ghanaian Americans— Religion—New York (State)—New York. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Religious life and customs. I. Title. BX9211.N5P743 2010 285’.1089966707471—dc22 2010027835 References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Illustrations

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

9

2 By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

30

3 Remembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

46

1

4 How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission 65 5 The Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare

102

6 Conflict and Cohesion: Gender and Intergenerational Relations

120

7 Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

137

8 Paddling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

159

Notes

179

Bibliography

197

Index

205

About the Author

209

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List of Illustrations

Top five sources of diversity immigrants, New York City, 1990–1999

33

Top twenty users of diversity visas, New York City, 1990–1999

34

Residential map of PCGNY membership

36

A fabric store in the Bronx owned by a Ghanaian

39

A Ghanaian-owned restaraunt with a religious inscription in Twi and English

40

Dr. Asare in his office

44

The new place of worship at 259 West 123 St. in Manhattan

67

The late Mrs. Margaret Ohemeng

72

Some church members wearing winter coats over their Ghanaian clothes

74

Ordination of Rev. Yaw Asiedu, the current pastor of the church

83

First pastor of PCGNY, Rev. Dr. Francis Kumi Dwamena, and his wife, receiving a gift on his retirement

84

Erecting the Overseas Mission Field

85

Cross-section of the Singing Band

87

rd

A fiftieth-birthday celebration

105

Offering libation at a funeral

112

Ghanaian traditional rulers at a worship service at the church

118

Women dancing during offertory time

123

A section of the Women’s Fellowship at worship

124

Men preparing to serve food during a Mother’s Day celebration

129

Church picnic at Westport, Connecticut

131

Youth group of the church, May 2004

134

Lectern cover depicting African and Christian symbols

141 |

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Acknowledgments

Hama behu soro a efi dua (a climber [such as a vine] can see the sky only with the support of a tree). As the Akan proverb points out, it is only with the help and support of others that one can accomplish a great feat. Definitely, writing a book is such a feat that leaves one indebted to many people. The research and writing has been a long journey, though it has been blessed with the help and support of many. Special thanks go to my father, Moses Ohene Biney (whose spirit has gone before us) and my mother Matilda Amadi Biney; my siblings Josephine (deceased), Christiana Amelia, Christiana Emily, William, John, Emmanuel, Lucy, my numerous cousins, in-laws, nieces, and nephews and my entire extended family. They have always encouraged and supported me in my academic and vocational pursuits. Many thanks go to Professor Peter J. Paris, my mentor, father, and friend whose loving care and guidance have enabled me to produce this work. I also thank Prof. Mark L. Taylor, Prof. Kofi A. Opoku, and Prof. Rena Lederman, all of whom served on my dissertation committee and provided invaluable guidance during the research. Professors Max L. Stackhouse, Nancy Duff, John S. Mbiti, Elsie McKee, Andrew F. Walls, Geddes Hanson, and Richard F. Young have supported me in diverse ways during the course of my study. I am grateful to the late Professors Lowell Livezey and Ogbu Kalu, who made several suggestions for shaping my Ph.D. dissertation into this book, and Professors Jacob Olupona and Pashington Obeng, who reviewed the manuscript and made crucial suggestions for its improvement. Many thanks go to Jennifer Hammer, who has so patiently worked with me—reading, editing, and making suggestions for the successful publication of this book. To Shirvahna Gobin, who assisted me with the making of the maps and my colleagues at the Ecologies of Learning Project and New York Theological Seminary, I say thank you. Thank you to friends and colleagues—James Logan, Nimi Wariboko, Aristarchus Nikoi, Victor Abbey, George Kwapong, |

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Pangernungba, Kenneth Ngwa, Chris Muflam, Ann Wango, and many more who critiqued, cajoled, and encouraged me into writing this book. I sincerely thank the leaders and entire membership of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York for being so cooperative and helpful during my research. Thank you for enduring my many prying questions and for the many hours some of you spent with me discussing issues pertinent to this work! Thanks also go to my colleagues Dr. E. Obiri Addo, Rev. Denise Kennedy, Grace Nzameyo, and all the members of the First Presbyterian Church, Irvington, for their immense support. Last but not least, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to my dear wife Rita and my children, Nana Amadi, Nana Ohene Jr., and Maabena, whose love has supported me throughout the arduous task of researching and writing.

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| Acknowledgments

Introduction

“You drive all the way to New York City to attend church services?” Virginia asked in disbelief. She could not understand why we would drive almost sixty miles from Princeton, New Jersey, most Sundays to worship at the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York, a predominantly Ghanaian congregation. “How special are the services? Are there many Guyanese (confused with Ghanaians) in New York?” she asked. Virginia’s questions were not new to my wife and me. We had been asked over and over again whenever we told friends that we were members of a Ghanaian congregation in New York. Many of these friends were surprised to learn that there were a number of congregations formed by and made up predominantly of Ghanaians in the United States and could not understand why we would travel such a long distance for a worship service. Virginia’s innocuous questions point to two related and crucial issues which this book addresses. First is the general lack of awareness of the existence of African immigrant religious congregations in the United States and second, the lack of proper recognition and understanding of the importance of these congregations in the adjustment of immigrants to the United States. African migration to America has increased considerably since the 1990s and has the potential of increasing exponentially even further over the next few years. These Africans, many of them highly qualified professionals, can be found in various sectors of American society yet they remain “invisible sojourners” about whom very little is known. A major reason for this lack of awareness of the existence of African immigrants in the United States is the racialized nature of American society. Africans who enter the United States, particularly those with darker skin, are immediately subsumed under the omnibus and socially constructed racial category “black.” In the eyes of the average American, and more so to American legal and social systems, African immigrants are indistinguishable from all others, such as those from the Caribbean, with whom they share skin color. For these Africans themselves, however, not only are their national identities as Ghanaians, Nigerians, |

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Kenyans, or Ethiopians important to them but so also are their ethnic or clan identities as Akan, Ibo, Yoruba, and the like. In essence, their understanding of what constitutes their ontological identity is in contrast to the social identity conferred on them by American society. Like all immigrants, a crucial question that confronts these Africans is, “How should we live (in this new and strange land)?” This is less of an ethical question than it is a philosophical, theological, and sociological one. Not only does it raise the issue of moral goodness—how to live a morally good life—but even more important, it is about how to adjust to the sociocultural life of their new country in order to attain the good they seek both for themselves and their families without losing who they are. The question to a large extent is about survival—economic, social, and cultural. It may be posed thus: “How shall we order our lives and interact with persons and institutions in our new environment so as to attain our goals without losing the very essence of who we are?” In African cosmology, survival, whether of the individual or the group, largely depends on the maintenance of a good relationship between humans on the one hand, and God and other supernatural forces on the other. When John Mbiti, the renowned African theologian and scholar of African religion, suggested in the 1960s that Africans are “notoriously religious” and that they carried their religion wherever they went—to their farms, parties, examination rooms, parliament, and so on—he was among other things drawing attention to the fact that for many Africans life without religion is unthinkable.1 To many Africans, their religion is not totally separable from their so-called social lives. It should not surprise us then that African immigrants have brought their religious practices with them to the United States. This is evident from the numerous African religious communities that have been formed in many cities and towns since the 1980s. During the research for this book, I found stores, old warehouses, and dilapidated buildings renovated and converted into churches and mosques in many neighborhoods in the New York metro area, particularly in the Bronx. Brightly colored sign boards (some with neon lights) which announce their presence display names such as “Pan African Church of God in Christ,” “Redeemed Christian Church of God Restoration Chapel,” “The Holy Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church,” “The Light Mosque of Faith,” and so on. These storefront churches and mosques essentially serve as spaces for the worship and community life of immigrants from countries such as Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigerian, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and many other African countries. Members of the different religious communities use the spaces thus created to build relationships and 2

| Introduction

network with one another through their worship—singing, preaching, praying, and doing Bible study, among other things—as they struggle with the deeper questions of life regarding their identity, spirituality, community, and generally their sojourn in America. The current literature on new immigrant religious communities in the United States hardly reflects this reality. To date, African immigrant congregations have received little attention from sociologists and scholars of religion who have written about religion in the United States.2 The few anthropological studies on African immigrants in North America that take account of their religious lives include Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf, Wanderings: Sudanese Migrants and Exiles in North America, JoAnn D’Alisera, An Imagined Geography: Sierra Leonean Muslims in America, and Paul Stoller, Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City. Published recently are Jacob Olupona and Regina Gemignani, eds., African Immigrant Religions in America, and Jehu Hanciles, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West, both of which deal with various aspects of the religious lives of African immigrants. Other research and publications about African immigrants in Europe such as the work of Gerrie ter Haar, Afe Adogame, and Hermione Harris3 also help us to appreciate the importance of religious belief and practice to African immigrants. Yet, there is still more we need to know. This book seeks to help readers realize the growing presence of African immigrants in the United States and the significance of religious congregations in their lives generally, and specifically the role of religion in their process of adaptation. It tries to show how these immigrants make meaning of their sojourn in the United States and also how they deal with the challenges that confront them in their new environment. Indications are that congregations play a crucial role in assisting them in this process. A distinctive feature of this book is that it explores the issues—social, economic, political—that the immigrants face by examining the religious and community life of a single congregation. In doing so, readers are presented with the complexities of the immigrants’ life for which the church becomes important. It is in the church that they express their deepest worries, frustrations, as well as joys; it is in the church that they reveal their dreams and aspirations. The central argument of the book is that immigrant religious congregations are not merely “ethnic enclaves” that offer members safe havens where their “home” culture, norms, and values are preserved from the onslaught of American sociocultural values. Rather, they are spaces and communities where “home culture” and “host society culture” interrogate one another; where experimentation, innovation, conflict, and cohesion take place. Through worship and Introduction

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community life, immigrant congregations influence the process toward the maintenance of a balance between (a) the adjustment needed to succeed in America and contribute to the strength of its society and (b) the preservation of immigrants’ cultural particularity and control over their identities. The importance of religious communities in immigrant adjustment in the United States is not a new subject, though it has received relatively little attention. An important aspect of this theme that is treated by both past and recent literature is religion’s role in the formation and maintenance of identity among immigrants. Religion, it is argued, provides the context for the formation of a cultural community through which an immigrant’s identity is preserved. An influential work first published in 1955 that dealt with the issue was Will Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology. Reflecting on the wave of immigrants in the 1920s, Herberg indicated that it was through religion that the immigrants, their children, and grandchildren found an “identifiable place in America.”4 He argued that religion was the most pronounced and persistent form of identification among the immigrants. To him, the only means by which the third generation of the mostly European immigrants he wrote about could reappropriate fragments of the culture of their forebears was through religion. Much of the current literature on religion and the incorporation of new immigrants into American society has relied on or at least adopted Herberg’s thesis and made similar arguments. Raymond Williams, writing about Indian and Pakistani religious communities, for instance, concludes that religion is one of the most important “identity markers” in the United States.5 According to him, religion is the “social category with the clearest meaning and acceptance” in the United States. Stephen Warner, perhaps the foremost scholar in this area of research in recent times, has also argued that religion provides the main avenue through which immigrants, particularly their children, negotiate their identities.6 A similar assessment is made by Helen Ebaugh and Janet Chafetz in their edited book, Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations. Based on thirteen case studies of diverse immigrant religious communities in the Houston area they conclude that immigrant religious congregations “provide the physical and social spaces in which those who share the same traditions, customs and languages can reproduce many aspects of their native cultures for themselves and attempt to pass them on to their children.”7 One feature common to all these scholars, at least with respect to the particular publications quoted here, and others whose works have been influ4

| Introduction

enced by Herberg’s thesis, is their focus on the social function and structure of religion. In their attempt to show the “role” or “function” of immigrant religious communities within the larger society, these scholars present immigrants’ religious congregations as essentially vehicles for promoting ethnic group interests. This approach has two serious drawbacks. First, it makes immigrants’ religious life merely incidental to their ethnicity and creates an unrealistic dichotomy between immigrants’ religious and ethnic identities; and second, it fails to adequately underscore the very important theological, ethical, and psychological resources immigrant congregations provide their members for their adaptation to American society. My purpose is to show the nature and significance of the congregation’s worship and community life to its members within the context of their status as immigrants adapting to social and cultural life in the United States. As a way of opening a window into the religious and community life of the post-1965 African immigrants in America and to help clarify the significance of the religious congregation in the lives of immigrants, this book largely presents a case study of the worship and community life of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York (PCGNY), a congregation made up of predominantly first- and second-generation Ghanaians living in the New York metro area. Though the congregation does not necessarily typify all African immigrant congregations, it is a good example of such congregations and thus provides helpful insights for the study of others. The book focuses on three important aspects of the life of members of this congregation, namely, identity, spirituality, and community. These rather broad areas of African immigrant life are the ones the immigrants often try hard to conserve, as they are in conflict with mainstream American sociocultural life. In this book, I examine how these aspects of their lives are maintained and reshaped through the religious experiences of members, corporate rituals and the mundane life of this church. I also examine the strength the immigrants draw from the worship and community life of the church in their fight for survival and adjustment to American sociocultural life.

Research Process Data for this book was collected largely through participant observation, interviews—both face-to-face and by phone—the analysis of church documents, publications, other records, and review of the relevant secondary literature. Though I started the research for this book in earnest in the spring of 2003, my participation in the church and observation of its general community life Introduction

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began long before then. Between December 1998, when I was first introduced to this church, and the fall of 2002 when I decided to undertake this study, I participated in many of the church’s worship services and special events. I also attended numerous marriage, funeral, naming ceremonies (of newborns), and other “social” programs organized by the church. Within this four-year period I spoke to over one hundred members of PCGNY on various issues regarding their personal experiences as immigrants, and about the church. Some of the information gathered at this time has been included in this research. During the actual research, I interviewed about seventy people at different times. Ten of these, including past and present pastors of the church and other leaders served as resource persons with whom I had several interviews. Throughout the research I was guided by what I consider an important principle of research, namely, if we want to understand why people do what they do, we must ask them first. Much of the information I have presented here was gathered through conversations with the members and leaders of the church. In my conversations with both the leadership and members of the church before and during this research, I tried to find answers to questions relating to the history and the formation of the congregation; the demographic makeup of the membership; the theological orientation of the church; the church’s organizational structure; types of religious services; “social” activities; language usage; relationships among the ethnic groups represented in the church; policies and programs to assist new immigrants; social services organized by the churches; ties between the churches and other Ghanaian religious and social groups; ties, both at church and individual levels, with the home church and the country of origin; differences perceived by immigrants between this church and the home church; status and role of women in the church; relationship between the first and second generations; conflicts and how they are resolved. I also asked members their reasons and goals for migrating to the United States; their experiences as immigrants (and children of immigrants), the reception of the host nation, sociocultural adjustments they have made and continue to make, ethical and theological dilemmas they face, and the ways in which the church has been helpful to them. Another important resource that has aided this research is my own knowledge and practical experience gained as an ordained pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. As an insider and a person who has served with the parent church of PCGNY for many years, my personal knowledge of the structures and workings of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana helped me describe and analyze the continuities and discontinuities between the PCGNY and its parent church. I also gained access to some privileged information from the church head office for the research. 6

| Introduction

Two important but somewhat opposed concerns which are reflective of the two hats I wear—as a pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, the denomination to which PCGNY belongs, and as a researcher and scholar of Religion and the Social Sciences—constantly attended the writing of this book. On the one hand, I wanted to focus on the living faith and story (and stories) of the PCGNY congregation, and on the other I wanted to analyze the congregation’s worship and community life in the light of larger social issues. Both have pitfalls that I have tried to avoid—on the one hand becoming too descriptive, and on the other hand becoming too engaged with the social function of the congregation. The ethnographic method used in this research proved helpful in a number of ways. First, it allowed me to gain indepth knowledge and understanding of issues from both the point of view of the Ghanaian immigrants themselves and also through personal observation and assessment. Second, it permitted me to include the actual voices of my interviewees. The names of some of these interviewees are mentioned in the book. But for many who requested varying levels of anonymity, I have used only their first names, and changed or omitted the names of others.

Outline of the Book This book is organized into eight chapters. Chapter 1 sets the stage by introducing us to Ghanaian migration to the United States within the context of American immigration policies and incorporation theories. It outlines the three main theories of immigrant incorporation into America—classical assimilation, multiculturalism, and segmented assimilation—and their implications for immigrant religious communities. Chapter 2 provides a general overview of Ghanaian immigrants in the New York tristate area. It gives a panoramic view of Ghanaian immigrants in New York and provides information regarding areas where they are fairly concentrated in this expansive city, their way of life and activities as well as some of the sociocultural challenges confronting them. Additionally, it provides some information about New York City, one of the gateways through which many immigrants enter the United States, and which in our case serves as the proximal host for the Ghanaians of this particular church. Chapter 3 focuses on Ghana, the homeland of these immigrants and its people. Specifically it provides a brief historical and geographical overview of the country; a brief description and explanation of the dominant Ghanaian ethos and worldviews; religions, and religious life in Ghana, with particular focus on Christianity. Introduction

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Chapter 4 traces PCGNY’s history and examines the reasons for its formation, its organizational structure, demography of membership, and general ethos. A crucial aim of this chapter is to locate this congregation within both the structure and culture of its parent church on the one hand, and in the religious and cultural context of the United States on the other. PCGNY is clearly an example of a transnational religious community and therefore helps us to see some of the continuities and discontinuities between the congregation and its home denomination. Additionally, the chapter reveals some of the structural and cultural adaptations taking place in the congregation. Chapter 5 examines the community life of the church. It looks at the various ways through which the church tries to engender communality among its members, through, for instance, its welfare services and informal networking. It also examines the institutional role of the congregation in promoting opportunities for the celebration of important epochs in the life cycle of its members such as birth (naming ceremonies), confirmations, birthdays, marriages, and deaths (funerals). In Chapter 6, I examine the relationships between the first- and secondgeneration members of the church, and also gender roles and relationships. This chapter brings into focus some of the difficult intergenerational and gender related problems that threaten the spiritual and community life of the congregation. Chapter 7 deals with the relationship between immigrants’ spirituality and their identity within the congregation. It examines some of the theological and ethical beliefs that underpin the church’s communal life. Chapter 8 provides a socioethical analysis of some issues, and concludes the book. The chapter also makes a case for the importance of immigrant congregations, even a monoracial one such as PCGNY, helping its members achieve a fair balance between the retention of their identities and adaptation to their new environment. It argues that a religious congregation possesses agency, and generates the needed spiritual and social capital for keeping this balance.

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| Introduction

Coming to America

1

Ghanaians and U. S. Immigration

Eddie Murphy’s 1988 movie Coming to America tells an interesting story. In the movie, Akeem, the prince of the kingdom of Zamunda, travels with his companion servant, Semi, to New York City to seek a bride, an independent-minded lady who will marry him for who he is, not for his royalty and wealth. They arrive in New York City with their huge boxes of gold and other expensive clothing. Unaccustomed to life in such a modern city, they are confounded by its glamorous skyscrapers, flashy cars, sophisticatedlooking men and women, and the general hustle and bustle. Evidently, the slow-paced, community-oriented life these two were used to in their African kingdom is in direct contrast to the fast and impersonal lifestyle of New York City. Soon upon their arrival in the city, they learn that their African virtue of trusting people, even strangers, is not helpful here. Those to whose care they entrusted their luggage stole it! This pampered African prince and king-to-be settles in a notorious part of Queens borough where he hopes to find his future bride. Eventually, Akeem finds his bride, Lisa, but after a lot of toil. Along the way Akeem has given up aspects of his prior lifestyle and culture, yet he utilized others in order to survive in the city and attain his goal. For instance, he had to give up his royal robes for a pair of faded jeans and shirt; live in a small and shabby apartment which was a far cry from the comfort of his royal quarters; clean tables at his future father-in-law’s fast food restaurant—in short, lead a lifestyle completely different from what he was used to in his kingdom. Yet he did not have to discard all that was ingrained in him by his culture and prior training. His royal demeanor and confidence as well as his charitable spirit remained with him throughout this ordeal. His skill at dueling, acquired through constant training in Africa, also proved handy in overcoming a thug who sought to steal from his would-be father-in-law’s restaurant at gunpoint. |

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Beyond its humor and exaggerated scenes, this fictitious comedy and romance of Akeem provides some insights for our study of African immigrants in the United States, and New York City in particular. It draws our attention in a picturesque way to some of the challenges immigrants generally, and Ghanaians in particular, face when they migrate to the United States. The movie reflects the experiences of many Ghanaians who travel to the United States in search of “greener pastures.” For sure, although not all of them are princes and princesses (though some of them are chiefs, queens, linguists, and so on), a good number of them are professionals and people of high academic attainment and good social standing in Ghana. They all come to seek what they deem crucial to them and their families’ well-being, namely, an education, jobs, financial security, and a better future, and are often determined to face all odds in order to attain their goals. Many of them suffer downward mobility in terms of economic and social standing, and undergo numerous hardships before they attain the goals for which they migrated to the United States. Unfortunately, some are never able to realize their dreams and goals. Such failures are largely due to structures such as immigration laws, racism and discrimination, and difficult economic and social systems in the United States. To a large extent those who succeed are those who are able to navigate effectively the tensions between their own identities and what American society requires of them.

Ghanaians and Post–1965 American Immigration Oscar Handlin’s well-noted assertion that immigrants are the very soul of the United States remains true today.1 Since the seventeenth century, when the Pilgrims, escaping religious persecution, settled in the then “New World,” men, women, and children, for different reasons, have moved from various parts of the world to settle in the United States. The immigration literature divides migration to the United States into two eras—the “Old” and the “New”—with 1965 serving as the dividing line between the two. The 1965 amendment of the Immigration and Nationality Act marks a major shift in U.S. immigration policy.2 This Act replaced the national origin quota system, which had been in place since the 1920s, and which allowed citizens of countries in the Western hemisphere unfettered rights of migration to the United States while restricting the rights of people from other nations.3 The provisions of the 1965 Act made it possible for citizens from hitherto restricted “Third World” nations to migrate in large numbers to the United States. 10

| Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

As reflected in the 2000 U.S. population census, since 1965 the United States has received an unprecedented number of immigrants of different social and economic backgrounds from a variety of countries.4 For example, 48 percent of the foreign-born population of the United States was from “all other nations” other than the following countries: Mexico (28%), Philippines (4%), India (4%), China (3%), Vietnam (3%), El Salvador (3%), Cuba (3%), Dominican Republic (2%), Haiti (1%) and Nicaragua (1%). This is in sharp contrast to the 1960 census report, which showed six European countries (Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Poland, Ireland, and Austria), as well as Canada and the then Soviet Union contributing more than 60 percent of the foreign-born population. Even so, Africans from the continent could not migrate in large numbers to the United States until the 1990s due to visa restrictions. Ghanaians, like many other African immigrants, have settled in comparatively large numbers since the 1990s. Comparisons between pre- and post-1965 migrants reveal differences with regard to religious and cultural diversity. The new immigrants come from many more nations than previously.5 The change in immigrants’ countries of origin has undoubtedly changed America’s ethnic and racial landscape and reconfigured its social, cultural, and religious life. This change in the American population and sociocultural life is visible in many metropolitan cities such as Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C., among others, where “ethnic enclaves”—that is, geographical areas with concentrations of particular ethnic or racial groups—have arisen. These often consist of “spatially clustered networks of businesses owned and staffed by members of the same minority group.”6 Among other things, these enclaves—such as Chinatown or Spanish Harlem in New York—serve as economic, cultural, and religious communities for their particular immigrant group. The new immigrants have brought diverse religions and ethnic identities to the United States. In contrast to the pre–World War II religious landscape of the United States, which was dominated by what Will Herberg called a “tripartite division of Catholics, Protestants and Jews,”7 the United States is currently home to diverse religions and cultures from all over the world. Religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Voodoo, and various forms of Christianity from Africa and Latin America are common in America today.8 Among these newer immigrants are those from Ghana. The majority of Ghanaian immigrants in the United States arrived here since the late 1980s. Like most other African immigrant groups, only a handful immigrated between 1950 and 1980. They were mainly college, university, and seminary students who had decided to stay after finishing their studies, and others Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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who came to join their families. Since the passing of the Immigration Act of 1990, which created the Diversity Visa Program,9 a larger number of Ghanaians have been admitted as legal permanent residents into the United States. Between 1991 and 2001, for instance, 39,669 Ghanaian immigrants were admitted legally into the country.10 Though Ghanaian immigrants in the United States are few when compared to those from Asia and Latin America, they are not insignificant when considered against the total number of 4.3 million Africans who were admitted to the United States during the same period.11 In fact, they are becoming more noticeable in metropolitan areas such as New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, and so on.12 They leave their home country for diverse reasons—economic, political,13 as well as educational.14 Others come to be reunited with their families in the United States. Generally, immigrants leave their home country with high hopes of improving their lives and fulfilling their dreams and aspirations. Upon arrival in the United States, however, they are immediately confronted with the hard realities of living in a foreign land.15

Patterns and Phases of Ghanaian Migration Ghanaians are not new to migration. Since precolonial times Ghana has served as both a place of origin and a destination for migration. The early settlers in modern-day Ghana are said to have migrated from different parts of the West African subregion. These and subsequent citizens have often migrated internally—to and from various regions of the country—as they tried to escape from intertribal wars, and also look for new opportunities for trade, farming, and the like. The development of gold mines and cocoa farms in the southern regions of the then Gold Coast in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries attracted migrants from other British colonies such as Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria. In addition, there were the many colonialists, European traders, and Western missionaries who settled in the Gold Coast as immigrants. Others came from French colonies such as Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, and Benin. As shown by data from the 1931 census, approximately 287,000 people from Burkina Faso entered the Gold Coast between 1921 and 1931. The 1960 census also reveals that about 12 percent of the Gold Coast population, that is, 827,481 persons, were foreign-born. Of these, 98 percent were from countries in Africa. These migrants increased in numbers soon after independence, when Ghana was perceived as the epitome of political and economic success by many African countries. Even in the 1980s and 1990s, when many Gha12

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naians were emigrating, other migrants and refugees were coming in from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Niger, and Mali. However, in this period, as pointed out by Joseph Anarfi and others, Ghana has moved from being a “net immigration country” to a “net emigration country.”16 Four phases of Ghana’s migration have been identified.17 The first is the period of minimal emigration which extends from the precolonial period to the 1960s. In these years only a few people, mainly students, migrated from Ghana. The second is the period of initial emigration which began in 1965 or thereabouts. This was when Ghana’s economy had began to suffer a downturn, causing many Ghanaian professionals to seek employment and better economic opportunities in other countries such as Uganda, Nigeria, Gambia, Botswana, and Zambia. The third phase, in which large-scale emigration began in the early 1980s, saw even larger numbers of Ghanaian professionals and other skilled and unskilled persons migrating to various countries in Africa, Europe, and North America. This large-scale migration was precipitated by a number of factors such as bad governance and resultant political turmoil, a poor economy and attendant joblessness, poor remuneration, and generally poor living conditions. The fourth and most recent stage of Ghanaian emigration is characterized by the new diasporas. Beginning from the mid-1980s Ghanaians have constituted themselves into communities in Europe and North America, mainly in metropolises or large cities such as London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Toronto, and New York. With the emergence of the United States as the most powerful nation on the international scene and the heightened anti-immigrant policies and sentiments in many European countries, America has become the favorite destination for many Ghanaians. Scholars who have studied this phase of Ghanaian emigration suggest that its inception lies in the migration of Ghanaians to Nigeria in the late 1970s and early 1980s.18 Between 1974 and 1981, about 2 million Ghanaians are said to have left the country for Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire, with about three hundred heading for Nigeria each day. They included significant numbers of teachers, doctors, engineers, and nurses, and large numbers of skilled and unskilled persons. These people took advantage of Nigeria’s oil boom and strong economy at the time. Unfortunately, a downturn in Nigeria’s fortunes in the early 1980s led many to return. As Nigeria’s economy worsened and employment opportunities shrank, Ghanaians and other foreign nationals in Nigeria became obvious targets of discontent. They were blamed for taking jobs from Nigerians and causing other economic and social problems. With anti-immigrant sentiment runComing to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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ning high among both politicians and ordinary citizens, in January 1983 the government of President Shehu Shagari ordered all foreign nationals without proper immigration papers to leave by the end of the month. Though the order seemed to target low-skilled workers, it had serious ramifications for all classes of foreign nationals. It led to mass forced deportations characterized by indiscriminate roundups and harassment by the Nigerian military and police as well as local vigilante groups. About 1.2 million Ghanaians, according to a United Nations report, were deported during this period.19 In 1985 another round of mass expulsions resulted in the repatriation of another 100,000 Ghanaians.20 While most of those repatriated during both periods arrived in Ghana, many of them soon left for other countries in Africa, Europe, and America. In addition, there were others who chose not to return to Ghana at all. It is estimated that about 42 percent of Ghanaian immigrants in 2001 lived in European countries and another 31 percent in other non-European countries. Seventeen percent also lived in the United States of America.21

Stepwise Migration Many Ghanaian immigrants to America arrive in a stepwise fashion. Several of my interviewees had lived in countries such as Nigeria, Liberia, Libya, Italy, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, and Canada prior to migrating to the United States. Take for instance Kwadwo, a naturalized American citizen. He left Ghana in 1980 for Nigeria. In 1983 he moved to Cameroon due to Nigeria’s mass repatriation of foreigners. He lived in Cameroon for two years and then managed to get a visa to France, where he lived for a year. Meanwhile, his wife, a nurse, left for Britain in 1983 and after a two-year stay succeeded in moving to Canada. She applied for and was granted permanent residence based on which she invited her husband to join her. They both lived in Canada for ten years before moving to the United States in 1997. While in Canada, they gave birth to two sons. Their third was born in the United States. Boateng, a fifty-year-old man, also left Ghana for Nigeria in 1981 but was repatriated in 1983. Soon upon returning to Ghana, he left again for Libya with some friends. After a year, he left Libya, where he had eked out a living as a janitor, and went to Italy. He lived and worked in Italy for five years and learned Italian. In 1990, a friend of his invited him to the United States for a visit and he decided to stay. He got married to a Ghanaian-American. Through his wife he was able to gain permanent residence and later American citizenship. 14

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Through such travels and sojourns in different countries Ghanaians such as Kwadwo and Boateng acquire aspects of the different cultures they encounter. They therefore arrive in the United States with beliefs and practices originating in Ghana, as well as many other countries.

Why They Come It can be inferred from what has been said so far that Ghanaian immigrants come to the United States for numerous reasons. The following stories from a few of my interviewees personalize for us the reasons for Ghanaian migration to the United States: Angela is a sixty-five-year-old. She came to be reunited with her family. She told me her story as follows: I left Ghana to stay permanently in the United States forty years ago. My main purpose for coming was to join my husband who had settled here a few years earlier. Generally I did not encounter any problems in terms of acquiring the necessary visa. When he sent me the necessary documentation I presented them at the U.S. consulate and was issued with a visa. I came as a Certificate “A” school teacher but I decided not to go into teaching here and rather took up a job as a clerk at a bank.

Lillian holds two master’s degrees, in education and curriculum research, respectively. During the research she was a teacher at PS 30, one of the public schools in New York City, and was also writing a doctoral dissertation in the education department at Columbia University. She came to study: I arrived in New York City on January 3, 1976 to begin a master’s degree program in Education at Columbia University. Prior to this I was teaching at a teacher’s college in Accra, Ghana. Upon completion of the degree I gained employment with the United Nations International School where I taught for a number of years. This was not my original plan. I had intended to go back to Ghana after the course but the political events in Ghana, namely the 1979 military coup, and the subsequent socioeconomic turmoil dissuaded me from going.

Stephen, who is over sixty, left because his life was in danger. He says: Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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I was a military officer in the Ghana Army. I was at the height of my career as a soldier. Life was good— very good—for me and my family. And I never ever thought of leaving Ghana to live permanently in any country. But everything changed for me and my family on December 31, 1981 when Rawlings and his military junta staged the coup and took political power. Soon after taking power, they began a hunt for all of us who were senior officers in the military, particularly those in charge of national security and those connected with the previous administration. I had to leave my home and family under the cover of darkness and for a couple of days moved from one secret location to another. Eventually I succeeded with the help of friends to get into the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire. From there I was able to secure a U.S. visa and came here to the United States.

For Kwame, a forty-seven-year-old man, the weak economy in the home country was the main reason why he migrated. He says: I left Ghana in November 2003, out of frustration and desperation. I had been a music teacher with the Ghana Education Service for eighteen years and had risen through the ranks to become an Assistant Director of Education. Yet, my monthly salary could barely sustain my family and I. Demands from both my immediate and extended family made it difficult to save any money for the future. While there, I saw family members and friends living in the United States come back to put up houses and also undertake major projects. I then decided to seek greener pastures in the United States. Getting a visa to travel was not easy. After numerous visits to the American Consulate I was finally issued with a visa.

These accounts, taken as a sample of the diverse reasons for which Ghanaian immigrants come to the United States, reveal that not all come primarily for economic reasons. While a majority may come to here to seek jobs, others come to be with family, to study, and to escape life-threatening situations.

“Pray for Me” “Leaving your home and your people to live in a foreign country, is a damn risky and uncertain business; you never know how it’s going to go. You always need the favor of God; I always request my people back at home to pray for me,” Mensa, one of my interviewees, told me as he showed me the handwritten Psalms he keeps in his pocket and meditates upon everyday. His list of Psalms included numbers 16, 20, 34, 54, and 61. These Psalms, suggested 16

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by his local pastor in Ghana, were to be recited and used in meditation several times a day for the purpose of gaining protection from God and help from the people he met. Mensa insisted that this magical use of the Psalms was efficacious. He maintains that Psalm 34, said to have been composed by David after feigning madness before Abimelech, King of Gath, and being spared, had helped him gain favor in several difficult circumstances I agree with Hagan and Ebaugh’s assertion that immigrants’ use of religion is not limited to the end point of their migration, that is, in the host country, but begins in their home countries before they embark on their journey.22 Drawing on research based on transnational Maya communities in Guatemala and Houston, Texas, they propose a six-stage migratory process: (1) decision making, (2) preparing for the trip, (3) the journey, (4) arrival, (5) role of ethnic churches, and (6) the development of transnational linkages. According to them, immigrants make use of religion at each stage. At the first stage, persons intending to migrate contact their priests for spiritual counsel and prayer. Subsequently, in the second stage, they seek prayers and support for themselves and their families from their congregations. The third stage involves the actual journey. During this period the migrants rely on spiritual support from religious leaders in the home country. In the fourth stage, upon arrival at the country of destination, they make contact with their pastors and former church members back in the home country, and give and receive news updates. Then, in the fifth stage, they join an “ethnic” congregation which helps them adjust to their new country. In the final, sixth stage, they establish and maintain transnational networks between themselves and their “ethnic” church on the one hand and religious communities in the home country on the other. Hagan and Ebaugh’s representation provides a helpful tool with which to capture the Ghanaian migration as a transnational process and not merely a relocation of persons from one bounded state to another. Moreover, it provides a way of assessing how religion aids the Ghanaian immigrants at different points of the journey and sojourn. Two points need to be made, though. First, the schema reflects a straight journey from home country to the proposed destination and therefore does not consider the possibility of a stepwise migration. As described earlier, Ghanaian immigrants arrive in the United States after temporary stints or long sojourns in other African and European countries. While in these countries they maintain a connection with religious leaders in the home country, and develop new ones with those in the country of transit as a way a facilitating the trip to their final destination. In fact, some immigrants begin making transnational connections through their religious leaders before leaving the home country. Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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The second point—and the more important one—is that, based on the Ghanaian experience, the schema would need a seventh phase, that is, the phase of “return.” For many of the Ghanaian immigrants in the United States and Europe, their migration is not “a one-way trip” which ends with their sojourn outside Ghana, but rather, a “round trip” which terminates after retirement and permanent relocation or burial in Ghana. As will be discussed in chapter 5, Ghanaians in the United States tend to return to and settle in Ghana permanently after retirement. Often, many who are American citizens leave family and some property in the United States and visit from time to time, till they become incapable of doing so due to poor health. The other trend is to send the remains of Ghanaians who die in the United States back to Ghana for burial. In both cases, to continue with the “trip” metaphor, religious communities provide spiritual and material resources for the “return trip.” In this chapter, I want to explore the first and second phases. Like the Guatemalans, Ghanaians do not make decisions regarding their migration— when to migrate, the exact place to settle, and so on—lightly. Often, they seek the guidance and the support of spiritual leaders. For many, not only is God’s approval necessary, but God’s guidance is also required for every inch of the journey. Religious leaders thus become vital communicators of God’s directions. In Ghana, several Pentecostal/Charismatic churches, especially those often referred to as “pray for me” churches, are well known for the prayers and vigils they hold on behalf of those of their members who have migrated to other countries or are about to do so. They often support not only those who are traveling, but through preaching and teaching, they encourage others to do so as well. Central to the teaching of many of these churches is the “prosperity gospel” which, among other things, encourages people not to be content with their present status and possessions but to seek “more territories, more coasts, and more breakthroughs.”23 Traveling abroad is seen as a “breakthrough” or at least a venture into prosperity. The flamboyant lifestyles of some of the religious leaders and the references they make to their own trips abroad serve as morale boosters for those traveling or intending to migrate. But more than just inspiring people to migrate, some pastors go further by using their own “connections,” that is, the network of friends and church members abroad, to secure invitation letters, affidavits of support, and the like for prospective emigrants. On the downside, some unscrupulous religious leaders dupe members and other unsuspecting persons with promises of helping them migrate. Stories abound in the Ghanaian media of self-styled “men of God” who become “visa contractors” and steal huge amounts of money from people eager to migrate. 18

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Incorporation into American Life Scholars are divided about the changing identities of immigrants in America over time, just as they were several generations ago. Like other immigrants, a major struggle for many first- and second-generation Ghanaians in the United States is how to become part of American sociocultural, economic, and political life and yet maintain their distinct identity as Ghanaians. The struggle is complicated by what E. Allen Richardson calls the “two visions of American life.”24 In his Strangers in this Land: Pluralism and the Response to Diversity in the United States, Richardson argues that America has two contradictory visions of diversity and homogeneity. While on the one hand America prides itself on having a pluralistic society, on the other the general expectation is that all immigrants will be assimilated into American sociocultural life.25 Richardson notes: Both historically and currently, the nation has been unable to resolve this basic contradiction. The quandary is a clash of values which is deeply engrained in the nation’s identity—the confrontation of two visions of American life characterized by diversity and homogeneity, pluralism and assimilation.26

This dual vision is largely reflective of, and, in fact, responsible for the different and often divisive theories of incorporation into America held by scholars, policy makers, and opinion leaders over the years. Two theories, assimilation and multiculturalism (pluralism), have dominated discussions about immigrant adaptation.

Assimilation In the early- and mid-twentieth century, American sociologists theorized that all immigrants arriving in the United States, regardless of national origin, were destined to be assimilated into American society, no matter how long it took. Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, major proponents of the classical assimilation theory, provided one of the earliest and clearest definitions and analyses of the process. In their Introduction to the Science of Sociology, described as “the most single influential text in the history of American Sociology,”27 they define assimilation as “a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons and groups and by sharing their experience Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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and history, and are incorporated with them in a common cultural life.”28 According to Park, this is the inevitable final stage of a four-stage “racerelations cycle” of contact, competition, accommodation, and assimilation.29 In essence, classical assimilation theory postulates that when different ethnic groups come together, they naturally come to share a common culture and gain equal access to opportunities for upward social mobility. Sharing in this common culture requires a gradual abandonment of “old” individual or group cultural norms and practices (which are impediments to assimilation) in favor of new ones, especially those associated with the dominant group. This process of sharing a common culture is inevitable as well as irreversible.30 In Park’s analysis, assimilation is largely a natural process that puts the burden of incorporation on the new entrant—the immigrant or minority group—rather than the larger society or mainstream culture. Consequently little attention is paid to structural constraints such as racism or injustices that inhibit assimilation. William Warner and Leo Srole, in their book Social Systems of American Ethnic Groups, added another important dimension to Park’s ideas by drawing attention to the interactive effects between the characteristics within a group and outside institutional factors. They argue, for instance, that factors such as skin color, language, and religion often combine with socieconomic status to determine the rate at which assimilation takes place.31 Nonetheless, they agree with Park’s underlying thesis that immigrants and other minorities will eventually be “Americanized.” Milton Gordon’s analysis is by far the most comprehensive of all, as it takes account of the complexities of assimilation. His aim in his book, Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Religion, Race and National Origins, is to offer “a rigorous and systematic analysis of the concept of assimilation” which would “break down into all possible factors or variables which could conceivably be included under the rubric.”32 In pursuit of this goal, he provides a typology of seven stages (or types) of assimilation—cultural assimilation, structural assimilation, marital assimilation, identificational assimilation, attitude reception assimilation, behavior reception assimilation, and civic assimilation. In Gordon’s view, two of these—cultural and structural assimilation— are most crucial in the assimilation process. Cultural assimilation or acculturation, which is the adoption of the “cultural patterns” of the host society, is most likely to begin when a minority group arrives in a country. Gordon distinguishes between “intrinsic cultural traits,” such as religious beliefs and practices or musical tastes, which he suggests are vital to a group’s cultural heritage, and “extrinsic traits” such as dress, patterns of emotional expres20

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sion, and the like, which are products of a people’s adjustment to their local environment. While the latter is often abandoned with ease, the former persists for a longer time. Cultural assimilation takes place even when none of the other types of assimilation occurs, either simultaneously or later. Indeed, “an immigrant may undergo only acculturation forever.”33 Gordon further indicates that structural assimilation is the “keystone of the arch of assimilation.”34 When structural assimilation occurs, all the other forms of assimilation also do so, either simultaneously or subsequently. By structural assimilation, Gordon is referring to the “large-scale entrance into cliques, clubs, institutions of the host society, on a primary group level.”35 In Gordon’s view, then, when a group of immigrants (and their descendants) or ethnic minorities gain acceptance into social groups in their new country as a result of professional36 or economic and social status, they have undergone (or are undergoing) structural assimilation. Though Gordon obviously refined the classical assimilation theory, he, like Park and the others, considered assimilation a “straight line” or linear process through which all immigrants must pass till they eventually lose their distinctive characteristics and cease to be “ethnic.” Classical assimilation theory, though in disrepute, is not dead, as some have suggested. In fact, scholars like Herbert Gans, Richard Alba, and Victor Nee have in recent times sought to revive and modify the theory and correct faulty assumptions, ideological biases, and inherent ethnocentricity. They vigorously defend it as an all-time process applicable not only to the European immigrants who came to the United States before 1965, but also to post1965 immigrants. Alba and Nee insist that the theory of assimilation can be used to analyze the new immigrants just as it was used for the old. Though they admit some of the shortcomings of the theory, they argue that it is still a very helpful sociological paradigm to explain immigrant incorporation into America and must therefore be amended rather than discarded. They write: In the most general terms, assimilation can be defined as the decline and at its endpoint the disappearance, of ethnic/racial distinction and the cultural and social differences that express it. . . . [A]ssimilation can involve minority groups only, in which case the ethnic boundary between the majority and the merged minority groups presumably remains intact. Assimilation of this sort is not a mere theoretical possibility as the assimilation of many descendants of earlier Caribbean black immigration into the native African American group indicates. Nevertheless, the type of assimilation that is of the greatest interest does involve the majority group.37 Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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Gans is far less dogmatic than Alba and Nee regarding the helpfulness of the classical assimilation theory and has proposed a “bumpy-line” assimilation rather than a straight-line assimilation.38 He argues that though all immigrants to the United States undergo assimilation, they are not always passive participants but also active ones in the process. Immigrants also follow their own paths to acculturation and assimilation in response to the pressures of their new environment. According to him, pressures from school, peers, media, the prevailing youth culture, and personal freedoms exercise immense influence and sometimes overwhelm immigrant children, causing them to assimilate in diverse ways—either by accepting what society imposes on them or fashioning their own aspirations and lifestyles. Their goals and behaviors may either be over and above or below the expectations of society as well as those of their parents. Classical assimilation as a theoretical framework (in all its variant forms) is based on certain flawed presumptions. First, classical assimilation presupposes that American society possesses a “nonethnic” or unified American core to which all immigrants, irrespective of national origin, phenotypical characteristics, and socioeconomic backgrounds will assimilate.39 Second, it presupposes that immigrants’ cultural beliefs and practices brought from their home country are inferior to those of their new society. This assumption has often been undergirded by racism and cultural superiority. Third, it largely assumes that the immigrant is a passive participant in his or her incorporation process. As evidence on the ground shows, not even Europeans from early migrations have fully assimilated. The existence of the Irish St. Patrick’s Day, the Italian Feast of San Gennaro, and so on, as well as Italian foods like pizza and lasagna, for example, indicate how resistant cultures are to “disappearance” or even decline. These and other weaknesses are what multiculturalism theorists seek to address.

Multiculturalism Multiculturalism or pluralism posits that America is a compound of ethnic and racial minorities and a dominant Euro-American group. Thus, it has no unified “nonethnic” core. Writing in the early 1960s about African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and the Irish in New York City, Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that the idea of “a melting pot” that had dominated sociological discussions on immigrant incorporation into America was not in consonance with empirical reality, at least not in New York.40 In the preface to their book, Beyond the Melting Pot, they write: “The notion that the intense and unprecedented mixture of ethnic and reli22

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gious groups in American life was soon to blend into [a] homogeneous end product has outlived its usefulness, and its credibility.”41 According to multiculturalists, immigrants in the United States do not passively absorb American sociocultural characteristics. Rather, they actively participate in their own incorporation process. In the words of Min Zhou, they “select carefully not only what to pack in their trunks to bring to America, but also what to unpack once settled.”42 I would go even further by saying that from what they unpack, they select what to use and in which context. Pluralists like Kathleen N. Conzen also point out that cultural beliefs and practices from the immigrants’ home countries are not necessarily inferior. Immigrants seldom abandon them; instead, they reshape and reinvent them as they interact with the host society. The home culture of immigrants must not be seen in terms of “baggage” that immigrants bring to America, but as “socially produced structures of meaning engendered by and expressed in public behaviors, language, images, and institutions.”43 Viewed this way, it will be apparent that culture is always inherent in social discourse and cannot be completely discarded unless interaction ceases. In short, multiculturalism acknowledges a variety of American cultures. Immigrants draw on the norms, values, and beliefs they bring with them and selectively adapt to different culture patterns when they arrive in the United States. They construct or invent new norms, values, and practices in response to the challenges of their new society. Despite its recognition of the cultures of minority groups as part of the American cultural landscape, the theory of multiculturalism fails to explain what some sociologists term “divergent destinies,” that is, why different groups adapt differently. Considering immigrant religious congregations and cultural institutions against the backdrop of claims made by assimilationists and pluralists, the following logical deductions can be made: the assimilationist view presupposes that an immigrant congregation is either unhelpful, as it delays assimilation, or unnecessary, as eventually the immigrants (and particularly their descendants) will be assimilated into the American mainstream. The multiculturalists’ claim obviously presupposes the importance of immigrant congregations in maintaining their home culture. My purpose here is not to determine which of these viewpoints is correct but rather to describe and analyze the current state of affairs. Since the majority of Ghanaians in the United States have only been here since the 1980s, one would need a crystal ball to foretell what may happen in the next three or four generations. What is clear is that at the present time Ghanaian immigrants are neither abandoning their home culture wholesale nor retaining it fully. Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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Segmented Assimilation A helpful conceptual framework for analyzing the lives of Ghanaian immigrants is the theory of segmented assimilation proposed by Alejandro Portes and Ruben C. Rumbaut. This theory is based on the argument that “assimilation outcomes have become segmented,”44 that is, immigrants are being absorbed by different segments of American society. In other words, immigrants, particularly immigrant children, do not follow just one way of adaptation. While some may revolt against the old country ways of their forebears and gravitate toward complete structural and cultural assimilation, others may hold onto the old ways by maintaining close contact with immigrants from the home country. Segmented assimilation therefore aims at explaining what determines the segment into which an immigrant group, specifically the second generation, may assimilate. It assumes the presence of two sets of determinants—internal factors intrinsic to the group such as norms, values, community organization, and the like, and external ones, such as racial stratification, economic opportunities, and so on—and focuses on the interaction between the two. The theory proposes that interaction between these two sets of determinants results in three possible trajectories of assimilation, namely, the time-honored pattern of upward mobility dictating the acculturation and economic integration into normative structures of middle-class America; a pattern of downward mobility, which dictates the acculturation and parallel integration into the underclass; and economic integration into middle-class America, with lagged acculturation and deliberate preservation of the immigrant community’s values and solidarity.45 Though “segmented assimilation” is a theoretical tool intended for the study of adaptation among second-generation immigrants, I find it useful even for first-generation immigrants. An important feature of the theory is that it deflates the false optimism inherent in both the classical theories of assimilation and pluralism. Both theories presuppose that whether or not an immigrant becomes Americanized largely depends on the person’s will, human capital, and choice. Therefore they give less consideration to other important variables, the most crucial of which is the reception of American society. Portes and Rumbaut point out convincingly that the manner and pace of the incorporation of the second generation into America depends on four important factors: the history of the immigrant first generation; the pace of acculturation among parents and children and its bearing on normative 24

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integration; the barriers, cultural and economic, confronted by second-generation youth in their quest for successful adaptation; and the family and community resources available to confront these barriers.46 While all four variables are discussed in this book, the last two will engage our attention first.

Reception of Ghanaians The most important condition for the incorporation of immigrants into the United States, as Portes and Rambaut point out, is reception. Reception is on three levels—legal or governmental, societal, and communal (from the immigrant’s group).47 The first hurdle for immigrants is legal or governmental acceptance. While all immigrants have to satisfy certain minimum legal requirements to gain acceptance by the United States government, they do not do so from a level playing field. Depending on their country of origin, race, religion, visa status, profession, and financial standing, an immigrant may be excluded, passively accepted, or actively encouraged.48 The disparity between the treatment given to Cubans and Haitians who enter the United States illegally is a case in point. Whereas Cubans are allowed to stay and their presence in the United States is easily legalized, Haitians are always turned back, sometimes to face persecution, poverty, and squalor in their home country. Those who succeed in outwitting representatives of the law have to remain incognito for as long as it takes to either gain refugee or permanent residency status. Whatever the reasons for such varied treatment, one can hardly ignore the race factor. Race more than anything else is and has always been the basis for acceptance into American society. Though immigration policy is no longer based on country of origin, which is essentially racist, and has become more inclusive, legal and social structures that discriminate on the basis of skin color and country of origin remain in place. Moreover, racism is more evident in terms of social acceptance. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, the darker an immigrant’s skin color, the more barriers is he or she likely to face in trying to gain entry into the American mainstream and the longer and more arduous will be the journey to the so-called “‘American dream.” 49 In contrast, Europeans and other nonblacks gain easy social and economic acceptance in America. An undocumented immigrant from Slovakia or Uzbekistan, for instance, stands a better chance of social acceptance than a permanent resident Ghanaian or for that matter a dark-skinned African. Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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Double Jeopardy The hurdle of social integration for most Ghanaians is often high. Like most dark-skinned African and Caribbean people, Ghanaian immigrants suffer from what I call “double jeopardy.” In a legal sense, “double jeopardy” refers to a situation where a person is tried twice for the same offense. I use the term loosely here to suggest that Ghanaian immigrants are often discriminated against both socially and economically for the same reason— because they are black immigrants. Take, for instance, the story of KC, whom I interviewed during my research. KC is a self-confident insurance salesman in his mid-thirties. He spoke fluent English. However, his contrived American accent sometimes gave him away, especially when he tried to pronounce words like “dollar,” “twenty,” and “water.” During a conversation, I asked him why he was mimicking the way Americans spoke. My question touched a raw nerve. He told me about his painful experiences on the job market. In spite of his impressive qualifications as a salesman and his many interviews with car dealerships and insurance corporations, he was never offered a job. In one case, he got to know that he was not hired because he was black and had an “accent.” Though he was not formally told, he heard from other sources that since the clientele for this particular car dealership was largely white, his “black face” and “African accent” would be bad for business. In another instance, he was offered a job but had great difficulty interacting with and gaining acceptance from his colleagues. They complained that they could not understand him because of his accent. Since then, he had resolved to “speak like an American” even though he found it frustrating. “Americans have accent too,” he told me. “Southerners, for instance, speak differently from Northerners, yet they do not see themselves as having an accent!” He was visibly frustrated. KC’s experience is not an isolated one. Several of my interviewees were frustrated by the “raw deal” they received because they were black immigrants. Some who had studied in prestigious schools in England wondered why they were unable to get the same jobs as their white classmates who, like them, had also migrated to the United States. Others were even more frustrated by the fact that African Americans have been less receptive to and less supportive of them than whites, and have sometimes even discriminated against them. Portes and Rumbaut are right when they suggest that, irrespective of how motivated and ambitious immigrants are, they will not attain their goals “if government officials persecute them, natives consistently discriminate 26

| Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

against them, and their own community has only minimum resources to offer.”50 Ghanaians generally enter the United States legally—either as students, as visitors, or as permanent residents. Most of those who come as permanent residents come on family visas or through the diversity lottery. While in the country, some, especially those with visitors’ visas, lose their visa status for a variety of reasons and join the ranks of “undocumented immigrants.” Needless to say, they are often harassed by immigration personnel and are also constrained by their “illegal” status from gaining access to facilities and services they need in order to assimilate into society. Even those who apply legally for permanent residence have to wait for many years before their applications are approved. For instance, it took ten years for one of my interviewees to obtain a permanent residence card. The greatest drawback for all Ghanaians is the discrimination they are subjected to by American society in general. As black Africans, they are legally and socially categorized as “black” and subjected to all the indignities blacks face in the United States. Worse still, they are not often well received by the native blacks (African Americans) with whom they are lumped together in a single category. Faced with harassment by government and discrimination by society, the immigrants’ community becomes their most important source of help and acceptance. This is where religious congregations come in. Though proponents of the segmented assimilation theory such as Portes and Rumbaut attach a lot of importance to immigrant communities in the adjustment of immigrants, their analyses often leave out the role played by religious congregations in immigrant communities. Min Zhou argues strongly that ethnic enclaves assist immigrants to succeed in America without losing their identities. “Asian-Americans and their children,” he states, “are making it not because of ‘Asian’ values per se but thanks to the ethnic community developed since their arrival in the United States.”51 Considering the fact that religious congregations play a vital role in Asian American communities, it is inconceivable that they would not be instrumental in assisting immigrants to adjust and maintain their identities at the same time. In fact, Zhou himself offers a clue about congregational involvement in the lives of Asian immigrants. To support his argument that the Vietnamese community prevents its young people from maladjustment, he quotes a Vietnamese teenager as saying, “my parents know pretty well all the Vietnamese kids in the neighborhood because we all go to the same church. Everybody knows everybody else. It’s hard to get away with much.”52 Yet Zhou stops short of giving the church the recognition it deserves. Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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For most Ghanaian immigrants, religious congregations play crucial roles in the lives of the individual and the community. They provide spiritual, psychological, and social resources for their survival. This will become clear after we have examined the community and spiritual life of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York in subsequent chapters.

Who Is an American? Theories on immigrant incorporation into America have focused on the processes rather than the goal of incorporation. The question “what is the American identity that immigrants must aspire to?” has not been addressed. My review of publications and websites on what it means to be American failed to find any definitive answers. Even the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration, which invites the foreign-born and guides them on how to become American citizens, does not define American identity. An interesting, yet provocative, book on American identity is Samuel Huntington’s Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity. Among other things, Huntington points out that historically American identity has been based on four crucial components—race, ethnicity, culture (most notably language and religion), and ideology. “The racial and ethnic Americas are no more,” he says, and “[c]ultural America is under siege.”53 He laments what he considers changes in the “salience and substance” of American national identity, by which he means a national identity based on AngloProtestant culture. He envisions the possibility of American identity evolving into any of five possible scenarios, namely: a creedal America, a bifurcated America, characterized by English and Spanish language and culture, an exclusivist America, defined by race and ethnicity, a revitalized America, reaffirming its Anglo-Protestant culture, and finally, a combination of these and other possibilities. He calls on Americans to recommit themselves to the Anglo-Protestant culture, traditions, and values which, according to him, have been central to American identity for three centuries. Important elements of this identity are the English language; Christianity; religious commitment; English concepts of the rule of law; the responsibility of rulers; individualism, and a strong work ethic. If the above-mentioned factors were indeed all that was required to be American, then the Ghanaian immigrants would have very little problem adjusting to the sociocultural life in America. After all, the majority of the Ghanaian immigrants speak and write English, are Christians, and have been governed by English concepts of law in their home county. While Hun28

| Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

tington’s assertion that race and ethnicity have officially ceased to determine American identity is correct, in practice that is not the case. Of course, even though Huntington’s arguments have resonance among some Americans, not all believe that Anglo-Protestant cultural and religious values define American identity. Others argue that American identity is based on certain shared ideals such as freedom, democracy, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Whatever the concept of American identity may mean, for the Ghanaian immigrants I interviewed it is of little importance if they are not accorded the same opportunities as others. American identity is only important if it translates into American opportunities—opportunities to attain their lives’ dreams. This is how Opoku, a fifty-nine-year-old naturalized American citizen put it when I asked him how he viewed his citizenship: I’ve lived in the country for forty years. I have advanced degrees from Yale; worked and paid my taxes all these years, and I am a citizen. Yet I’m constantly asked “Where are you from?” Sometimes I have to go the full length to prove my citizenship. Honestly, it’s hard not to feel like a secondclass citizen. I left Ghana when I was about nineteen years old and lived the better part of my life here, but I’m more welcomed and respected there than here in the United States.

Opoku’s candid response reveals the sense of ambiguity many Ghanaian Americans have. While they work hard like any other American, and for the most part cherish their citizenship, they do not feel fully accepted by American society. Nonetheless, as the next chapter will show, many try hard to put down roots in America.

Coming to America: Ghanaians and U.S. Immigration

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By the Hudson River

2

The Ghanaian Presence in New York

In August 2003, I was at the John F. Kennedy Airport in Jamaica, New York City, seeing off my wife and two kids, who were visiting family back in Ghana for a few weeks. Their flight had been delayed for several hours as a result of a major blackout that had occurred the previous day in various parts of the north-east. We sat at the departure lounge of Terminal 3 with several Ghanaians waiting to board the same Ghana Airways flight. Many more arrived, some carrying very large carry-on bags. There was no clear information regarding the new flight time; it kept on changing by the minute. Some passengers looked obviously anxious. But for others, the excitement of visiting the home country compensated for the annoying delay and so they engaged in hearty conversations to while away the time. I overheard one of them, a male in his early forties, telling his conversation partner that he had recently received his “green card” and was happy to be going home for a visit after eight years. Others chatted about projects they were undertaking in Ghana. One of them, a man in his fifties, was building a hotel in Accra, the capital of Ghana, and was going back to supervise the enterprise. He made this trip almost every summer, he said, to make sure the work got done, and done well. He went on to narrate how many of his friends who had entrusted their projects to family and friends in Ghana had gone “home” to find the work undone and the money squandered. Some of the passengers also talked about inconsequential matters like the dresses and shoes they were carrying to Ghana and about gifts they had bought for family and friends. One lady had six extra bags to check in. She was going home for her mother’s funeral and needed to send several items for that purpose. The airline would not allow her to check in that many bags even though she was prepared to pay the $100 surcharge for each one. So she began looking for a good Samaritan among the other passengers, someone with fewer bags who was willing to help her check in some of hers. 30

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Eventually my family left. Out of curiosity, I walked over to the arrival section of Terminal 3. Passengers from an Alitalia flight that had landed earlier were coming out. Judging by their clothes, I could tell that some of the passengers were from West Africa. Then something interesting happened. As the passengers entered the foyer, a young man in his thirties, dressed in a gray suit, kneeled on the floor in obvious excitement and gratitude. He raised both hands and looking up the ceiling, prayed loudly in Akan: Awurade medase (Lord, thank you) Ene me nso m’adu America. (Today, I have also arrived in America) Madu, madu, madu capital of the world (I’ve arrived; I’ve arrived; I’ve arrived in the capital of the world.)

The sudden outpouring of this emotional prayer drew the attention of many of the people around him. I looked at him. His joy and hope for a good life in the United States was infectious. Obviously, he was unaware of the challenges awaiting him. In fact, like this young man, many African immigrants enter the United States hoping to enjoy the seemingly flamboyant and easy life portrayed in American movies watched by people in their home countries. I had heard many stories from immigrants who had similar aspirations—to make lots of money in America in a few years and return home. Joe, one of my interviewees, who works as a store assistant in Manhattan, recounted his own experience: “I heard about New York City, particularly Harlem, when I was about eight years old growing up in Ghana. One of my uncles brought me an ‘I love New York’ T-shirt. From then on, I always wanted to come to New York. When I got here, I thought it was ‘a dream come true.’ My hope was to make enough money in five years and go back to build a music studio in Ghana. Here am I, it’s been sixteen years and I’m still struggling even to pay my bills.” New York’s John F. Kennedy airport is a both a transit hub and final destination for many flights from Africa. Ghana Airways, before its collapse in 2004, flew mainly to New York City and Baltimore, Maryland. Many Ghanaians making stopovers to see family members or friends in New York City end up staying permanently. For others, New York City was their city of choice largely because of the beauty, power, and cosmopolitanism that it represents. For yet others, New York City offered good job opportunities and better pay. Marion, a recruiter of IT professionals, for instance, earns $10 more per hour than she did working the same job in New Jersey. Amankwaa, who lives in By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

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the Bronx, told me, “New York is the economic center of the world and this is exactly where I want to live.” The airport scenes and conversations I have recounted highlight a couple of important issues. First, we see the constant flow of Ghanaians to and from the United States and the transnational lives of Ghanaian immigrants. During these travels in and out, goods, persons, and values are imported and exported. Second, we see the high aspirations and dreams that bring many Ghanaians to the United States. What this chapter hopes to do is to give us glimpses of the lives of Ghanaians in the New York metro area as they attempt to survive in the United States.

The Ghanaian Universe in the New York Metro Area According to the 2000 census, Ghanaian immigrants constitute the second largest group of West African immigrants in New York State. In 2000, 16,813 or 25.6 percent of the documented 65,572 foreign-born from Ghana, resided in New York State. This represented 0.4 percent of New York’s total foreignborn population of 3.9 million, 0.2 percent of the United States’ total foreignborn population of 31.1 million, and 0.1 percent of New York’s population of 19 million. The actual concentration of Ghanaians, however, is in the New York Metropolitan Area, also known as Metropolitan New York or the New York Tristate Area. The area defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget as New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, New York-New JerseyPennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has twenty-three counties and over 18 million residents and is one of the most populous in the world. At the center of this metropolis is New York City with its five boroughs—the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Long Island—considered to be the most populous city in the United States. In New York City, the Ghanaian presence is becoming quite noticeable. A publication by the New York City Department of City Planning in 2004 reveals: Diversity visas have been crucial to establishing flows from Africa and have led to the emergence of two African countries, Ghana and Nigeria, on the New York immigration landscape. During the 1990s Ghanaian inflows averaged over 900 annually, of which 48 percent were diversity entrants. . . . Indeed, flows from Ghana and Nigeria have gradually increased over the decade , and by 1999, Ghana had the fifteenth largest flow of immigrants to New York City, while Nigeria ranked nineteenth.1 32

| By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

Top five sources of diversity immigrants, New York City, 1990–1999

Annual Average Diversity Visa Flow = 8,557

Two points need to be noted. First, the statistics quoted above account for only a fraction of Ghanaian immigrants in New York City. This is because the numbers refer only to those immigrants who were legally received into the United States through the visa lottery program. Other immigrants, such as those who adjusted their statuses from other visa categories as well as those here illegally, are not accounted for. Second, now that Ghanaians can use the family unification provision under the immigration law to bring their kin into the country, they could potentially increase their numbers threefold or more in the next ten years. Although numerically Ghanaian immigrants pale in comparison to the large numbers of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, China, and Russia who are also in New York City, yet they are undoubtedly growing in numbers. Unlike other immigrants, such as the Chinese described by Min Zhou and Kenneth Guest,2 Ghanaians do not live in “enclaves.” Except for a few places in the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island where they are fairly concentrated, for the most part they are dispersed within the New York metro area. Without any concrete data on their residential patterns, we cannot be specific than to say that a greater percentage reside in New York City, while a sizeable number also live in the suburbs and small towns of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York State, and Pennsylvania. While doing the research for this book, I wanted to find out how Ghanaian immigrants are putting down roots within the communities in which By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

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Top twenty users of diversity visas, New York City, 1990–1999 ANNUAL AVERAGE Total Flow Diversity Visas TOTAL, New York City

Diversity Admissions as a % of Total

104,870

8,557

8.2

Poland

2,985

1,401

46.9

Ireland

1,391

1,236

88.9

Bangladesh

2,899

1,231

42.5

919

441

48.0

Ukraine*

5,494

348

6.3

Pakistan

Ghana

2,107

292

13.9

Nigeria

794

290

36.5

Russia*

3,034

288

9.5

Albania

423

250

59.2

Egypt

757

215

28.4

United Kingdom

884

208

23.6

Japan

483

169

35.0

Romania

620

154

24.9

Morocco

347

146

42.2

Turkey

323

116

36.0

Former Yugoslavia

775

96

12.4

Bulgaria

167

93

55.7

Algeria

100

67

66.9

2,963

63

2.1

333

58

17.4

Ecuador Italy

*Includes a portion of flows from the former U.S.S.R. that had no information on the specific republic. The known distribution by republic was used 10 reallocate these flows across each sub-class of admission. The adjusted flows for each sub-class were then totaled to obtain the flow for each broad class of admission, as well as the adjusted flow for each former republic. Source: Annual Immigrant Tape Files, 1990-99, Office of Immigration Statistics Population Division New York City Department of City Planning

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they reside and work. I also wanted to find out how they interact with people from other cultures. This was part of my attempt to determine how the Ghanaians were adapting to American society. Using the membership directory of PCGNY as a guide, I discovered that a substantial proportion of Ghanaians in New York City live in the Bronx. Beginning from Central Harlem, specifically in Community District MN10 where the church is located, and continuing into the Bronx, I conducted area tours and sketched out the profiles of the Ghanaian communities. Several times I walked and drove through neighborhoods in community districts: BX3, BX4, BX5, and BX6, all in the Bronx. Specific areas in which I spent a lot of time included the Edward L. Grant Highway, Morrisania, Claremont, Corotana Park E, Highbridge, the Grand Boulevard and Concourse (Grand Concourse), Morris Heights, University Heights Fordham, Mount Hope, East Tremont, Barthgate, Belmont, and West Farms.

Contesting Space in the Global City New York City is the very epitome of a modern global city. Its expansive land space filled with skyscrapers and other high-rise buildings; its dense and diverse population, and the intensity of movement within its bounds reflect the quintessential features of a modern global city. The city reflects what Lewis Mumford calls a geographic plexus.3 It is filled with, and in fact thrives on, various local and global political, economic, social, and religious networks. Through these networks goods and services, and even persons are exchanged. Sociologists and urban scholars have noted the profound effects of globalization on cities like New York City. Anthony Giddens points out rightly that globalization has created enormous interdependence and links between cities to the extent that they are less connected with their regions.4 Saskia Sassen, in Global City, a book based on the study of New York, London, and Tokyo, reveals the importance of these cities to economic globalization. They are essentially centers for economic innovation, production, and marketing. Moreover, they control and dictate global economic policy. The financial downturn of 2008–10 on Wall Street and its ramifications in the global economy testifies to this. As a global city, New York plays the critical role of a “production site” in the world economy.5 The nature of its products has changed considerably since the early twentieth century. Its economy has moved from one based largely on industry and manufacturing to one fueled by “service” jobs. Since By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

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Residential map of PCGNY membership Mapped by Shirvahna Gobin

the 1950s, over two-thirds of the city’s 950,000 manufacturing jobs have been replaced by jobs in finance, insurance, real estate, advertising, information technology, and others.6 Another effect of globalization is the explosive growth of New York City’s “foreign-born” population. The “foreign- born,” as the term suggests, are persons born outside the United States. Between 1990 and 2000, the foreignborn population is said to have increased by 38 percent that is, from 2.1 mil36

| By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

lion to 2.9 million.7 Simultaneously the native-born pollution declined by 2 percent. Though not as high as the peak of 41 percent attained in 1910, the foreign-born in 2000 constituted 36 percent of the city’s population. These official city records include naturalized Americans, permanent residents, and other legal immigrants. As outlined in the previous chapter, this population change has largely been fueled by international immigration inflows. The significance of the change lies less in the numerical increase than in the composition of the foreign-born. This leads to my third point. The increase in the foreign-born population has led to an increase in the diversity of cultures in the city. It is estimated that as of 2005, there were about 170 different language groups in New York City; this is a complete change from the first half of the twentieth century when the city was populated largely by Europeans. Thus, New York City is the most diverse city in the United States. While many Ghanaian immigrants have lived in European and other socalled “first world” countries before migrating to the United States, many more have come directly from small towns and villages in Ghana. For many of them, life in New York City is both fascinating and frustrating. Upon arrival in New York City, they are immediately confronted with the dominant corporate culture, a culture that Giddens and others say, places a high premium on “expertise” and “precision.” This culture requires the Ghanaians to change their sense of time, business, and personal relationships. The high academic qualifications and skills they acquired in Ghana and elsewhere are often considered insufficient for employment. Many have to study for accreditations and certifications from schools in the United States in order to secure jobs. The Ghanaian immigrants also taste the “excellence” and excesses of capitalism as reflected in the daily life in the city. They find food items and many other household commodities and services accessible and affordable. But they are confounded by all the rules and restrictions related to residential accommodations, transportation, and others; the “shylock” business attitudes; and the paucity of interpersonal human relationships in the city. They soon come to learn that corporations rather than community dictate life in the city, and that, within the large buildings that dominate the city’s landscape and skyline, decisions are made which affect the global economy and their day-to-day lives as well. For many, it is the wide and incongruous disparity between the affluent and the poor that surprises them the most. Commenting on salaries and bonuses given to the CEO of the company he works for, Fiifi says, “I can hardly understand, much less appreciate the reasons why one person can be paid a salary close to the total sum paid to all other employees.” Ama, By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

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another interviewee, says, “Life in New York, in fact America, is mostly ‘winner takes it all.’ Take for instance, the megamillion (lottery); one person gets all the money at a draw. All the others get nothing.” Living in New York City, one Ghanaian immigrant told me, involves dealing with both “perks and perils.” He was reflecting on the tragic death of Hagar, a forty-nine-year-old Ghanaian woman. On her way to work, she was run over by a truck loaded with beer as she tried to cross West 44th Street in New York City.8 The struggle to navigate the challenges and opportunities of participating in the economic, social, and political life of the city is constant and manifold. Many had stories of pain and anguish to tell me. Their struggle to acquire “papers,” that is, legal authorization to live and work in the United States; their lack of health insurance; the hatred and racism they have to endure, and so on, are similar to the accounts of the West African Muslim traders in New York City recounted by Paul Stoller in his book, Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City.9 Interestingly, however, the Ghanaian immigrants did not act like they were victims of the system, but as persons who strove to take advantage of the opportunities available to them. This was quite evident to me as I walked and drove through different city neighborhoods. I encountered the economic, social, cultural, and religious life of the Ghanaian community in New York City and got the opportunity to interact with some members of PCGNY outside their church setting.

Business and Entrepreneurship In a number of neighborhoods, I saw small to medium-sized shops owned and run by Ghanaians. These included fabric and dress shops, grocery and multipurpose shops that sell a variety of Ghanaian food items such as yams, plantains, fufu powder, kenkey, goat meat, koobi (dried and salted tilapia), wele (salted cattle hind and smoked fish), prerecorded audio and videotapes of Ghanaian music and films and other essentials imported from Ghana. I also found Ghanaian-owned restaurants where Ghanaian food was prepared and sold. Some of these shops were named after markets and businesses in Ghana, such as “Anokyekrom Café” and “Papaye” restaurant located at Sheridan Avenue in the Bronx. Others had religious inscriptions (a typical feature of businesses in Ghana) such as “Nyame Nti (Due to the mercy of God) Fabrics” and “Eye Adom (It’s by the grace of God) African American Spanish Restaurant,” both found at the Edward L. Grant Highway in the Bronx. 38

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A fabric store in the Bronx owned by a Ghanaian

Also located at Edward L. Grant Highway is the Law Office of Kofi Amankwah, a legal firm set up and operated by Ghanaian lawyers. One of the lawyers happens to be a member of the PCGNY. Through my association with the church, I had come to know him personally and had from time to time referred persons needing legal services to him. In March 2005, I accompanied a friend to this law office set up about five years prior to our visit. The sign in front of the firm advertised the following services: immigration issues; real estate and brokerage issues; and divorce and family issues. About fifteen people, the majority of them Africans, were seated in the waiting area as we entered. A very businesslike male receptionist welcomed us and asked to us to sign in. We wrote our names and stated our purpose for being there on a sign-in sheet. We were asked to wait our turn. As we waited, I observed that all clients who had come in that day were black, mostly from West Africa. Later in my conversation with my lawyer friend, I learned that about 70 percent of their clients were Ghanaian immigrants. The others were from other African countries and also a few Latinos/Latinas. I asked if any Caucasian had ever walked into their office. “No, no! They probably wouldn’t come even if the service were free,” he responded. By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

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A Ghanaian-owned restaraunt with a religious inscription in Twi and English

These comments and my earlier observation reveal two important facts. First, Ghanaian businesses are embedded in their national and ethnic communities. A similar observation has been made regarding Ghanaian immigrant businesses in the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio, area by Ian Yeboah.10 Among other things, Yeboah and his researchers observed that this embeddedness is necessitated by the businesses’ need to attract customers and also utilize ethnic networks and groups for business promotion. One thing Yeboah does not mention but that may be inferred from his analysis, and also pertains to the Ghanaian businesses in New York, is that it is the lack of patronage from the larger society that forces Ghanaian entrepreneurs to rely on their own kind for their business. Second, goods and services sold by Ghanaian business appeal mostly to Ghanaians and other Africans. In a tough and competitive market like that of New York, this is both a positive and a negative. While their clientele is often limited to West Africans and a few Caribbean people, they are able to tap into their need for specialized goods. Dealing in specialized goods that appeal to a particular segment of the population is a common market practice in America. 40

| By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

Cultural Associations Further evidence of the Ghanaian presence in New York City is the existence of many Ghanaian ethnic, hometown, and alumni associations. Ethnic associations such as the Akyem, Asanteman, Brong-Ahafo, Ga-Adamgme, Okuapemman, Okwahu, United Volta, and Yankasa represent particular Ghanaian ethnic groups.11 Many of them meet on the first Sunday of each month in a city building located at 127th West 127 Street in Manhattan. Aside from monthly meetings, the activities of the associations generally include social and cultural programs such as dances, picnics, lectures, health fairs, and so on, and also raising money to support projects in Ghana. They operate under the larger umbrella of the National Council of Ghanaian Associations (NCOGA). Formed in 1986 by eleven Ghanaian Associations, the NCOGA seeks to bring together all Ghanaian associations in the New York metro area. Its central goal, according to a posting on its website, is to provide an “effective, dynamic and responsible forum for addressing, on a unified basis, issues of common concern to all the member associations, their members and Ghana, in particular, and to Africa in general.”12 The associations can best be described as “home improvement associations,” where “home” refers to Ghana. Their activities are largely focused on sending various forms of aid such as hospital equipment, computers, and money to help communities and institutions in Ghana.

Religious Life Since subsequent chapters of this book discuss religion, this section will be brief. Ghanaians in the metro area lead a vibrant religious life. They engage in both formal worship services in churches, mosques, and shrines as well as in their private homes. It is in religious congregations that one is likely to find a cross section of Ghanaians gathered in large numbers at a given time. Since a large number of Ghanaians in the United States are Christians, they have formed churches of various denominations since the 1980s. So far, no authoritative data on the number of churches have been published. Based on a list of Ghanaian churches published in the July 2000 issue of Asenta, a newspaper devoted to news about Africa and the African diaspora in North America, as well as my own research, I conservatively estimate the number of Ghanaian immigrant churches and Christian “ministries” in New York City to be between thirty-five and forty-five. They form part of the growing number of African immigrant churches in New York City.13 By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

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Social Life I use the term “social” very loosely here in reference to the life of Ghanaians outside their worship and work places. Many of the “social activities” are focused on entertainment and welfare. I am fully aware of the difficulty and arbitrariness of separating the “social” from the cultural and religious. In fact, many of these activities such as birthday celebrations and funerals do have religious and cultural components to them. However, insofar as they are not organized as worship services and they facilitate social interaction and networking, I call them social activities. Because Ghanaians do not live in enclaves and are dispersed in various neighborhoods, they participate as far as they deem fit in the social activities that take place in the different neighborhoods. Some I interviewed indicated that they join neighbors in organizing barbeques and potluck meals. Others patronize local clubs and parties, and children and grandchildren join the friends in community games and other events. In general, however, for many Ghanaian immigrants the major avenues for socialization and entertainment and networking besides religious activities are the parties, naming ceremonies, and funeral celebrations organized mostly on weekends by members of the Ghanaian community. For many Ghanaians their weekends are as hectic as their weekdays. They try to participate or at least show up at the celebrations of friends and family—sometimes a number of them take place at different places in the New York tristate area at the same time. Through these celebrations the Ghanaians have created a “night culture” for themselves. The celebrations often take place in the night between 10 p. m. and 5 a.m. At a number of the celebrations that I attended, activities included eating, drinking, and dancing for the most part. Monetary contributions were also made by the guests to support the person organizing the celebration.

Strategies for Adaptation During my research I spoke with Dr. Asare, a cosmetic surgeon and member of PCGNY. He is representative of the growing Ghanaian professional and upper-middle class in the United States. I drove to Dr. Asare’s residence located in a gated community at Dix Hills, Suffolk County, New York. Immediately, I was struck by the affluence of the community as evidenced by the million-dollar homes, well-kept lawns and flower hedges, clean surroundings, and the quiet environment. This was in contrast to the areas where the majority of the Ghanaians live. Later, I learned from Dr. Asare that he and his family were the only black Africans in the entire community. 42

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Our conversation focused on his adaptation and success, and what he considered the most important strategies for adaptation in the United States. I asked him to tell me his story: My migration began when I left Ghana for the former Soviet Union in 1983. There I studied and trained as a General Medical Practitioner. I moved to the Netherlands upon completion of my training, stayed for a year, and then came to the United States in the early 1990s. In the United States I completed an internship in General Surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, and another residency training in internal medicine at Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn. After these, I went into private practice. Later I cofounded and become director of a multispecialty group practice in Queens—Pegasus Medical Group. The group unfortunately ran into several problems and was dissolved two years later in 1997. I lost a lot of money when the group folded up but I was determined not to lose focus. I went back into private practice as a specialist in internal medicine. Four years ago, after several years of practicing medicine, I decided to change the direction of my career and underwent training in cosmetic surgery. After the training I began “Advanced Medical Laser Body Shaping.” I have offices in two locations in New York—Rosedale and Commack. [He handed me a printout from his website.]

“Impressive!” I exclaimed. I was very impressed by Dr. Asare’s professional career, especially after visiting him in his office in Commark. “Any secrets for this success?” I asked. “It’s all by the grace of God,” the soft-spoken doctor responded modestly. He told me he had learned from early childhood that “with God, all things are possible.” Strengthened by this belief, he always strives to achieve excellence in whatever he does. Though Dr. Asare’s achievements are impressive, his professional success is not unique. He was quick to mention that there were other Ghanaian medical doctors, many of them specialists in the New York metro area. Within the five-mile radius of his office in Rosedale, he could count about six of them. In fact, two of his brothers-in-law are medical professionals—one is a dentist in private practice in Easton, Pennsylvania, and the other is a specialist in internal medicine practicing in New Jersey. This revelation adds to anecdotal evidence that the New York City medical system is supported by several Ghanaian medical doctors and specialists. It also debunks the notion popular in certain quarters that immigrants are a drain on public resources, By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

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Dr. Asare in his office

and confirms the recently acknowledged fact that African immigrants in the United States are the most highly educated group in the nation.14 While Dr. Asare’s professional achievements and adaptation may be representative of certain Ghanaian immigrants, it is not the typical pattern for all Ghanaians in the United States. Several, including those with advanced degrees, have not succeeded in making better lives for themselves and their families. Many have ended up as low-income earners.15 This goes to confirm that Ghanaian immigrants are adapting differently and being incorporated into different segments of the society. What leads to this “segmented assimilation,” as Portes and Rambaut call it, needs to be investigated more fully through further research. However, Dr. Asare’s stepwise migration, setbacks, and struggle to overcome the odds are familiar to many immigrants. For this reason, there must be some practical lessons on adaptation he could give others. So I prodded him, “Besides faith in God, what should an immigrant do to be successful?” He responded that the first and foremost step to adaptation is the acquisition of legal status. “Ghanaian immigrants must understand that unless one has the necessary legal status—citizenship, permanent residence, whatever, it is next to impossible to succeed,” he said. Second, he said, is the need for education and certification. Some immigrants are unsuccessful because they 44

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fail to seek further education or certifications in their areas of competence. “Many have the erroneous view that they are here to make money quickly and return home to Ghana.” He told me the story of a friend who had been in the country for thirty years but continued to earn a living as a “gypsy,” that is, as an unregistered cab driver in Manhattan. He had advised Dr, Asare, when he first arrived in the country, not to waste time studying but to take whatever job he was able to find. This mindset and attitude of Dr. Asare’s friend is not uncommon among Ghanaian immigrants I have met. Boogey, a cab owner and driver who does not want his real name revealed, for instance, told me: “All I’m here for is the ‘green’ (dollars). In America you need the ‘green’ to get the ‘green card’ in order to get more ‘green.’ My advice to immigrants is, work hard at any job you can find, however menial, and get as much ‘green’ as you can find. You can buy your way to any place, even the White House,” he said emphatically. What Boogey meant by his pun was that in America, without money one cannot survive. Among other things, he was referring to the huge sums of money immigrants have to pay in order to get resident permits, work permits, and the like. Boogey knew this through personal experience. He had arrived in this country from Ghana through Italy in the late 1990s. Trained as an Agricultural Extension Officer, his job prior to migration was to educate farmers about plant diseases and the use of pesticides. Upon arrival in New York, he could not find a job that matched his expertise. Moreover, he did not have the necessary legal papers to get meaningful employment. Since his arrival twelve years ago, he had worked at several low-income jobs—as security, doorman, garbage man, street seller, and so on. Over time he had saved some money to register as a cab driver. Currently he owns the cab he drives and is a permanent resident. The differences between the views of these two immigrants reflect the different paths of adaptation they chose—one through education and training, the other by earning money from readily available menial jobs. But the two are undoubtedly similar in their determination to succeed through hard work. Though Dr. Asare and Boogey use different strategies, their attitudes about the home country, Ghana, is nonetheless similar. Both are in close contact with the people at “home” and follow events there closely. Dr. Asare, now fifty years old, hopes to return to set up a practice in Ghana in the next few years. Boogey has no set time, but plans to return home after age sixty-two. Both plan to move back and forth between Ghana and the United States even after relocating to Ghana. And both feel there are values and practices in and from the home country they can never give up. We find out what these are in the next chapter. By the Hudson River: The Ghanaian Presence in New York

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Remembering the Homeland:

3

Ghana and Its People

An Anecdote A European researcher went to Ghana to research the hypothesis that Ghanaians generally answered questions with questions. Upon his arrival at the Kotoka International Airport, Ghana’s premier airport in Accra, he asked the first person he met, a twenty-something-year-old man, “I’ve heard Ghanaians often answer questions with questions, is this true?” The young man looked at the researcher for a moment and answered, “Who told you?” “Great, do you realize that you just answered me with a question?” the researcher exclaimed. “Did I?” the young man retorted. For the researcher, this was more than enough proof that his thesis was true. He traveled back home and wrote a book on Ghanaians.1

This anecdote, no doubt, aims at poking fun. But it points to a major risk researchers face in trying to define a people, namely, stereotyping. In this chapter I describe aspects of Ghanaian life—its history, geography, culture, and religion—as one fully aware of this challenge. The descriptions and analysis offered here are not meant to be exhaustive. I present a panoramic view of Ghana and Ghanaians in order to provide the context for examining the continuities and discontinuities between life in Ghana and in the Ghanaian diaspora. My basic assumption is that Ghanaian immigrants, however transformed they are by their new environment, are also shaped by the society from which they migrated.

The Land The republic of Ghana lies between longitudes one degree east and three degrees west along the Atlantic coast and stretches inland from about latitude five degrees to eleven degrees north of the equator. Occupying a total area of 46

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about 239, 460 square kilometers (92,100 square miles), it shares immediate borders with Togo on the east, La Cote d’Ivoire on the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. A former British colony, Ghana’s present geographical shape and size are largely the creation of British colonial authorities who annexed hitherto independent kingdoms and put them together as one state. Its current name, “Ghana,” was adopted after independence in 1957 to replace “Gold Coast,” its former name. It was also chosen to symbolize the historical and cultural connections that are said to exist between Ghanaians and the people of ancient Ghana, an empire which existed between 500 and 1250 C . E . 2 Some historians estimate that humans have inhabited Ghana’s present location for at least ten thousand years.3 It is further claimed that the peoples of modern Ghana migrated from different places and settled in the current location at different points in time. The Guan, believed to be the oldest of Ghana’s ethnic groups, are said to have migrated southward along the Volta to Ghana from the Mossi region in present-day Burkina Faso between 1000 and 1200 C.E . Also, the first Akan kingdom of Bono is believed to have been founded in 1298 C . E . The Ga and Adangbe are said to have migrated from Yorubaland in present-day Nigeria.4 Ghana’s 2000 census report puts the population at 18.8 million. Current estimates, however, suggest a higher figure of about 20.2 million based on an annual population growth rate of about 1.7.5 A breakdown of this figure shows about 40.4 percent of the population in the 0–14 age group and 56.1 percent in the 15–64 age group. Three and a half percent are said to be 65 years or over. Considering the fact that the legal age for employment in Ghana is between 18 and 60 years, it is obvious that the country has a very large dependant population. This puts a strain on its educational system and results in the shortage of employment opportunities. About 60 percent of Ghana’s population is engaged in agriculture. Though the country is fortunate to have many rivers, lakes, and streams such as Tano, Ankobra, Prah, Bosomtwe, and the Volta, the largest manmade lake in the world, its attempts at irrigation have not kept pace with the agricultural demands of the country. Most farmers continue to engage in rain-fed farming and subsistence agriculture. Drought and other weather changes which happen from time to time, often adversely affect farming and economic life in general. Northern Ghana is particularly prone to recurrent drought and its attendant bushfires. While the southern sector has two rainy seasons, heavy rainfall from April to July and light rains in August and September, the northRemembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

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ern sector has only one rainy season that lasts from May to October, with much of the rainfall occurring in August and September. These variations in weather conditions and vegetation have wider implications for the economic and social history of the respective regions of Ghana. The most crucial of these is that the standard of living is on the average lower and job opportunities fewer in the north than in the southern part of the country. This situation often causes migration from the north to the south of the country. To survive, many people, particularly the youth, migrate southward to urban centers such as Kumase, Sekondi-Takoradi, Accra, and Tema, to look for jobs. Ghana’s modern history is inextricably woven with its encounters with foreigners, be they Muslim and European traders, Christian missionaries, or Western colonialists. Trade and religious evangelism were central to its encounter with the West, at least in the early stages. Prior to this, both Ghana and the entire West African subregion had a long history of trade with the outside world. The caravan trade began as early as the third and fourth centuries. It created links among the peoples of North Africa and Europe, the Sahara, the savanna lands, and the forest areas in West Africa. This trade, as Adu Boahen points out, gathered momentum from the seventh century onward, reaching a peak around the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.6 The Portuguese are generally considered to be the first Europeans to have sailed to the coast of Guinea. They reached the coast of present-day Ghana in 1471 and settled at Edina, which they called El Mina (the gold mines). Their mission was twofold: to trade and to propagate the Christian faith.7 Soon their mission to spread the Christian faith was vastly overshadowed by their trading activities. They traded in gold, ivory, and pepper. Later, when the slave trade became lucrative, they shipped countless numbers of native peoples out to the “New World” as slaves. The Dutch, Danish, and British followed the Portuguese example and also engaged in varying forms of trade with the peoples of modern-day Ghana. To facilitate their trade, the Europeans built a number of castles that served as both living quarters and centers for their business and military operations. Altogether, they built thirty-two fortifications, many of which still exist, along the coasts of the then Gold Coast.8 In 1874, Britain declared the southern parts of Ghana a crown colony and gained full administrative control over the so-called Gold Coast. The British also subsequently, not without resistance, annexed Asante and parts of the northern territory. For almost a century Ghana (then Gold Coast) remained a British colony, until it gained its independence in 1957. 48

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Since then Ghana has come under different forms of governance—single-party rule under its first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, multiparty democracy, three military regimes, and multiparty democracy again. Since 1992 Ghana’s political climate has been fairly stable. Its economy, however, has yet to see similar improvement. Five decades after political independence, Ghana has yet to become financially independent. Its annual per capita income is just about $400, thus, placing it among the poor countries of the world in spite of its exports of cocoa, gold, diamond, bauxite, and other minerals. Life for many, particularly the youth and middle class, is a constant struggle to survive. Over the years this has pushed many to migrate to countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and America.

Who Is a Ghanaian? Who then is a Ghanaian? In other words, what other than a Ghanaian birth certificate and/or a passport identifies one as a Ghanaian? This is a critical question, one that I wish to address in this book. Differently put, are there any typical feature(s) that distinguish Ghanaians from other people? If so, what are they? And are these features common to all Ghanaians irrespective of age, sex, class, and ethnicity? These rhetorical questions raise an even more fundamental issue regarding the ontological basis of social identity. Social identity scholars tell us that the cognitive basis for social identity is social categorization.9 As Michael Hogg points out, “from a social identity perspective, people cognitively represent a category or group as a prototype—a fuzzy set of attributes (perceptions, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors) that are related to one another in a meaningful way and that simultaneously capture similarities and differences between the group and other groups or people who are not in the group.”10 The term “Ghanaians,” thus, describes the prototype of a people with some shared characteristics—either real or perceived. Like all groups these shared characteristics serve as a basis for distinguishing themselves from other nationalities. Two important caveats must be noted. First, Ghana is anything but homogeneous. Culturally and religiously, it is very diverse. In fact, none of the ten regions of Ghana is culturally homogeneous.11 Different ethnic groups that live alongside one another speak distinct languages and observe their own customs and norms. In spite of much social and cultural interaction and mutual exchange between the cultures, each continues to hold onto its distinctive beliefs and practices. Differences in cultural and religious belief and practice have sometimes ignited conflicts between the different ethnic groups. Remembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

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Second, Ghana is undergoing a transition from a traditional society to a so-called modern, or perhaps a postmodern one. An obvious sign of social change is that many parts of the country have in the past three to four decades changed from what Ferdinand Tonnies called primary communities (Gemeinschaft) to societies (Gesellschaft). Several villages and small towns have grown into sprawling urban neighborhoods. Statistics show that Ghana’s urban population has grown annually at an average rate of 4.6 percent between 1960 and 1970 and 5.5 percent between 1970 and 1984. The urban population rose from 23 percent of the total population in 1960 to 32 percent in 1984.12 Because of urbanization and its attendant globalization, social life which was hitherto characterized by face-to-face relationships and the promotion and preservation of community life has become less personal. Also, Ghanaian social cultural life reveals aspects of foreign cultural and religious systems inherited from its colonial past and through globalization. In most communities traditional norms and values and religiocultural structures coexist with new and foreign ones. However, notwithstanding the sociocultural changes and diversity certain common virtues, convictions, obligations, and expectations continue to permeate Ghanaian social and cultural life. These can be seen by analyzing Ghanaian worldviews and dominant societal ethos.

Ethos and Worldviews Ghanaian social identity is undergirded by two crucial elements: ethos and worldviews. Ethos, a transliteration of the Greek word for custom, refers to the beliefs, values, and practices that characterize a social group.13 Max Stackhouse points out that it is “the scaffolding for organizing common behavior and moral debate” among a people.14 Clifford Geertz rightly defines a people’s ethos as “the tone, character, and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood; it is the underlying attitude towards themselves and their world that life reflects.”15 This is closely related to a people’s worldview, which is their conception of the world, their philosophy and perception of life, or, as Geertz puts it, a people’s “picture of the way things in sheer actuality are, their concept of nature, of self, of society. It contains their most comprehensive ideas of order.”16 The ethos and worldviews of a people affirm each other: the ethos is made intellectually reasonable by being shown to represent a way of life implied by the actual state of affairs which the worldview describes, and the worldview is made emotionally acceptable by being presented as an image of an actual state of affairs of which such a way of life is an authentic expression.17 50

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Two pervasive and very influential aspects of the Ghanaian ethos are ethnicity and religion. Separately, but often together, they serve as the source and basis for many beliefs and practices; they provide the images that serve as content for the worldviews and they also shape the nature and provide the justification for traditional political leadership.

Ethnicity To be a Ghanaian by birth is to belong to a particular ethnic group. An ethnic group, sometimes referred to as “tribe” or “clan,” is a social group whose members are believed to share putative or real common ancestry, culture, norms, values, and language.18 Among Ghanaians, ethnicity constitutes an important element in the determination of identity. A common question often asked when one meets a person for the first time is, “Where do you come from?” This question is often less about their place of origin—the geographical area, whether town or area—where the person was born or lives, and more about the ethnic group to which he or she belongs. Though not very common these days, one’s ethnicity was among certain groups indicated with facial mark(s). In Ghanaian sociocultural life, ethnic groups wield political, religious, and sometimes economic power and in many ways influence the life, ethos, and worldviews of their members. Many ethnic groups, particularly those with a centralized political system, have chiefs who are custodians of the cultural and religious traditions of their respective subgroups. Indeed, before colonial rule, many of these ethnic groups had created their own states governed by chieftains. Though contemporary chiefs do not hold as much political power as they did in the past, they are still recognized as important figures in the governance of the country.19 Ghana has a large number of ethnic groups. The 1960 census report, which was the last to outline the ethnic composition of Ghana, puts the number of ethnic/ cultural groups at one hundred. Of these, the major ones are the Akan, the Ewe, the Mole-Dagbani, the Ga-Adangme, and the Guan. Each of these has numerous subdivisions that have their own distinct languages, dialects, and cultural practices. Perhaps language is the most obvious distinguishing marker of difference between ethnic groups. No visitor to Ghana can fail to observe the multilingual ethos of Ghanaian society. Ghanaian languages fall under two broad categories— the Kwa and Gur groups. Both language families belong to the Niger-Congo language group. The southern Ghana languages—Twi, Ga-Adangme, Ewe, Guan, and their subdivisions are Kwa languages. The Gur languages which are found in northern Ghana are Gurma, Grusi, Mole-Dagbani, and their subdivisions. Remembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

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Religion Speaking about the Akan of Ghana in the 1980s, John S. Pobee contends that “[r]eligion is all-pervasive in Akan society. Thus a good deal of communal activities of the Akan and other societal institutions are inextricably bound up by religion.”20 Pobee’s characterization of the Akan people holds true for the peoples of Ghana even today. Though not all-encompassing, the presence, power, and practice of religion are obvious in Ghanaian social and cultural life. A visitor to Ghana will quickly notice the prevalence of religious inscriptions (often quotes from the Bible and the Quran) and pictures on shops, private houses, and buses. One often comes across names like Adom wo wim (“grace comes from God)” chop bar (“God’s time is the best”) boutique, Insha Allahu herbal clinic, and so on.21 Other indicators of the pivotal role played by religion in the lives of many Ghanaians are the numerous chapels, mosques, and shrines in cities, towns, and villages and the number of people who patronize them. There are three main religious traditions—African traditional religion, Christianity, and Islam—in Ghana, where they have a long history and therefore substantial memberships. The 2002 edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia provides the following statistics: of Ghana’s population of 20 million, 55.4 percent are Christians, 22.4 percent are ethnoreligionists (practitioners of African traditional religion), and 19.7 percent are Muslims.22 The remainder is made up of small groups of Bahai worshipers, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and others. As the statistics indicate, Christianity is dominant in terms of the number of its members and social influence.

Christianity The first attempt at establishing Christianity in Ghana occurred in 1482 when King John II of Portugal sent a contingent of one hundred engineers and workmen and five hundred soldiers to secure a trading post for his country and to plant a Christian Church in West Africa. These first Europeans arrived at Elmina. Although this early attempt led by Don Diego d’Azambuja, a Portuguese admiral, failed, it was followed by a series of attempts by the Augustinians, and the French Capuchins.23 In addition, Protestant missionaries began work in Cape Coast in 1752 with Rev. Thomas Thompson of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). Thompson’s attempt to build a church and a nursery among the indigenes and outside the castle where he was chaplain was not very fruitful either. 52

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Christian missionary work resumed with the arrival of missionaries from the Basel Evangelical Mission Society in 1828. These were followed by missionaries sent by the Missionary Committee of the British Methodist Conference in 1835 and those from the North German (Bremen) Mission in 1847.24 Other missions which have taken root in Ghana include the Roman Catholics (1880), African Methodist Episcopal Zion (1899), the Baptists (1920), the Salvation Army (1922), Society of Friends or Quakers (1927), Evangelical Lutheran Church from North America (1953), and the Mennonites (1956). These missionary efforts were soon advanced and taken in new directions and to new heights by indigenous agents—evangelists, prophets, and priests, among others. Christianity in Ghana today is a tapestry of different denominations and independent churches. These have been classified broadly as: Mainline Historic Churches, African Independent Churches, Classical Pentecostal Churches, Neo-Evangelical/Mission-related Churches, and Neo-Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches. 25 In addition, there are religious groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons), and others such as Hope and Honesty societies, and the Christian Mboaye Kuw (Christian Benevolent Group), referred to by a Ghanaian scholar as “quasi-religious benevolent groups.”26

The Presbyterian Church of Ghana One of the fruits of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century missionary enterprise in Ghana, mentioned above, is the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (hereafter PCG). The PCG, whose congregation constitutes the main subject of my ethnographic study, owes its formation to three missionary bodies, namely, the Evangelical Mission Society of Basel (often referred to as the Basel Mission), the Moravian Church in Jamaica, and the United Free Church of Scotland, and a host of indigenous Ghanaians. As indicated earlier, the church began in the then Gold Coast in 1828 with missionaries from the Basel Mission. The Basel Mission, established in 1815 by members of the Deutsche Christentums as an interdenominational institution for training missionaries, was pietistic in ethos.27 Most of its missionaries, patrons, and support came from pietist circles in Switzerland and Germany, particularly from the Kingdom of Wurttemberg and the principality of Baden.28 The Wurttemberg variety of pietism which characterized the Basel Mission had as its core values a combination of religious emotion and deep thought, individual conversion, strong Christian fellowship, and a life rooted in a deep reverence for the Bible.29 Remembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

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The Basel Mission’s ninety-year mission in the Gold Coast was prompted by a request made by the Major de Richelieu, the Danish governor of Christianborg, for teachers and preachers who would “evangelize” and “civilize” the indigenous people in the Danish-controlled territory.30 In December 1828, four missionaries from the BM, three Germans—Karl F. Salbach, Gottlieb Holzwarth, Johannes Henke—and a Swiss national, Johannes Gottlob Schmidt, arrived on the shores of the then Gold Coast to begin their mission. Three years after their arrival, all of them died. Three more were sent in 1832, of whom two died. The only survivor, Andreas Riis, was saved by a local herbalist.31 Riis left the Accra plains for the Akuapem ranges where the weather was more congenial and there were fewer mosquitoes. He settled in Akropong, where he began building the first inland post in 1835. In spite of Riis’s determination to succeed, his earnest and hard work had not showed any visible results by 1840. Twelve years of missionary work had led to the death of eight missionaries and there was no convert. Despite the Basel Mission Board’s insistence that the venture in the Gold Coast be discontinued, Riis persisted and convinced the mission board to recruit Christians from the West Indies to come and help. In April 1843, twenty-four missionaries (twenty-three Jamaicans and one Antiguan) from the Moravian mission arrived at Christianborg and moved to Akropong to assist Riis.32 There is every indication that this marked a turning point in the Basel Mission enterprise. By 1850 the mission could boast of a few modest achievements: a little Christian settlement at Akropong and two outposts at Aburi (1847) and Krobo Odumase (1848), a coffee plantation that had begun bearing fruit, progress with the study of the Twi language, schools in both Akropong and Christianborg, and the training of catechists.33 Between 1850 and 1914, the mission expanded to many areas of the Gold Coast—Kwahu (1874), Akyem (1861), Anum (1864), Asante (1896), and Yendi (1913). During World War I, the Basel Mission came under suspicion because many of its missionaries were Germans. Restrictions were therefore placed on their activities until they were eventually expelled from the Gold Coast in December 1917. After the expulsion of the Basel missionaries, the Basel Mission board mandated that the United Free Church of Scotland continue the work of the Basel Mission in the Gold Coast. The Reverend Dr. and Mrs. Wilkie of the Scottish Mission, who were working in Calabar, Nigeria, came over to the Gold Coast to oversee the unfinished work of the Basel Mission. A major contribution of the Scottish Mission was the Presbyterian system of church 54

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government which is still operative, though in a modified form, in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. This marked a radical shift from the centrally controlled model of church administration and governance used by the Basel Mission to a more democratic and participatory polity. Having been set on the course of self-governance, the church was named the Presbyterian Church of Gold Coast in 1926 at a synod meeting in Abetifi. In 2000 the church changed its synod system of government to a General Assembly system. The church has four hierarchical courts with the General Assembly at the apex—the Congregational Session, the District Session, the Presbytery, and the General Assembly. Since the beginning, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana has put great emphasis not only on conversion and personal faith but also on social ministry. Its efforts and corresponding impact have largely been in the areas of formal education, health services, language study and transcription, agriculture, and business. Currently, the following departments are listed in the church’s constitution: Church Life and Nurture, Mission and Evangelism, Ecumenical and Social Relations, Administration and Human Resources Management, and Development and Social Services. The 2005 report from the Department of Development and Social Services covers the following areas: health services, agricultural extension services, entrepreneurial and self-employment, publications, and general education. The report details a number of projects the PCG has undertaken in these areas.34 These few examples attest to the church’s engagement with both personal faith as well as social development.

The Ghanaian Religious Imagination Religious belief and practice among all faiths in Ghana, particularly Christianity and Islam, have been influenced and shaped by the indigenous culture and religious imagination. In many respects, the Christian “gospel” first propagated by foreign missionaries and later embraced, to various degrees, by Ghanaians, was dressed in the garb of Euro-American culture. Despite their zeal, the missionaries could neither understand nor appreciate Ghanaian religiocultural worldviews. Operating largely on the basis of what Andrew Walls has called the “pilgrim principle”35 and a belief that indigenous religious and cultural practices were barbaric, superstitious, and incompatible with Christianity, the missionaries insisted that converts not only renounce their customs, beliefs, and values but also accept Euro-American ideas and practices before and after conversion. For example, during baptism converts Remembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

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were required to take biblical and sometimes European names, either in addition to, or in place of, their indigenous names. In some cases the indigenous names were translated into English. Kwaw Ansah captures this beautifully in his award-winning film African Heritage, when the protagonist Kwasi (Sunday born) Ata (twin) Bosomefi (an illustrious ancestor reborn) chooses to be called Quincy Arthur Bosomfield. Indigenous Ghanaian religious and cultural practices, particularly its rituals, bore the full brunt of missionary denunciation. In view of the fact that economic, political, and social life often commingle with Ghanaian religious life, almost every aspect of indigenous life was criticized and denounced by the missionaries. Missionary teaching, which was highly influenced by Enlightenment ideas, emphasized the discontinuity between the African past and its present. Nonetheless, several aspects of Ghanaian precolonial religious thought and practices have survived. Despite the numerical dominance of Christianity in Ghana, traditional religious thought and practice continue to play a significant role in the day-to-day lives of Ghanaians. Again, not only have these aspects of Ghanaian traditional religious imagination endured, but they have shaped Christian and Islamic ideas and practices in Ghana. For example, traditional naming ceremonies for babies have found their way into Ghanaian Christian practices. Central to the Ghanaian religious imagination is the belief that reality is made up of both the spiritual and the material/ physical. Thus, the unseen—God, divinities, and spirits—are as much a part of reality as the seen. Ghanaian traditional worldviews and general ethos are grounded in an ontology that recognizes: •      God (Onyame, Mawu, Nyommo etc) as the absolute reality, creator of the universe, controller of destiny and provider of needs. •      Divinities, spirits, and ancestors as real players in the cosmos who influence human life either for good or for evil. •      Human beings (including the yet to be born) as being at the center of creation. •      Animals, plants, and other biological life as helpful companions. •      Power or energy as inherent in both animate and inanimate things, to be used for good or evil.

Through rituals, myths, proverbs, names, music and art, as well as worship, all cultural groups in Ghana, affirm a: 56

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•      Deep reverence for God, the ancestors, deities, and other spirit beings. •      Strong commitment to the preservation and promotion of community and communal life both at the family and societal levels. •      Recognition and affirmation of the dignity of human life and a strong emphasis on character development. •      Due regard for plants, animals, the earth, and in fact all other components of the environment and concern for their proper use and maintenance. •      Strong awareness of the existence of power or energy as positive or negative forces that can be used to help or harm individuals and communities.

Belief in God, Divinities, and Ancestors God’s existence, for Ghanaians, calls for no argument. God is believed to be self-evident and can be known instinctively, even by a child. The Akan of Ghana commonly say, “Obi nkyere abofra Nyame” (No one points out God to a child).36 That is to say, everyone—even a child—can perceive God’s ubiquitous presence. Such an understanding is obviously in contrast to the doctrinal belief, such as that of the Calvinists, that special revelation is a prerequisite for knowing. In traditional Ghanaian communities the understanding of the nature of God is reflected in the honorific names that are given to him. As many studies on Ghanaian spirituality have indicated, the Akan know God, Onyame, as oboadee, he who created the thing (the creator), and also as brekyi’hun’ade, the omniscient one, Tetekwaframoa (he who endures from ancient times and forever).37 The Ga also know Nyommo (God) as oboade, or boo mawu (creator), and to the Ewe, Mawu is creator, an all-encompassing God who cannot be confined to one place. C. R. Gaba quotes an Anlo (Ewe) elder as follows about the worship of Mawu (God): My Son! Mawu is too big to be put in a small room and worshipped only at one place. In all Anloland, it is only the Christians who do this. How can we put into a room a Being we can never see and who is like the wind blowing everywhere? Our lesser gods we are able to house because they reveal themselves to us to see them and are locally connected with us just as other people also have theirs.38

This understanding of the nature of the God explains why many Ghanaians, particularly adherents of indigenous religions, do not consider God as the preserve of one particular organized religion. Unlike Christianity and Islam, Remembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

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each of which claims a monopoly over God, practitioners of indigenous religions are generally tolerant and receptive of other religions. It is due to this tolerance that Christianity and Islam, two guest religions, have found a home in Ghana. Unfortunately, it is this attitude toward the worship of God that gave Euro-American missionaries, travelers, and armchair researchers the impression that Africans had no conception of God.39 In indigenous Ghanaian communities the obvious objects of worship are40 the lesser divinities, believed to be the plenipotentiaries of God on earth. These divinities, which are often localized, serve particular towns and villages, tribes, lineages, households, or even individuals. Some of these are believed to be connected with such things as the earth, streams and tributaries, forests, and other elements of nature. In addition to the divinities, there are the ancestors. These are spirits of the “dead” who are believed to inhabit the spirit realm but still influence the lives of the living. The ancestors are those who have passed from this corporeal world to an incorporeal one. A reciprocal relationship therefore often exists between many Ghanaians and their ancestors—one in which the living are supposed to revere, honor, and sometimes “feed” the ancestors, while the ancestors, who supposedly have acquired more spiritual power, are to protect and bless the living.41 Families and communities of particular ancestors or the “living dead,” as Mbiti prefers to call them,42 venerate them through the giving of libations and by honoring their wishes. Such veneration, it is believed, predisposes the living to the goodwill and blessings of the ancestors. On the contrary, failure to give an ancestor his or her due regard would incur his or her displeasure and wrath, the consequence of which is often disastrous. In Ghanaian cosmology, as indeed in African cosmology in general, the relationship between ancestors and the living represents a continuity between the past and the present. It is common to hear of ancestors who reveal themselves to people through dreams, visions, or spirit possession. Such ancestors often either make demands, some of which involve proper moral living, or reprimand members of their families for actions committed or omitted. C. A. Ackah suggests rightly that ancestors are moral exemplars and their descendants strive to behave in ways which will win their (ancestors’) approval.43

Witchcraft and Evil Spirits The belief in supernatural reality is also demonstrated by the widespread fear of, and preoccupation with, the supposedly nefarious activities of witches and evil spirits. Many Ghanaian newspapers, particularly the tabloids, are 58

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filled with stories about such activities. Take, for instance, the following story reported by a Ghanaian FM station on April 24, 2008: Parents l ef t son ac cused of witchcr aft to di e The Takoradi Police have arrested a couple for negligently causing the death of their nine-year-old son. The couple, Kwaku Badu, 35, a fisherman, and Elizabeth Coomson, also 35, were said to have kept their son indoors on the orders of a spiritualist who said the boy was possessed by witchcraft. The police arrested the couple while they were preparing to bury their son. The spiritualist, Madam Theresa Arthur, popularly known as Maame Osofo of the 12 Apostles Church at Inchaban, was alleged to have declared that the boy was possessed by witchcraft and ordered that he should be kept in a room until he died. The couple, accordingly, complied with the order, leading to the death of the boy at 3.00 p.m. last Wednesday.44

If ancestors are seen as benevolent spirits (which not all Ghanaians do), witches are the opposite. Most Ghanaians—irrespective of religion, class, gender, or age—consider witches to be the very epitome of malevolence. Even those who have received several years of Western education still hold firmly to the belief that malevolent spirits such as witches can afflict people with diseases and other calamities. In a study conducted to ascertain the prevalence of supernatural beliefs among a student population in Ghana, G. Jahoda observed that two-thirds of the 280 students sampled believed that the future could be foretold through supernatural means and that witchcraft may be real power.45 Witchcraft—bayi(e), aye, adze (as it is known in Twi, Ga, and Ewe respectively)—is often blamed for tragedies such as fatal traffic accidents, miscarriages, sudden and unexplained sickness, and death. Ghanaians believe that witchcraft can be used to thwart the efforts of opponents in activities such as athletic competition, football matches, elections, or court cases. In essence, witchcraft is blamed for every misfortune and offers a convenient explanation for the inexplicable. Witches (whether male46 or female) are believed to possess supernatural powers with which they unleash pain, misery, sickness, and death upon people, particularly those who offend them. Persons with physical defects such as red eyes or physical deformities, and those whose behavior is antiRemembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

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social—whether they are aggressive (particularly women), like to be left alone, hate or dislike people, or are excessively greedy—are often accused of being witches. Although accusing a person of witchcraft is a serious charge, it is not uncommon to hear people accusing others (particularly in-laws and grandparents) of witchcraft. Sometimes it is alleged that the witches themselves “confessed” their guilt after they were “arrested” by diviners and spiritualists. Many religious congregations, particularly evangelical Christian churches, have made the battling of witches and demons a crucial part of their worship. Apart from witches and other malevolent spirits, people also believe that the ghosts of those who died a tragic death inhabit the cosmos and are potentially harmful. People therefore seek protection against the diabolical activities of these malevolent forces from diviners, marabouts, and spiritualists.

The Human Person The origins, nature, and destiny of the human person are revealed through myths, proverbs, stories, and other art forms. All the cultural groups in Ghana firmly believe that God created the human person. Thus, an Akan proverb points out that all persons were created by God—“nnipa nyinaa ye Onyame mma, obiara nye asase ba” (all human beings are children of God, none is a child of the earth). Ghanaians also believe that every human person is composed of the material and immaterial. A person is thus made up of a tangible body and an intangible spirit.47 The Akan believe that the composite parts of the human person are the okra (soul) and the sunsum (spirit), which are immaterial or spiritual, and the honam or nnipadua (body), which is material or physical. Similarly, the Ga consider humans to be the composite of kla (soul), susuma or mumo (spirit), and gbomotso (body).48 The soul (okra/okla or se) is believed to be the part of God that inheres in each human person. It is the okra that sets human beings apart from other living creatures.49 When it departs, the person dies. But a person’s okra lives on with God even after his or her death. The soul is therefore considered to be immortal.50 To maintain the connection between God’s self and human beings, God gives each person a conscience (tiboa) (“the animal in the head”) or conscience, which is located in the soul (okra). The sunsum (spirit) is the activating principle in the human person. Unlike the okra, which is unchangeable, the sunsum can undergo change. 60

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Thus, a “light” or weak sunsum can be trained to become a “heavy” or strong one. A person with a weak sunsum is believed to be timid, cowardly, and prone to spiritual attacks from witches and other evil powers, while one with a strong sunsum is the direct opposite. Also, while the okra remains in a person and is not visible (though everyone knows it is present as long as the person is alive), the sunsum is reflected in the character and peculiar qualities of each individual. It is also believed that the sunsum is able to leave one’s body during sleep. However, the distinction between the okra (soul) and the sunsum (spirit) is sometimes difficult to make, since the two are closely connected and interrelated. Kwame Gyekye, professor of philosophy at the University of Ghana, offers an insightful distinction between the two: The okra . . . is the principle of life of a person and the embodiment, and transmitter of his or her destiny (nkrabea). Personality and character dispositions of a person are the function of the sunsum. The sunsum appears to be the source of dynamism of a person, the active part or force of the human psychological system; its energy is the ground for its interaction with the external world.51

The honam (body) refers to the physical and therefore perishable part of the human person. Aside from being the vegetative part of the human being, the body is the transmitter of two important elements of human identity, namely, the mogya (blood) and the ntoro (clan). The mogya is said to be from a person’s mother and the ntoro from his or her father. Both elements are believed to be carriers of the genetic and inherited characteristics of a person. Even though Ghanaians distinguish between these elements in the human person, they generally conceive of the human being as having two main parts, namely, the spiritual and the physical. These parts share an interactive relationship. Thus, the body has a causal influence on the soul and vice versa. If the body is afflicted, it affects the soul and if the soul is distressed, the body shows it too. In fact Akan thought holds that the physical behavior of a person gives important clues regarding the condition of his or her soul. If someone’s physical appearance shows that he is happy, people say that “his soul is happy”( ne kra ani agye), and if he looks sad, they say, “his soul is sad” (ne kra were ahow). Writing about the Akan, K.A. Busia, a professor of sociology and former prime minister of Ghana, indicates that: Remembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

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They believed also that spiritual uncleanness was an element of illhealth and that the cleansing of the soul was very necessary for health. When, for example, a patient is made to stand on a broom while being treated, it was to symbolize this cleansing.52

Every human person is believed to come into this world with an nkrabea (Twi), sesee (Dangme), or destiny, that is, a blueprint of what his or her life will hold. According to Akan belief, before each human being is born, he or she takes leave of Onyame, the creator who endows him or her with a destiny (nkrabea).53 Onyame also makes a covenant with him or her. The person’s destiny, aside from being a blueprint of his or her vocation on earth, also constitutes the bond between the creator and the individual person. Because of this bond, the individual must lead the life that God desires. There is disagreement about the role of the human being in this covenant. While some suggest that each person negotiates with God about his or her vocation on earth, others insist that the individual plays no such role but pledges to be faithful to the creator. Some people in the former group advocate a concept of double destiny, according to which God gives each person a hyebea (destiny) in addition to the human being’s chosen destiny (nkrabea). Whichever way one looks at it, the Akan believe that each individual is somehow destined by God and is under an obligation to fulfill God’s wishes. While a person may choose to disobey, such disobedience will only bring personal misfortune and ruin. It is unclear whether a destiny can be changed by its bearer or someone else. Some Ghanaian proverbs and common sayings indicate that a person’s destiny cannot be changed, or that God’s plans for an individual cannot be foiled: Onyame nkrabea nni kwatibea (There is no shortcut to God’s destiny.)54 Ade a onyame ahyehye odasani ntumi nsee no (No mortal being can subvert the order [arrangement] of God.)55

These sayings clearly point to the fact that human destiny is unalterable. But other common sayings, such as: “Mede me hyebre bae na asase so ha na obi asesa no” (I came into this world with my destiny but somebody [an evil person] has altered it), and the general Ghanaian belief that witches can harm a person or change his or her fortune indicate a contrary view. The possibility that a person’s destiny can be altered or that he or she will be thwarted in his or her efforts at fulfilling it, is also present in Ga and Ewe cosmology.

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The indigenous Ghanaian concept of the human person determines the way community life is organized. The Akan traditionally organize their community life around eight principal (matrilineal) groups or abusua and twelve patrilineal groups.56 As Asare Opoku has pointed out, every Akan belongs to an abusua to which he or she is bound through a blood relationship.57 Each person is believed to possess certain characteristics typical of his or her group.

“Travel and See” While economic, educational, and security concerns are undoubtedly critical to the decision to emigrate from Ghana, we must not overlook the worldview that feeds the desire to migrate. Ghanaian life is characterized by a penchant for travel and the experiences derived therefrom. A common Ghanaian expression says, “travel and see.” This is ingrained in the Ghanaian social psyche and evidenced by the hospitality extended to family members, friends, and neighbors who return from trips within Ghana or abroad. Such welcome is also extended to foreigners who visit Ghana. This positive view of traveling and travelers is expressed by many Ghanaian proverbs and pithy sayings. An Akan proverb says, “Akwansosem de nti na wote ntasu gu nsu ani, akawa befa ko” (it is because of the [sweetness] of the traveler’s tidings that fish pick spittle from the face of the river). Another one says, “Anomaa antu, a obua da” (if the bird refuses to fly, it goes hungry) and also, “wote faako, wote w’ade so” (if you stay in one place [without adventure] you lose what you were destined to have).

A Caution I began this chapter with an anecdote that drew attention to the need to avoid stereotypes and overgeneralizations when describing social groups. Let me reiterate that earlier caution by noting that Ghanaians are not monocultural. They are varied in terms of ethnicity, generation, education, beliefs, and practices. Thus, much of what has been described here as the worldviews of Ghanaians should only been seen as a thick description of the Ghanaian people. Depending on their education, exposure to outside influences, and socialization individuals and even groups may subscribe to various aspects of these worldviews or none at all. Remembering the Homeland: Ghana and Its People

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Ghanaians who migrate to the United States are anything but uniform. They vary in terms of age, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and class. While some migrate directly from Ghana, others come from other countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East where they had lived for a number of years. Thus, Ghanaians do not arrive in the United States with a pristine traditional culture. Having lived in other countries, Ghanaian immigrants are influenced by their cultures. Some learn and speak languages such as Italian, German, and Russian. As revealed in this overview, religion and ethnicity are two important variables of Ghanaian identity. Many immigrants still live by Ghanaian religiocultural worldviews, especially the belief in the existence of supernatural forces, as opposed to secularism, and communality as opposed to individualism. It is my hope that, equipped with this knowledge, readers will better understand the community life of the PCGNY and be able to identify the continuities and discontinuities between the beliefs and practices in the church and those of the home country.

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How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song?

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PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

It was Christmas day of 1998. This was my first winter in the United States. At about 30 degrees fahrenheit, I was freezing. Ahenkorah, my newfound friend, and I had traveled together with his wife Akua and their two children to a church about sixty miles from their home in New Jersey to attend the Christmas service. As he parked the car on 122nd Street in front of the Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church chapel, I took a cursory look at the surroundings. The most conspicuous landmark in the vicinity was the Marcus Garvey Memorial Park (Mount Morris Park), which is right opposite the church. I paid little attention to anything else in the surroundings. I had heard of this congregation, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York (PCGNY) about five years earlier and had met its first pastor, Rev. Dr. Francis Kumi Dwamena, in Ghana a couple of times subsequently. During a synod conference of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), at which I was present, Dr. Dwamena had made a token donation of a hundred dollars to the conference on behalf of the church in New York. When I spoke to him later that day he told me that his congregation was made up largely of “Baselfo mma” (members of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana) who reside in the New York tristate area.1 According to him, the church was formed mainly to offer its members the opportunity to worship in a manner similar to that in Ghana. Ahenkorah led me to the door of this old but strong building. It was evident that it had seen better days. In fact, the building was under renovation. The metal banisters around the stairs were quite shaky and the paint outside showed some discoloration. We entered the sanctuary. With a seating capacity of over seven hundred, it was quite spacious. The time was 3.15 p. m. and members of the congregation had begun arriving for the service, which was to begin at 3.30 p. m . As I entered the sanctuary I was immediately struck by the “Ghanaianness” of the gathering. A lady wearing a neatly sewn batik |

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dress promptly greeted me with a hospitable smile. “Papa akwaaba” (father [here, pastor], welcome!),2 she said, and gave me a bulletin for the day’s worship service. She ushered me to a seat on the dais. It felt good to be recognized and welcomed in such a warm manner. Reflexively, I began comparing this congregation with three other American congregations I had worshiped with since my arrival in the United States. The reception I had received in those American congregations was in sharp contrast with the one I received here. More congregants began to arrive. Many of them were attired in Ghanaian outfits over which they wore winter coats and jackets. Ghanaian fabrics are generally made of light cotton perfectly suited to the humid temperature found in Ghana and other tropical places but unsuitable for the cold and wintry weather we were experiencing on this Christmas day. Even so, many of the church members wore clothes sewn from these fabrics and put winter coats and jackets on over them. I find the symbolism interesting. I was soon to find out that just as they wore jackets and winter coats over their Ghanaian clothes, so too do they—and indeed, many first-generation Ghanaian immigrants—try to preserve their Ghanaian worldviews, norms, values, and practices even as they selectively appropriate aspects of American sociocultural life. Some of the men wore suits while some women wore long dresses. At 3.30 p.m., between sixty and seventy people—men, women, and children—were in the sanctuary. Others came in with little sign of urgency. An elderly man, whom I later came to know as one of the elders of the congregation, stood at the door with anxiety written all over his face. I could not help but overhear his conversation with a chorister who had just arrived. “Yen time nye koraa. Hwe Osofo aba dedaw na afei na woreba” (We never do things on time. Look, the pastor is here already and you are arriving now), he said in Twi. “African time,” the woman retorted, as she smiled and went for her choir robe. Members continued to arrive and exchange greetings and other pleasantries in Twi and Ga, and also in English. The formal worship began at 3.45 p. m . and lasted for over three hours. Though long, the service was lively and I enjoyed much of it. The welcome that was extended to worshipers, the vibrant singing and dancing, and the participatory nature of the worship—all these reminded me of what I was used to in Ghana. Simply put, I felt at home. After this first visit, I joined the congregation for worship from time to time. During subsequent visits, I became aware of attempts by the congregation to maintain its Ghanaian identity on the one hand, and to incorporate certain American religiocultural practices into their church life on the other. 66

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The new place of worship at 259 West 123rd St. in Manhattan

This took the form of replicating the structure, liturgy, worship practices, norms, and values of the parent church as well as incorporating certain worship and cultural practices of the host community such as the use of English (more than Ghanaian vernaculars) to conduct the service, and of small envelopes for offertory, into their services. Such attempts to combine Ghanaian and American religiocultural practices in the worship and community life of the church sometimes created tensions, which occasionally degenerated into open confrontations and acrimony between different segments of the congregation. The tensions stemmed not only from differences of opinion on issues of polity, theology, and worship but also related to the changing statuses and roles of women and children vis-a-vis that of men and parents in the congregation. In a broad sense, the tensions were caused by differing views regarding what constitutes a “good life” for themselves as individuals and their families, and as a congregation, and how to attain it. Despite these tensions many members I spoke to considered the worship and community PCGNY crucial to their spiritual and social lives in the How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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United States. I began wondering whether it was possible to maintain what I thought at the time was a Ghanaian religiocultural oasis for long and also what that meant for the acculturation of members of this church. My questions grew and eventually led me to do an ethnographic study of this congregation. During the study an important question I sought answer to was, “How significant is the PCGNY, a congregation made up largely of people from Ghana, in the life of its members and the larger society within which it is situated?” At the end of the research I was convinced that, first, the congregation assists its members to both maintain and reshape their Ghanaian religious and cultural identities by reinforcing their sense of who they are and the goals they seek, and by providing the community within which their spirituality is enhanced and their welfare nurtured. In so doing it provides its members the necessary spiritual and social capital to adapt successfully to their adopted country. Second, PCGNY is a missional experiment, that is, it attempts to propagate the message and mission of the Christian church in the United States through its own brand of Ghanaian presbyterianism.

Beginnings During the period of my research, PCGNY met for worship and other services at the Mount Morris Ascension Church, a predominantly African American church, located at 2 West 122nd Street, New York City. According to church records, it started as a fellowship sometime in 1983 but was officially inaugurated as a branch of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana on November 24, 1985.3 From interviews with its founding members and the tenth anniversary pictorial journal of the church, I learned that three conditions had led to its founding. The first of these was the settlement of Ghanaians in New York state and adjourning states, Connecticut and New Jersey, between the 1970s and 1980s. As their numbers increased, they organized themselves into community groups and met to celebrate the naming of newborns, birthdays, and marriages, and to mourn with bereaved families during funerals. These gatherings often had a Christian flavor. Since many of those who gathered were Christians, mainly Presbyterians Christian hymns, especially Presbyterian Church of Ghana hymns, were sung and Christian prayers were said. The second reason was the mysterious death of a number of Ghanaians in the early 1980s.4 As one of the founding members, Eugene Kwapong, recalls, many in the Ghanaian community were alarmed by these deaths. Fear gripped the community and they wondered if they had offended God 68

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in some way. They wanted to “worship God properly.” So they began thinking about starting a church. The third reason for starting the congregation was the need for a community of faith that would cater to the needs of the Ghanaian families, especially in times of bereavement. Other needs were the naming, baptism, and Christian education of their children. In 1982, as the deaths continued, one Mrs. Margaret Ohemeng, the widow of a deceased pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, suggested that a day of prayer be held to seek God’s intervention.5 Mrs. Ohemeng’s suggestion, which was agreed to and acted upon, may seem surprising to one with an enlightenment mind-set which construes causality solely in terms of empirical and rational evidence. But for the Ghanaians, many of whom are highly religious, her suggestion made perfect sense as it was in consonance with the general Ghanaian worldview, in which causality is three-dimensional. These three dimensions are the empirical, the rational, and the metaphysical. While the empirical and rational reasons answer the question “how,” that is, the process by which an incident occurred, the metaphysical answers the question “why,” that is, the ontological reason for its occurrence. As Kwame Gyekye points out, the Akan of Ghana focus on the “why” question when dealing with unexpected or extraordinary occurrences. In so doing they seek the “ultimate cause” of such events.6 In this regard, a clinical explanation such as, “a young person died from injuries sustained in a motor accident” is to many Ghanaians only a partial explanation for the person’s death. It fails to address why that person in particular, and not somebody else, died in that particular manner at that particular time. The deaths of the Ghanaian immigrants therefore needed additional metaphysical explanation which could be sought from a metaphysical being alone, in this case, God. This was one of the reasons why the suggestion for prayer meetings was agreed to. Thus, in response to Mrs Ohemeng’s suggestion, the Ghanaians, most of whom were from New York City, began holding monthly prayer meetings at her home. In my interview with the late Mrs. Ohemeng, she indicated that apart from the problem of the strange deaths, she had two other concerns about the Ghanaians in the New York tristate area. First, many children born to Ghanaian parents could neither understand nor speak their parents’ indigenous languages. Second, Ghanaian immigrants felt unwelcome in American churches and either refused to join them, or showed a lack of commitment even when they joined. As a result, finding pastors to minister to their needs in times of trouble or to conduct their funeral services became difficult. Even before she had suggested the prayer meeting, Mrs. Ohemeng had voluntarily begun teaching some of the Ghanaian second-generation children how to read the How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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Bible in Twi at her home. Her intention was to make the children appreciate the “word of God” as recorded in the Bible and use it as a guide for their lives and also to help them learn, understand, and speak their parents’ language. She had often arranged for clergy to officiate at the funerals of deceased Ghanaians. “When I proposed the prayer meeting,” she told me, “it was my hope that such meetings would eventually lead to the formation of a church whose programs would address some of the problems Ghanaian immigrants faced.”7 One person who showed great interest in the idea of organizing prayer meetings was Mr. Francis Kumi Dwamena,8 then a doctoral candidate in education at Columbia University. Soon after the initial meeting he began compiling the names, phone numbers, and contact addresses of Ghanaians in New York and neighboring states. Mr. Dwamena had earned a master’s in theology and education at the Union Theological Seminary (a nondenominational graduate school in Morningside Heights). Prior to coming to the United States, he had trained as a teacher and catechist at the Presbyterian Training College, the oldest teacher training college in Ghana,9 and had taught physical education in many schools in Ghana. He left Ghana in 1972 for advanced studies in education at Nottingham University in England. While in Nottingham, he studied theology in addition to his major subject area, education. After finishing his studies in England, he continued on to the United States in 1974. The death of the Ghanaians, Rev. Dr. Kumi Dwamena recalls, provided the kairos moment for him to put his interest and knowledge in theology to practical use.10 Monthly prayer meetings were held after the initial one. At a meeting held in the summer of 1985 at 310 Convent Avenue, New York City, the core group—which included Francis Dwamena, Eugene Kwapong, Bediako Yirenkyi, Yaw Asiedu, Seth Osseo-Asare, Frank Sakyiamah, Joseph Boateng, Margaret Ohemeng, and Thelma Annan—decided to officially form a congregation. The Rev. S. K. Aboa, a former Ecumenical Secretary of the Presbyterian of Ghana, then on a visit to the United States, was invited to this meeting. He suggested that a branch of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana be formed. From then on, the group was organized as a church based on the polity, liturgy, and worship style of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) and was formally inaugurated on November 24, 1985. A short history of the church recorded in its tenth anniversary journal reads: “Sunday November 24, 1985 marked a significant point in the history of the Ghana Presbyterian Church, USA (as it was then called). On that day, over a hundred worshippers congregated at Broadway Presbyterian Church to form the nucleus of the Ghana Presbyterian Church in New York City.”11 70

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During the first five years of its history, the young church met once a month for worship in the sanctuary of the Broadway Presbyterian Church. It had no ordained pastor for the first three years and was therefore under the leadership of Dr. Kumi Dwamena (who had by then earned his Ed.D.), together with ten other founding members who supported him in providing spiritual and administrative oversight for the church. The leadership situation changed on May 28, 1988 when Dr. Dwamena was ordained and inducted into office as the first pastor of the church by the late Rt. Rev. Daniel A. Koranteng, then moderator of the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Eleven persons, namely Eugene Kwapong, Bediako Yirenkyi, Yaw Asiedu, Michael Ofori Mankata, N. A. Ollennu, Ben Djoleto, Okpoti Sowah, Enoch Gyamfi, Margaret Ohemeng, Thelma Annan, and Angelina Akiwimi were also commissioned and installed as presbyters of the church on the same day. The ordination and induction of the pastor as well as the commissioning and installation of the presbyters by the seniormost official of the PCG marked an important symbolic and administrative link between the home church and the church in New York City. Symbolically, it indicated that the mandate with which the pastor and elders of PCGNY were to work was derived from the parent church in Ghana. The ordination charge read by the moderator on that day was unequivocal on this point: (Name of ordination candidate), in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and by the authority of the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, I appoint and ordain you as a lawful minister of the Church of Christ and commit you to the ministry of the Word and Sacraments instituted by Christ our Lord.12

Administratively, the church was to operate on the basis of the constitution and policy guidelines of the PCG, though with whatever changes were deemed necessary.13 Between 1988 and 1995, a number of church groups patterned on church groups in the home church were formed and inaugurated. First among these was the Singing Band, which was inaugurated on December 28, 1988.14 The Church Choir was inaugurated on October 28, 1990, followed by a Women’s Fellowship on April 25, 1993 and a Men’s Fellowship on June 26, 1994. The inauguration of these church groups was seen as landmark successes for the church. As some members recall, they were celebrated with pomp and pageantry. On each of these occasions a special service was held to offiHow Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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The late Mrs. Margaret Ohemeng

cially dedicate the group concerned and give it permission to operate in the church. Many people, particularly members of the larger Ghanaian community and leaders of the parent groups in the PCG were invited, to be part of the celebration. Over the years PCGNY has grown from its initial membership of thirty adults to three hundred and fifty. In fact, until 1991 when another Ghanaian Presbyterian Church was formed in Brooklyn, it was the only Ghanaian Presbyterian congregation in New York. Thus it gathered many Ghanaians, Presbyterians and non-Presbyterians alike, into its fold. Through the financial contributions of its members, the church has purchased a three-story building worth 1.5 million dollars. One half of the huge building, situated at 259–261 West 123rd Street in New York City, has been renovated and currently houses the sanctuary and offices of the PCGNY, while the other half has been leased out to a construction company.

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Membership The church draws its membership from Ghanaian immigrants residing throughout the New York metro area. It fits the model of a “niche” rather than a parish congregation. “Niche congregations,” as Ebaugh and others have explained, serve members from a wide geographical area who are linked together by common identities, similar interests, or a common worship style.15 About 99 percent of its three hundred and fifty members are Ghanaians or of Ghanaian descent. The remaining 1 percent is made up of Caucasians (mostly spouses of Ghanaians) and one person from Surinam in the Caribbean. Among the Ghanaians, about 85 percent are of the Akan linguistic group;16 about 13 percent are Ga-speaking, and 1 percent Ewe-speaking. This implies that all the Ghanaians are from southern Ghana, the part of Ghana from where the Presbyterian Church of Ghana draws much of its following. About 60 percent of the church members are women and 40 percent are men.17 Based on church records and personal observation of members’ weekly attendance, I estimate the age distribution to be as follows: 10 percent are 17 and below, 50 percent are between 18 and 49, and 40 percent are 50 and above. It is difficult to establish the exact number of youth in the church because the youth only become full members (whose names are recorded in the church’s roll book) after confirmation. Ironically, many of those who are confirmed leave soon thereafter for colleges outside New York City and so become less active in the church. Youth leaders and some of the youth estimate that there are about fifty junior and senior youth in the church, including some of those who have left for college. There are diverse professionals—teachers, nurses, accountants, engineers, medical doctors, and lawyers—represented in the church. There are also a number of members who work as janitors, security personnel, hotel and bar attendants, shop and parking lot attendants, baby sitters, and aides to the aged. Aside from these, there are the self-employed, who are cab owners, workers in the transportation business, travel and tour agents, shops owners (who sell Ghanaian food items and other goods), and owners of hair salons. Like other immigrants, many Ghanaians suffer downward social mobility, particularly in terms of the jobs they do, when they come to the United States.18 This is also the case with some members of the church. Many have jobs (particularly those doing menial jobs), which are totally out of keeping with their academic and professional qualifications. A teacher with a MasHow Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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Some church members wearing winter coats over their Ghanaian clothes

ter of Science (M.Sc.) degree who had taught for many years in prestigious institutions in Ghana, for instance, is now working as a companion for an aged woman. Another person with a master’s in history earns his living as a taxi driver. Many of those I spoke to expressed some ambivalence about their social status. On the one hand, they were happy that they had found jobs at all and they were earning a living and supporting their families both here in the United States and in Ghana, but on the other hand they were frustrated that they had to survive on such menial jobs despite their strong academic credentials. Aside from regular church attendance and participation in church activities, proof of a person’s membership in the church is furnished by his or her membership card. A little square book of about ten pages embossed with the logo of the PCG, this card, which is the same as that used by all PCG congregations, records attendance at monthly communion services and payment of tithes. The importance of this membership card is evident from the great care individual church members take of their cards; indeed, its importance to them cannot be overemphasized. The card testifies to a person’s participa74

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tion in the church and is also a link between individual members of PCGNY and the home church. It can make all the difference in the reception a person receives from the home church when he or she is in Ghana. For instance, the family of a deceased member whose body is sent to Ghana for burial has to show the deceased’s membership card (in addition to a letter from the pastor) if the home church is to participate fully in his or her funeral. In fact, one of the things that motivated members to join the PCGNY rather than a different congregation affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, USA, was the fact that they would have a fitting burial in Ghana should they die in the United States. This came up from time to time in my conversations with members. Most first-generation members of the church were strongly opposed to the idea of being buried in the United States and not with the “ancestors” back in Ghana.

Members’ Views of PCGNY During the research, I asked some members to tell me what their experiences of the church had been, specifically, the role the PCGNY played in their lives, and also the similarities and differences between PCGNY and the home church. Sixteen people—five men, five women, three boys, and three girls— responded to my questions. These were some of their responses: Angelina, who is in her sixties, and has been a member of the church since its inception, told me: For the first fifteen or so years of my stay in the United States, that is, from 1965 to 1983, I was not a member of any church in particular. I kept my membership with my home church and always sent financial contributions back home. I joined the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in 1984 when it had just begun. Since then I have served in many capacities in the church, including being one of its first elected presbyters. I have enjoyed a lot of fellowship in the church. The church has gone through many difficult times but has survived. What I like most about the church is that it brings those of us who are Presbyterians from Ghana together for worship and fellowship. Through this congregation we are also connected with our home church.

Lydia, who is in her sixties, has also been a member of the PCGNY since its inception. She says: How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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I was one of the thirty or so who joined the church at its beginning. Before I joined the church I was not a member of any church here in the United States. From time to time I would attend services with my friends in their churches. I did not find any of these churches welcoming enough to join permanently. Being a member of the PCGNY has been very rewarding. My life has been enriched spiritually through the fellowship and community life of the church. I have also benefited from the generosity of individual members of the church. During the death of my mother, for instance, there was an outpouring of condolences, prayers, and material support from many members of the church. And when my son, a college student, fractured his leg during a football match, I was inundated with good wishes from congregation members.

Kwame, a forty-seven-year-old who had recently joined PCGNY, says: When I arrived in the United States I stayed with my brother in Delaware for two weeks. A week after my arrival, I was contacted by an elder of PCGNY through a college mate and friend living in New York. The church needed a second organist and wanted to know if I would want to relocate to New York City. Indeed, I was more than happy to do so since I had no idea what I was going to do upon arrival. The following week I traveled by train to New York and was received by an elder of the church. Soon the church found me accommodation and engaged my services as an organist and choir director. I am so grateful that I did not have to go through the difficulties some of my friends went through when they arrived in this country. I hope that I can bring my wife and children over soon some time. But for now, I send them money and other provisions. It is very difficult being here by myself. But for the fellowship of members of the church I am sure it would have been far more difficult for me. PCGNY in a large measure reminds me of home.

Since Kwame had only been in the United States for a few months, I asked him if he had noticed any differences between the PCGNY and the home church. He replied as follows: Yes I do. In terms of ritual and formal worship there is virtually no difference between here and home. The difference lies mostly in members’ level of devotion and commitment. Here, unlike at home, members’ lives are largely taken over by their jobs. Many work two or three jobs and so are extremely busy. In fact, some members have to come straight to church from work and others have to leave during worship for work. Thus the degree of par76

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ticipation in church activities by members is lower in comparison to that of members of the home church. The choir of my home church in Ghana, for instance, met twice a week and on special occasions even five times a week. Here, it is difficult for us to meet even once a week. As such, we are not able to learn the long anthems and other songs we sing at home. Another difference is that members of PCGNY are less obedient to the rules of the church and less respectful of the authority of the PCG.

Vic, who is in her twenties, had recently been hired as church secretary. She said: I consider myself very fortunate for not having to go through the difficulties many immigrants go through when they get to the United States. I am grateful to God and to the leaders of the PCGNY for making things easy for me. My parents have been living in the United States for some years now. The purpose of my coming was twofold. First, to join my parents, and second, to advance my career. I left Ghana last year with very high hopes of what America could offer me. Indeed while in Ghana, I assumed that life in America was so comfortable and easy. Upon arrival, however, I was shocked by the hard reality of American life. I could hardly believe that one had to work for long hours before making a hundred dollars. Since my parents have been here for some time, they helped me overcome some of my initial culture shock. My mother introduced me to the PCGNY congregation of which she was a member. Four months or so after I arrived, the church advertised for a secretary. I promptly applied and was invited for an interview. Thank God I was given the job. In many ways my experience with the church has been a positive one. I like the worship and community life of the church.

Grace is the lead singer of the church band. In 2004 she launched her debut album of eleven songs entitled Alpha and Omega. The songs recorded on CDs are in both Twi and English. At its launching she expressed her deep gratitude to the present and former pastors as well as members of PCGNY. Later she told me that her dream of becoming a singer could not have come true without the opportunities the church offered her. She said: When I left Ghana, I knew I wanted to be a professional singer but I didn’t know how I was going to achieve it. Soon after I arrived in this country I was introduced to this church. Since I love singing, I joined the choir and later the church band. These two groups offered me the opportunity to improve my singing considerably. How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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We sang during church services, at parties, and sometimes at funerals. Through these I gained a lot of exposure and confidence. I also received lots of encouragement from the pastors, elders, and members of this church. Without them I am not sure I could have produced this CD.

Tony is a twenty-one-year-old young adult who was born in the United States. He organizes and leads the youth group in the church. Though he is a very devout member of the church, he attends worship services every Sunday morning at another Ghanaian church where services are conducted in English. He told me: I don’t enjoy the worship services at PCGNY as much as I do at the other church I attend. There, the service is in English. Also, the pastor is young and charismatic and his messages touch me so much. The services of PCGNY are more for my parents and adults like them than me. I don’t really understand everything when they speak the Ghanaian languages. I like our youth group meetings and the church fellowship, though.

These views by members of the PCGNY and its impact on their lives reveal a number of issues we will encounter in this chapter and in the rest of the book. First, we notice the transnational nature of the congregation and its members. Second, and related to the above, there are clear continuities and discontinuities between the structure of the church and the attitudes of its members on the one hand, and that of its parent church on the other. Third, we learn of the missional role the church plays. But for PCGNY and congregations like it, many Ghanaian immigrants have a minimal religious and church life in the United States. Another important issue to note is the community life the church provides its members. It is a community within which members can network, seek jobs, and help one another.

Congregational Type In his book, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Immigration, and the Transformation of the West, Jehu Hanciles offers a typology of African immigrant congregations in the United States. He classifies such congregations into four types.19 The first is the “Abrahamic” type, which he defines as congregations that began or were founded through the vision or initiative of a single person. According to him, this is the most typical type among African immigrants in 78

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the United States. The second group, which he calls the “Macedonia” type, is the result of the structured missionary efforts of churches and ministries in Africa. Like the “Abrahamic” congregations, they are a response to the need for more “meaningful Christian fellowship or avenues for ministry within Christian churches.”20 Groups of Africans therefore gather in homes and begin Bible study, have prayer meetings, and invite converts. The “Jerusalem” type, the third group Hanciles delineates, are those often referred to as ethnic churches. These are the “African-established” and “African-led” churches that have affiliations with Western mainline denominations and their structure and policy. Hanciles calls the fourth group the “Samuel-Eli” type. These are mainline American congregations which have a significant number of African immigrant congregants. These churches are neither founded nor led by Africans. Yet their large African membership helps to sustain and keep them from going under, as many American mainline congregations have done since the 1960s. Hanciles’s typology is very helpful. It is one of the first to attempt to classify and clarify the differences between the nebulous and ever-growing African immigrant congregations in the United States. But because Hanciles focuses on the missionary nature of these churches, his typology reflects church formation rather than congregational life. He therefore pays little attention, perhaps understandably so, to the shape, structure, and culture of these congregations. Without such attention, however, and specific examples for each type, the distinctions he draws between the categories are rather fuzzy. As Hanciles himself points out, further scholarly research is needed in this area. Typologies are notorious for their inability to capture the nontypical. Thus, though the PCGNY could be classified as a “Macedonian” type, its organizational structure, its relationship with the home church and the Presbyterian Church of USA, and its congregational culture go beyond Hanciles’s categorization. Obviously, the African immigrant congregations can be classified in other ways. In order to show the relationships between African immigrant congregations and their home countries as well as the United States and to emphasize their transnational nature, I prefer to broadly categorize them in terms of their structural and denominational affiliations. The African congregations can be classified into two broad categories—the affiliated and nonaffiliated. The affiliated congregations are those that have an administrative or other structural relationship with American denominations. Under this category, we have the fully affiliated, which consist of congregations that are directly under the administrative and ecclesiastical control of American denominations. Examples of these include the GhanaHow Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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ian Reformed Presbyterian Church in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, which is a union church affiliated to both the Presbyterian Church, USA and the Reformed Church of America, and the Ghana United Methodist Church in the Bronx, New York, which operates as a congregation of the United Methodist Church. Aside from the fully affiliated are the semi-affiliated. These congregations—such as the Pan-African Church of God in Christ, in the Bronx, New York—have various kinds of loose affiliations with denominations in the United States. The Pan-African Church of God in Christ, for instance, though affiliated with the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) denomination with headquarters in Tennessee, hardly follows the polity and liturgical practices of that denomination. The nonaffiliated congregations are those that have no affiliation with any denomination in the United States. These are of two kinds—the semiautonomous and the autonomous. What I refer to as semi-autonomous congregations are branches of denominations in different African countries and therefore are governed fully or in part from there. The Redeemed Christian Church of God and the Celestial Church of God, both with their headquarters in Nigeria, and the Church of Pentecost from Ghana are good examples. The autonomous category is made up of churches that were founded and led by individuals or a group of persons who believe they were called by God to start ministries and congregations. Such churches thrive on the charisma and vision of their founders. Examples of such congregations are World Compassion Outreach Ministries located in Plainfield, New Jersey, and Day Spring Church in Roosevelt Island, New York. In light of the above classificatory system, the PCGNY is nonaffiliated and semi-autonomous. This has a number of implications for its congregational life.

Organizational and Cultural Hybridity In terms of organizational structure and culture, PCGNY reveals a hybridity which is in consonance with its transnational nature. It also reveals both an in-betweenness21 and a belongingness to multiple locations at the same time. The congregation is neither a complete replica of its parent denomination nor has it fully adapted to the typical American Protestant congregational culture. Yet, in many respects it combines in itself aspects of both its home church and American Protestantism. Stephen R. Warner, in his article, “The Place of the Congregation in the American Religious Configuration,” posits that immigrant religious groups 80

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in America, in spite of the structure and function of their parent or counterpart churches abroad, adopt congregationalism as part of their process of adaptation.22 He defines the “congregation” as “a local religious body constituted by the group itself rather than by administrative or geographic definition.”23 It is therefore not governed by bishops, as in the case of the Episcopal polity, nor by regional groups or elders, as is the case under Presbyterian polity, but by the local body. Helen Ebaugh and Janet Chafetz, basing their premise on Warner’s definition, suggest further that the process of structural adaptation by immigrant religious groups involves the assumption, to various degrees, of a “congregational structure” and a “community center.”24 They consider an ideal congregational structure to be a religious organization with the following features: It has a formal list or roster of members; these members elect a local governing body (board or council) composed of lay members that make policy; it has committees or ministries composed of lay members who conduct the work of the institution; it has clergy who are selected by the local organization; and it raises most of its operating funds from its own local members. The ideal community center model, according to their definition, involves the existence of a physical site which, aside from providing a space for religious rituals, study, and education, is also used for the communal celebration of secular holidays; the provision of secular classes (to study native culture and language, GED, ESL, citizenship, among other things); the formal provision of mundane services for members such as financial planning, job listing, health services, emergency financial, food, and/or housing aid); recreational facilities; and a community hall for social activities.25 Ebaugh and Chafetz’s analysis means that, first, power and the control of immigrant religious groups (and, as in our case, churches) shift from the church hierarchy (in the home country) to the leaders, mostly lay, of the local congregation. Second, the immigrant congregations concern themselves more with mundane services like helping members to find jobs, plan their finances, and so on, which they would not have done in the home country. Central to both Warner’s analysis as well as that of Ebaugh and Chafetz, is the concept of institutional isomorphism, that is, the notion that the processes or structure of organizations become similar to one another either through imitation or through independent development under similar constraints.26 Thus the argument is that immigrant religious communities gravitate toward the shape and style of American Protestant congregations. While it is true that immigrant congregations, particularly non-Christian and non-Protestant ones, may, as a result of legal and social requirements in How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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the United States, adopt “de facto congregationalism,” the above argument creates the impression that “when in Rome,” immigrants simply “do as the Romans do.” It ignores the fact that some immigrant religious communities import their own forms of congregationalism from their home countries into the United States. Also, and perhaps even more important, this perspective ignores the experimentation and creativity that takes place in immigrant congregations, as they try to create hybrid structures and processes derived from both the home and host countries. To some degree, PCGNY exhibits elements of American congregationalism. Thus, the church was incorporated and registered by lay members, some of whom currently constitute its trustees. Another example is seen in the fact that the church supports itself entirely from the contributions of its members and operates its own budget.27 However, these factors notwithstanding, the PCGNY’s operations challenge both Warner’s, and Ebaugh’s and Chafetz’s propositions. The church is both autonomous and dependent at the same time. While in the United States it functions as a denomination, in Ghana it is considered a congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. This organizational paradox is reflected in the congregation’s administration. Thus, though its local session has the power to take most decisions regarding the day-to-day administration of the congregation, the constitution and policies which serve as the basis for such decisions come from its headquarters in Accra. Additionally, though the pastor’s salary is paid by the congregation, the power to hire or fire him lies with the General Assembly of the mother church in Ghana. This administrative structure sometimes creates conflicts between the church and its parent denomination. During my research, I learned of two incidents that illustrate my point. In 1999, the congregation asked for a full-time pastor from Ghana to replace the then pastor who was a “tent” or part-time minister. The term “tent minister” is used by the home church to refer to a pastor who had a full-time job in another profession and served as a part-time pastor on the side. The central argument for this change was that the membership of the congregation was growing rapidly, and therefore the church needed a pastor who would spend more time doing its business. The home denomination in Ghana granted the request and appointed the late Rev. Beeko, former Moderator of the Synod of PCG, to serve as head pastor of the congregation. While arrangements were being made for Rev. Beeko to travel to the United States to assume his new position, a section of the congregation disagreed with, and protested, the change. The protest revealed serious cracks

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Ordination of Rev. Yaw Asiedu, the current pastor of the church

in the congregation and also inflamed ethnic and ideological passions that nearly brought about its disintegration. After intense negotiations between the home church and the different factions in the church in New York, the change was refused. The second incident, similar to the first, involved the retirement of the first pastor of the church. In 2003, the home church sent a letter, copied to the Session, that is, the ruling body of the congregation, informing the pastor that he was due for “compulsory” retirement at the end of the year. Quoting a section of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana constitution that stipulates that pastors of the church must retire at age seventy, he was asked to begin arranging for a smooth transfer of the leadership of the congregation to his successor. The letter was not well received by a section of the church, particularly the family, friends, and sympathizers of the pastor. Though the retiring pastor obviously knew of the PCG regulation, he apparently considered it inapplicable in his case because the congregation was in the United States and there was no PCG-ordained pastor available to take over from him at How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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First pastor of PCGNY, Rev. Dr. Francis Kumi Dwamena, and his wife, receiving a gift on his retirement

the time.28 This issue, which borders on policy, became intensely personalized and divided the church membership into two main camps, each camp supporting one or other of the pastors. While one camp wanted the congregation to defy the instructions from the home church, the other wanted the church’s constitution to be upheld. After several months of wrangling and occasional open conflict, the home church prevailed and appointed a new pastor. These tensions expose an important structural weakness that exists between the PCGNY and PCG. While the PCG is able to exercise a level of ecclesiastical control over PCGNY, legally it has no control over the church, particularly its assets. The question then arises, how much control can PCG effectively exercise over its agents and churches abroad? This limitation is due largely to the United States regulations regarding the registration of churches which makes it possible for each congregation to have its own board of trustees. Thus, unlike all other PCG congregations in Ghana which are covered by the trustees of the denomination, PCGNY has its own trustees. 84

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Overseas Mission Field Currently (as of this writing in 2010), the PCGNY is classified as part of an “Overseas Church.” It is the bedrock and most prominent member church of an Overseas Mission of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, which is still in the works.29 The term “overseas” as opposed to “home” provides us with a metaphor and image with which to describe the PCGNY. “Overseas” conjures up the image of a ship which is over the seas; although physically distant from the home port, it is in constant communication with it through wireless contact and other forms of remote access communication. Since its formation in 1985, the PCGNY has had a very ambiguous administrative relationship with its parent church. Almost ten years after its formation, the PCG had no official policy regarding the status and structure of the PCGNY. In a letter written by the then Synod Clerk on July 12, 1993, the PCGNY was designated as a district under the Ga Presbytery.30 Later in 1997 a new directive was issued by the Synod Office in a letter dated January 22, 1997 to the effect that the PCGNY should operate as a district directly under the control of the PCG head office. This new arrangement created a problem the following year,

Erecting the Overseas Mission Field

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when representation at the Synod Conference, the highest governing body of the church, was based on presbytery rather than congregational membership. During the 1998 Synod Conference of the PCG, delegates gathered represented presbyteries and not local congregations. Thus, the two representatives sent from PCGNY to attend the conference were treated as “observers,” that is, as nonvoting participants, and forbidden from voting on issues. Angered by what they saw as a lack of recognition by the home church, the PCGNY protested. As a result of this problem of representation, a new policy approving the creation of an Overseas Mission Field that would organize all the Presbyterian Church of Ghana churches in North America was put in place. Since the formation of the PCGNY a number of other Ghanaian Presbyterian churches have been formed in states such as Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and Texas.31 Many of those through whose vision and leadership these churches have been formed were once members of the PCGNY. Currently, there are three other Ghanaian Presbyterian churches in New York City in addition to the PCGNY. Two of these, which were originally a single church but split up into two, are in the Bronx. These are the Ghanaian Presbyterian Church at 1272 Ogden Avenue and the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church of Ghana at 302 East 206th Street. The split in the original Bronx church was the result of disagreements over whether or not it should be structurally affiliated to the Presbyterian Church of USA (PCUSA). The third, the Ghanaian Presbyterian/ Reformed Church of Brooklyn situated at 890 Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, is a Union Church affiliated with both the PCUSA and the Reformed Church of America (RCA). In spite of these administrative problems, the organizational structure of PCGNY in large measure reflects that of the parent church in Ghana. Like all the other congregations of the PCG, the church operates under the General Assembly system of church government. Under this system, the church is governed through four hierarchical court—the Congregational Session, the District Session, the Presbytery, and the General Assembly. The highest court is the General Assembly and the lowest court, the Congregational Session. Unlike other PCG congregations (in Ghana), the PCGNY is classified as part of the Overseas Mission. It therefore deals directly with the General Assembly through the Department of Mission and Evangelism, which is in charge of overseas churches. This is in accordance with the Presbyterian Church of Ghana policy, which grants the General Assembly the authority to “establish and oversee an Overseas Mission Field made up of all the Church’s congregations abroad.”32 Generally, the PCGNY enjoys far more independence than the PCG congregations in Ghana do. 86

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Cross-section of the Singing Band

The PCGNY congregational session is made up of the pastor in-charge, who is the chairperson, and elders called presbyters. The Congregational Session has spiritual oversight of all members and of the work of the congregation, maintains Christian order and discipline, arranges for public worship and the observance of the sacraments, supervises all the groups in the congregation, and visits the sick, the aged, the bereaved, and the distressed. The session meets on the first and third Fridays of every month, except, of course, in cases of emergency. To facilitate the proper running of the church, four committees—the Finance Committee, Worship Committee, Evangelism Committee, and Strategic Planning Committee—have been formed. However, the number of committees falls far short of the twenty-one committees that the Presbyterian Church of Ghana suggests its congregations should generally have. Though it is obvious that this structural discontinuity between the PCGNY and the parent church is largely due to the PCGNY’s slow pace of adjustment to the policy changes that have occurred in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana since 2000, it can also be argued that these committees serve the parHow Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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ticular needs of the church. According to the pastor-in-charge, the Strategic Planning Committee, for instance, was constituted to prepare an action plan for the repair and maintenance of its newly acquired three-story building which will serve as the sanctuary and offices. The committee will also solicit financial help for this purpose. The church also has the following groups: the Women’s Fellowship, Men’s Fellowship, Young People’s Guild (YPG), Junior Youth (JY), Church Choir, Singing Band, Church Band, and the Bible Study and Prayer Group (BSPG). All these groups, except the Church Band, are affiliated with their respective Presbyterian Church of Ghana national groups. All of them use study guides and other teaching material prepared by their respective parent groups in Ghana, although some of them have been adapted to the needs of their members. During special services members of the groups wear regalia such as clothes, badges, and headgear which are made and sold by the parent groups in Ghana. An important feature that demonstrates the continuity between the PCGNY and the parent church in Ghana, and also shows the transnational nature of the church, is the interchange of official visits between the church and its head office in Ghana. Each year the pastor and one presbyter travel to Ghana to attend the annual General Assembly meeting of PCG. Delegates of the church groups such as the Church Choir, Singing Band, Young People’s Guild, and so on, from time to time also attend the annual or biannual national conferences, as the case may be, in Ghana. During such meetings and conferences, they meet and discuss issues with other representatives at workshops, and get to know of new developments in the national church, learn new songs, and exchange ideas. Officials of the PCG head office also visit the PCGNY from time to time for different reasons. In 2003 and 2004, for example, the Moderator of the General Assembly, the Clerk of the General Assembly, the Director of Ecumenical and Social Relations, and the Director of Mission and Evangelism paid official visits to the church. On one of these visits, the Moderator and the Clerk of the General Assembly inducted into office the Rev. Yaw Asiedu, successor to Rev. Dr. Dwamena, who retired in June 2003. Hitherto, Rev. Asiedu, who received his theological training at New York Theological Seminary and Trinity Theological Seminary, Ghana, had been commissioned as a ministerial probationer by PCG in Ghana. During this visit church officials had to resolve a problem arising from the retirement of the pastor mentioned earlier. Aside from PCG officials, many pastors of the PCG visiting or passing through New York visit the church. It is customary during such visits for church members to give gifts to the pas88

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tors, especially when their departure for Ghana is imminent. Groups in the church also sometimes invite preachers and deliverance specialists, who are believed to possess special abilities for healing and exorcism, from Ghana during their anniversaries. Church records show that the Men’s Fellowship invited a prominent marriage counselor and speaker, Opanyin Kwadwo Kyere, from Ghana to speak at its fifth anniversary celebration in June 1999. Two months earlier,the Bible Study and Prayer Group had invited Mrs. Ellen DwamenaArko, an evangelist from Ghana, to preach at their anniversary.

Worship Services PCGNY worship services may be classified into two categories, namely, ordinary and special services. The term “ordinary services” refers to the normal Sunday worship services, while “special services” refers to occasions such as Christmas and Easter, group anniversaries,33 harvests (fund-raisers), deliverance services,34 wedding and funeral services, and two recent adaptations, namely, Father’s Day and Mother’s Day. Generally, the order and character of worship for both types of services are largely the same. Both types are vibrant—with lots of singing, drumming, and dancing—and involve a lot of lay participation. The differences between the two lie mainly in their special focus, festive nature, and additional rituals. Normal Sunday services usually start at 3.30 p. m. and last between two and a half to three hours. PCGNY, like many Ghanaian immigrant churches in the United States, holds its worship services in the evening rather than the morning. The reason for this is that its host church, Mount Morris Ascension Church, meets in the morning. The service usually begins with a processional hymn sung from the Twi and Ga hymnbooks, accompanied by an organ. While the entire congregation stands and sings the hymn, the choir, the readers of the scripture lessons for the day, and the pastor(s) all process in two lines to the platform in the sanctuary. The liturgist for the service then leads the congregation through the program. The first part of the service involves the singing of a hymn of praise, prayers of adoration, confession, the assurance of pardon, a hymn, and then a song by the church choir. Most often, the prayers are read from the Liturgy and Service Book of the PCG, though the liturgist has the option of saying some prayers extempore. The liturgist also has the option of using one of the Ghanaian languages represented in the congregation in addition to English, when leading the service. Most of those who led the service during the period of this research used Twi and English. How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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The next section of the service is the reading of two Bible passages, one from the Old Testament and the other from the New Testament. These are selected from the almanac of the PCG. The almanac, which is used by all congregations of the PCG, has the scripture readings and theme for every Sunday as well as Bible readings for each day. In using the Bible readings and themes for worship services, the PCGNY joins with the parent church in proclaiming the same message each Sunday. The passages are always read in three languages, namely, Ga, Twi, and English. The Ewe language, which is spoken by about 1 percent of the members, is not used during worship services. Upon inquiry as to why this was the case, the pastor-in-charge explained that it was very time-consuming to have the readings done in four languages and so the Session decided that the three dominant languages be used. He said that some of the Ewe had raised their concerns over this issue. But after discussing the matter it was agreed that since all the Ewes understand and are fluent in the other languages, the current format would be used. On special occasions, however, all four languages are used. The second reading is immediately followed by about ten to fifteen minutes of “praises.” During this time the Church Band leads the congregation in singing and dancing to popular praise songs and choruses. Most of these are contemporary songs sung by churches in Ghana. As the congregation members sing and dance, they also put cash donations in collection bowls, strategically placed in different locations, in appreciation to God for his blessings. Singing and dancing during worship service is a typical feature of most Ghanaian churches. This is part of the Ghanaian—and for that matter African— heritage that has been incorporated into church worship. After the “praises” comes the sermon, which is preceded by a “hymn of worship” and the third Bible reading. Depending on the preacher’s language skills, the sermon may be delivered in English and one or more of the Ghanaian languages. Most preachers, however, preach in English and Twi. The preacher may preach in the different languages simultaneously, switching back and forth from one language to the other, or preach extensively in one language and offer brief summaries in the other(s). Preachers for the church include the lay as well as the ordained, women and men, young adults and the old. Thus, unlike what pertains in many Presbyterian churches in America, where the pastor in charge does most of the preaching throughout the year, the PCGNY has a varied selection of preachers. My examination of the annual preaching plans for the church revealed that the resident pastor, on average, preached once a month. This is typical of PCG congregations in the homeland. There a District Pastor may be in charge of anywhere between two to as many as twenty congregations. He or 90

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she has to visit, preach, and lead communion service at a different congregation each week and therefore preaches at his head station just once a month. The congregation recites the Apostles’ Creed in different languages, based on each individual’s choice, immediately after the sermon. Using multiple languages in worship services is not peculiar to the PCGNY. In fact, it is an extension of a practice of its parent church. As I indicated in the previous chapter, no single region in Ghana is homogeneous. While in every part of the country there may be a predominant language group, there probably are other language groups in that same area. Consequently, many PCG congregations in Ghana, particularly those in the urban and suburban areas, conduct services in two or more languages simultaneously. Since such congregations may be highly heterogeneous and linguistically diverse, the use of multiple languages in worship services is necessary in order to convey the gospel message and other church information to members. African theologians such as John Mbiti,35 Lamin Sanneh,36 and Kwame Bediako have indicated the importance of a people’s mother tongue in their apprehension of God. To them the explosion of Christianity on the African continent is largely due to the translation of the Bible into African languages. On the role a person’s mother tongue plays in his or her understanding of the gospel message, Bediako says: The ability to hear in one’s own language and to express in one’s own language the response to the message one receives must lie at the heart of all authentic religious encounter with the divine realm. Language itself becomes then, not merely a social or psychological phenomenon, but a theological one as well. Though every human language has its limitations in this connection, yet it is through language and for each person, it is through their mother tongue that the Spirit of God speaks to convey divine communication at its deepest to the human community.37

Some members of PCGNY expressed similar views when I asked them whether they considered the use of Ghanaian languages in their worship services important. One member, a middle-aged lady, had this to say: Of course, I have a good understanding of English just like many here do. But it’s never the same to hear a sermon or Bible passage in my mother tongue. The images that the language conjure in my mind, give me a deep understanding which I do not get from a sermon preached in English. We are Ghanaians, so we need to worship God in our languages. How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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And a lay preacher told me: Preaching in Twi is more exciting for me than in English. In Twi, I am able to use proverbs, idioms, and images which carry the message home to my hearers more effectively. I can always feel the difference in their responses when I switch over from English to Twi.

Aside from the theological importance of Ghanaian languages in PCGNY worship services, they are also sociologically and psychologically significant. Sociologically, their use helps maintain and, indeed, reproduce ethnic identities. Yet the use of these languages sometimes generates tensions. Other rituals that are performed during a typical Sunday service include the giving of offertory and tithes, the welcoming of visitors, announcements, intercessory prayers, the passing of peace, and the benediction. All these are interspersed with hymns and songs. Most of the elements of the normal worship service are also part of a special worship service. The following pages will present an analytic description of a selected number of special services to demonstrate some of the continuities between PCGNY and its parent church, as well as some of the adaptations the church has made in terms of its worship services.

The Annual Harvest Each year the PCGNY organizes a harvest service. Essentially, this service is a fund-raiser. Its designation as annual “harvest” rather than, say, annual “fund-raiser” is instructive. Though I could not trace the historical origin and development of the celebration, it is probably derived in part from Ghanaian harvest festivals and in part from the Jewish/biblical practice of bringing the first fruits to the priest as commanded by God in Leviticus 23:10. Harvest time literally means a period for gathering in the yields of one’s farm. In many farming communities in Ghana, particularly in the rural areas, harvesting involves the whole community and is marked by festivals. Most Ghanaian festivals, such as Homowo, Odwira, and Ohum, are essentially harvest festivals.38 This is a joyous time filled with lots of eating, drinking, and dancing, particularly when the yield is good. A prominent feature of the harvest period is the offering of gifts (mainly foodstuffs, livestock, and drinks) as sacrifice to God, the divinities, and the ancestors. With the coming of Western Mission Christianity to Ghana many aspects of these harvest festivals, particularly the sacrifice and drink offerings given 92

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to the lesser divinities and ancestors, were condemned as heathen and therefore incompatible with Christian belief. Despite the fervent efforts of agents of the Western missionary enterprise to obliterate these practices, the Ghanaian concept of harvest as a time of giving thanks and offerings to God found its way into the Ghanaian church and has remained to stay. Perhaps its persistence is due in part to the similarities between the Ghanaian practice of harvest and that of the Israelites found in many portions of the Bible. Most Ghanaian congregations organize at least one harvest service a year. The dates for these are often selected—particularly in the rural areas—to coincide with the end of the farming season or the harvest festivals. This is to allow for full participation, since many members of the church as well as the larger community would have harvested their crops and would have some gifts either in cash or in kind to offer. On such occasions, church members, aside from offering cash, bring whatever gifts they have, such as foodstuffs, livestock, pastries, or clothes, to the church. These are auctioned and the money accruing is used for church projects. These days some churches, particularly those in large cities, encourage their members to offer cash instead of food and other items as the auctioning of goods in church is very timeconsuming. PCGNY holds its annual harvest on the second or third Sunday of November each year. It is not by accident, but by design, that the harvest date always occurs just before Thanksgiving week. Rev. Dr. Dwamena, the first pastor of the church, explains why: The whole concept of an “annual harvest” is based on the show of gratitude to God. During harvest we show our appreciation to God and thank Him for the many things He has done for us during the year. For that reason, we considered it appropriate to have the harvest around the time the whole nation is celebrating Thanksgiving; a time when all are supposed to be giving thanks to God. In fact, we should have been having the harvest during the Thanksgiving weekend, but we realized that a lot of activities go on at that time—people travel, families meet, and so on—so we decided to have it just before Thanksgiving.

Though it is unclear what impact the spirit of the Thanksgiving celebration has on the church’s annual harvests, the attempt to align a purely Ghanaian church festival with a major celebration of the host society shows that the church is trying to adapt to its environment. How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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On November 11, 2001, I was present when the church organized its annual harvest. This service, which was held at the usual place of worship, began around 3.00 p. m ., a little earlier than the usual time of worship. On that day church members were dressed in their respective group outfits while those who were not members of a group wore different Ghanaian clothes. Most of the ladies wore their neatly made kaba and slit and the men wore their ntama, agbada, and suits. The colorful clothes of the congregation, their festive mood, and the general excitement were indicative of the joy of the occasion. Attendance was far larger than usual. Some of the additional worshipers were occasional members of the church, while others belonged to different Ghanaian churches and to Ghanaian social groups that had been invited to participate in the service. Before the service I observed a flurry of activity in one of the rooms adjourning the main sanctuary, and so I went to find out what was going on in there. I found various types of prepared Ghanaian food brought in by members who had volunteered to prepare them. Many others, mainly women, came in with additional food. Though Ghanaians generally eat Ghanaian food at home, this was one of the special days in the year when members, particularly the second generation, get to enjoy such a spread. The first part of the service followed the usual order—hymns/songs, prayer, and Bible readings. The preacher for the day whose sermon was based on the chosen theme for the harvest, “Let Us Rise and Build,” based on Nehemiah 2:17, reminded worshipers that in many ways their standard of living was better than that of people back in Ghana or in other countries of the socalled Third World. Comparing every Ghanaian immigrant to Nehemiah, who was carried into exile where he served the Persian King Artaxerxes (r. 464 B.C.E .–423 B. C . E .), the preacher challenged members not to be satisfied with their own comfort but also seek the good of Ghana and all the people left behind. While Nehemiah was in the king’s service, according to the preacher, he distinguished himself and earned the king’s trust and respect. For this reason he was able to persuade the king not only to permit him to go back to rebuild Jerusalem, but also to give him the necessary wood and other hardware he needed for the project. Worshipers—and for that matter all Ghanaian immigrants—should excel in whatever they did and also lead morally good lives, in order to realize their goals and earn good money in the United States. It was only by so doing that they could “rise and build” not only their communities in the United States but also help build the home country. I have given a brief summary of the sermon for two reasons. First, I wanted to show the importance the church attaches to the maintenance of 94

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contact with the homeland, and second, the way preachers use passages from the Bible and sermons to reinforce that message. To many members of this church, including those who are naturalized citizens, their stay in the United States is only temporary. They consider themselves to be sojourners whose real home is elsewhere and who will one day go back for good. For this reason many of them have built homes and businesses back in Ghana, while others are in the process of doing so or have plans to do so in the future. Mr. Kweku Duah, a sixty-eight-year-old man who has lived in the United States for thirty-five years, has two mansions and three shops in Ghana. He hopes to retire and go back to Ghana permanently in two years. Madam Ayeley, a seventy-two-year-old naturalized American citizen came to say goodbye to the church one Sunday. She had come to the United States to help her daughter take care of her young children. Now that the children were teenagers, she was leaving for Ghana for good. The second part of the service focused on fund-raising. The chairpersons, “supporters,” “guests of honor,” and other invited guests were introduced and invited to sit on chairs that faced the congregation. One of the chairpersons announced the purpose and target for the harvest. The purpose was to help pay for the renovation of a 1.5 million dollar building the church had purchased, and the target was to raise $25,000. After this announcement had been made, the Church Band began to play. The worshipers were called to make their offerings according to the day of the week on which they were born.39 Starting with those born on a Sunday, each group moved to the entrance of the sanctuary and, dancing to the rhythm of the music, brought in their offering. The next group, those born on a Monday, followed, and so on until they got to the seventh group, that is, those born on a Saturday. After this the chairpersons, “supporters,” and all the invited guests presented their offerings in the same manner. The whole process took over an hour, yet it was obvious from the exuberant singing and dancing and the joy that clearly showed on peoples’ faces that they were neither exhausted nor anxious to leave for home. When the worship service formally came to a close at about 6.30 p. m., the church had raised about $23,000 in cash and an additional $3,000 in pledges. After the service was over, the congregants converged in the adjourning room to eat .40 Soon everyone in the room was eating and chatting. Since this was an informal “get-together,” people stood or sat in groups, ate, and conversed in different Ghanaian vernacular languages. The conversation ranged from the politics and economic situation in the home country, to the probHow Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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lem of layoffs and immigration in the United States, and talk about family and the like. Those who needed to leave right away were given packages of food to take with them. The whole atmosphere was one of laughter, excitement, and joy. For a while everybody seemed to have forgotten about the world outside and its problems.

Deliverance Services41 Services like this are occasionally organized by the PCGNY. It requires a deliverance specialist or one who is gifted in healing and exorcism to lead the service. Such people are not easy to find among Ghanaian Presbyterians in the United States. Indeed, there have been occasions when deliverance services organized by the PCGNY were led by special guests invited from Ghana. Second, it is difficult to incorporate a deliverance service into a normal Sunday service, since it requires a longer period of time. Deliverance services feature very prominently in worship services in Ghana, particularly among the Pentecostal and African Independent churches.42 It is considered a form of spiritual healing which employs “exorcism” to free the individual from not only physical illness but, more importantly, from negative spiritual forces which are disrupting his or her life. “Deliverance” in Ghanaian parlance refers to holistic healing, one that involves physical healing as well as protection against witches, evil spirits, and demons.43 The principal idea behind deliverance is that devilish spirits are capable of thwarting a person’s progress in life. The problems facing the person include addiction, barrenness, repeated miscarriages, nonachievement of goals, financial loss, terminal and chronic disease, untimely death, and so on.44 Such misfortunes befall a person notwithstanding the fact that he or she has been converted to Christianity. A person may unknowingly be under the sway of any one of a myriad demons or fallen angels who inhabit rivers, mountains, rocks, trees, and other natural places.45 Such a person may have inadvertently “opened a door” for the demon(s) to enter his life. This can happen through diverse ways, including involvement with occultism, secret societies, eating contaminated food, engaging in incest, or having sexual relations with an agent of the demon. Demonic attacks are also said to be the result of a curse (either against an individual or his or her family), a family or personal deity, and the like.46 In order to free a person from demon possession, “a special man of God” is needed who can diagnose, cast out, and bind the demon, thereby setting the possessed person free.47 96

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The worldview behind the deliverance phenomenon is akin to that which undergirds indigenous African healing practices. In both cases, healing is premised on the belief that the world is full of malignant spiritual forces that seek to destroy humans or impede their progress. To overcome these forces, one needs to tap into the power of a superior force or being. Backed by the power of God or gods, the priest or diviner or deliverance official, as the case may be, can reverse the actions of these forces in people’s lives. The pastor or deliverance official therefore plays a role similar to that of the priest or diviner in African traditional religion. What is sought in both cases is not merely the alleviation of physical pain but total redemption from all life-threatening forces. From October 30 to November 1, 2003, deliverance services were held in the church. A two-member deliverance team made up of Mr. Abboah Offei, a catechist of PCG, and Rev. Charles Ahwireng, a senior clergyman of PCG, led the services. The two had come from Ghana via London where they had organized similar services. They had come for what they called “Mission 2003,” planned by the Akuapem Presbytery of PCG. The purpose of the mission was twofold. First, it was a response to numerous invitations from the Ghanaian churches in the United States for deliverance services, and second, it was a fund-raiser to collect funds for the building of another campus for the Presbyterian Church of Ghana University. As a member of the team put it, they had come “to bless the churches in America with the spiritual gifts God has given us at home, so that you can bless the home church with some of the financial resources God has given you.” By the time the team held its deliverance service at the PCGNY, it had already held ten such services elsewhere in the United States. Not all of these were Ghanaian Presbyterian churches. Some were Pentecostal churches and others were non-Ghanaian congregations. At the PCGNY, five deliverance services were held in three days. The morning services began at 9 a . m . each day and ended around 3 p. m. After a short period of rest, the evening services began at 6 p. m. and often continued until midnight. Between fifty and one hundred people attended the services on each day. About 70 percent of them were members of the church while the rest were either members of other denominations or non-churchgoers. People came with different concerns—seeking help to deal with illness, financial problems, immigration problems, marital problems, infertility, depression, and other personal matters. On November 1, 2003 I arrived at the sanctuary of the Mount Morris Ascension Church at 10 a . m . to find some members and nonmembers of the PCGNY waiting for the deliverance service to begin. I was ushered into the pastor’s office, where the deliverance specialist was engaged in a “counselHow Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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ing” session. He sat directly opposite a middle-aged man and listened to him attentively as he spoke. He rose to welcome me and asked me to join him. I drew a chair and sat beside him. The “counselee” then resumed his story. After a lengthy narration often punctuated with sighs and sobs, he exclaimed, “papa sre awurade ma me, na mebre” (Sir, plead to God on my behalf, for I am weary). The gist of his story was that he had been an accounting officer at a financial institution. Through some mistake on his part the institution lost money and fired him. At the present time, the matter was in court. Since he had no job, he had fallen behind on the mortgage payment on his house and was on the verge of losing it. The deliverance specialist held his hand and prayed for him. He then assured the man that he would be “restored” and would not lose his home. After he had left, another person was called in. This was a twenty-fouryear-old woman who was born and raised in the United States by Ghanaian parents. The deliverance specialist asked her name. Emily, as we shall call her, narrated her story as follows: For the past eighteen months I have been having nightmares in my sleep. During the daytime I experience depression—which makes me hate to do anything or associate with anybody. I often consider life not worth living. During this time I have not been able to work well and have therefore been fired from three jobs. I have been to see different doctors and have been given antidepressants but I see no improvement.

The deliverance specialist then asked her a number of questions, particularly about her sexual relationships: D.S .: Are you married? Em ily: No, but I have a boyfriend. D.S .: Do you want to get married anytime soon? Em ily: Yeah! D.S .: Are you making any plans toward the marriage? Em ily: Not really, my boyfriend is not serious about it. D.S .: How many boyfriends have you had prior to this one? Em ily: [hesitantly] About eight, maybe more, I can’t remember. D.S : Have you been sexually molested by anybody before? Em ily: Yeah, I never knew till three days ago when my mum told me that a relative sexually molested me when I was young. I am so mad at him and also at my mum for not telling me earlier, so I could confront him. 98

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On receiving this unexpected personal information, the deliverance specialist, like a researcher who had suddenly found the clue to resolving an elusive problem, exclaimed, “Yes!” He explained to Emily that her woes were related to, and in fact stemmed from, her childhood molestation. According to him, the sexual molestation “opened doors,” that is, it paved the way for demons to attack her. This initial demonic attack had led to a chain of events. It had given the demons the opportunity to control her life, particularly her sexual life. The demons were responsible for her inability to have a sustained and meaningful relationship with a man that would lead to marriage. This was the reason for her depression. Consequently, Emily needed deliverance from her oppressive demons. First and foremost she needed to be “born again,” that is, she needed to repent of her sins, ask for forgiveness, and accept Jesus as a true and personal savior. The deliverance specialist asked Emily to pray for forgiveness. He asked her to hold onto his wrist while he prayed for her. Then he asked me to stand behind her and be ready to catch her since she might fall. No sooner had he begun to pray than Emily began to spin round. I grabbed her in order to prevent her from falling. Together, we laid her on the floor. Members of the church’s prayer group (who were assembled outside the room) began to sing a Twi song, which is sung in many churches in Ghana: Yetia obonsam so o! Yetia obonsam so (We have trampled the devil, we have trampled the devil) Yehuru ako soro yetia obosam so. (We have jumped high and trampled the devil) Yetia obonsam so o! Yetia obonsam so (We have trampled the devil, we have trampled the devil) Yehuru ako soro, osoro, osoro yetia obonsam so (We have jumped very high up and trampled the devil)

As we all sang, prayed, and “cast out the demons,” Emily rolled, kicked, and screamed intermittently as she lay on the floor. This continued for about fifteen minutes until suddenly Emily kept quiet and stopped moving her body. She appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Prompted by the deliverance specialist, we said a prayer of thanksgiving, which concluded the “ministration.” After about five minutes, Emily woke up and got up from the floor. She appeared confused at first and then began smiling. The deliverance specialist scheduled another appointment with her and her mother for the following day and asked her to join the main service in the sanctuary. How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song? PCGNY: An Overseas Mission

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Mother’s and Father’s Day These are two services that have been adopted by the PCGNY. While some Ghanaian churches have begun to celebrate these events, it is certainly not a widespread phenomenon. In fact, PCG congregations do not celebrate them at home. The closest similarity one may find in congregations in Ghana is the celebration of Men’s Day and Women’s Day. These celebrations are organized by the Men’s Fellowships and Women’s Fellowships, respectively, to highlight their activities and generate funds. The two sets of celebrations are therefore different in essence and purpose. The celebration of Father’s Day and Mother’s Day by PCGNY is the result of American influence, as Americans make these two days into a great deal. On Mother’s Day the men in the church show their appreciation to the women for their important role as mothers. The entire service— hymns, songs, sermon—is directed toward the praise and encouragement of women in general and mothers in particular. Moreover, the men provide gifts, such as headgear, picture albums, and cooked food for the women in the church. The reverse is generally the case on Father’s Day, when the women do similar things for the men. They also bring food for the men and little gifts such as tie-pins, studs, and so on. It is exciting to see the men and women try to outdo each other in the show of generosity and appreciation. This raises some questions about changing gender relations and the role of women in the church, which will be examined in chapter 6. These services point to a number of important issues. First, they indicate that in large measure the Ghanaian worldview continues to survive and in fact underlies the worship and programs of the church, even though many of its members—particularly its leadership—have been in the United States for many years, some as long as thirty-five years. Second, they point to the attempt by the church to replicate the programs and worship services of the mother church. The pastor of the church explained the relevance of this replication as follows: Many of us have been used to worshiping this way for many years. Moreover, since we are a part of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, we do not want to vary the pattern of worship too much. This is because when our members go back to Ghana and attend services there they must be able to fit in. Likewise, when people come to our church from Ghana, they should feel at home. 100

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Another member, a forty-year-old woman had this to say Our services remind me of home (Ghana). Every Sunday when I come to church, I feel as if I were in Ghana. This keeps me from longing too much for home. The service, particularly the singing and dancing, also helps me to deal with stress and boredom.

One member of the junior youth, a boy of about seventeen who was born in the United States and has visited Ghana only once in his lifetime, had a different view when asked about his impressions of PCGNY’s worship services: Well, I like the music and the food (usually served after special services) but I can’t understand many of the things they say in church. Believe me, I listen but I can’t understand. I like our group (Junior Youth) meeting better.

This young man raises important intergenerational issues which I will discuss in chapter 6. However, it is clear that the church offers a majority of its members a sense of identity and continuity with their past which helps them in their adjustment as immigrants. The services also indicate that though the church tries hard to preserve and reproduce the services of the parent church, it has also necessarily incorporated into its worship life aspects of the social and religious life of the society in which it is situated. A look at the history of its formation, membership, organizational structure, and the nature of its worship services reveals a church that belongs to two worlds—the African and the American. Though geographically sited in America, like its members the church has an African soul. This is reflected in the rituals of the church and the worldviews which drive them, as well as the ritual languages. There is every indication that the Ghanaian immigrants in PCGNY seek to hold onto their Ghanaian cultural identity and at the same time adapt to conditions prevalent in their host country. Like many immigrant churches in the United States and elsewhere, PCGNY therefore serves as a center where the tension between conservation and adaptation of cultural values is played out. We shall see more of these tensions and attempts to resolve them as we discuss the relationship between spirituality and identity in chapter 7.

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The Compound House

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Communal Life and Welfare

A Birthday Celebration This was a great day for Kofi. He was celebrating his fiftieth birthday. Actually, he was fifty-one years old and celebrating the birthday a week before his actual birth date, which was September 7. He was not able to celebrate his birthday “in grand style” the previous year for two reasons. First, he had not saved enough money for the celebration, and second, several congregation members had had various celebrations during the summer of the previous year and had filled up all the slots on the church calendar before Kofi could settle on a date. For many church members, summer is the perfect time to have parties and other celebrations. They therefore try to schedule birthdays, weddings, funerals, and other events between the months of May and September. Several Sundays before Kofi’s birthday party, announcements were made during worship services informing members of the venue and time. The information was also printed in the church bulletin. Kofi and his family had a lot of preparation to do before the target date. Since Kofi lives in New Jersey, much of the preparation, such as the renting of space, preparation of food, and procurement of drinks was done with the help of Kofi’s friends and family who lived in New York City. Many of them were members of the church. The birthday party was to take place at the Wilson Major Morris Community Center at 459 West 152nd Street in New York City. The center, like many others with large halls in New York City, provides space for the use of African immigrants for a fee. The rental fee for the use of the hall, which has a seating capacity of five to seven hundred persons, was $700. This is obviously a good source of income for the owners of the halls. I had been invited to join Kofi and his family to celebrate the occasion and also say the “opening prayer.” To avoid being stuck in traffic and even more 102

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important, to secure a safe place to park, I left my home in New Jersey at 7.30 p. m. and arrived an hour before the party was scheduled to begin. According to the invitation, it was to begin at 10 p. m . When I arrived, I found only a handful of people in the hall—mainly those who had come to set the place up.1 After an hour or so, the hall began to fill up with members from the church and other Ghanaian and African associations. As is typical of Ghanaian gatherings, most people wore African attire. Others were dressed in suits and other Western-style clothes. The hall was soon filled with festive joy and exuberant laughter. People exchanged greetings with handshakes and hugs. Some people conversed in small groups, while others danced to Ghanaian popular music playing in the background. Appetizers were served as we waited for Kofi to arrive. Two hours passed. At midnight the master of ceremonies (MC) brought the music and dance to a halt with an announcement: “Friends, the moment we all have been waiting for. Here comes Kofi.” Kofi and his wife Akua entered the hall, while all gathered around to welcome them. Both were gorgeously dressed in Ghanaian outfits: Kofi was in kente and jumper while Akua wore a kaba and slit. As the couple walked elegantly into the hall, all who were gathered stood up in their honor. They walked in regally, receiving cheers from the gathering. They waved, acknowledging the cheers as they danced to their seats. They sat together with close family members, friends, and some leaders of the church and the Ghanaian community at the head table. I was called upon to pray for the party, which was scheduled to formally begin at 12.30 a.m . This was followed by a welcome, introductions, and announcements from the MC. The MC read Kofi’s biography, beginning with his birth and childhood in a small village in the Eastern Region of Ghana, describing his days as student and later as an agricultural extension officer in Ghana. In the early 1980s Kofi left Ghana for Liberia, a West African nation which at that time had a booming economy. He left Liberia when civil war broke out in that country, and arrived in the United States in 1986. In the United States he took courses in shipping and accounting, and worked with many different companies in a variety of capacities. He was currently a private contractor with the FedEx Corporation, a worldwide delivery corporation. The purpose for this biography, according to the MC, was twofold. First, he wanted to give members of the church, friends, and colleagues the opportunity to know more about Kofi, and second, he hoped to encourage the younger generation and new immigrants to work hard to achieve their lives’ dreams and goals. After the MC had delivered his speech, Kofi gave a short speech of his own thanking everyone who had gathered together for honoring him. The Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare

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This was followed by eating, drinking, and dancing. Various kinds of Ghanaian food were served with drinks. Much of the music played was Ghanaian Highlife. Intermittently, the MC interrupted the music and dance to announce donations and presents that the guests had given Kofi. The party finally ended around 4 a . m . This celebration and others soon to be discussed are part of PCGNY’s welfare programs. They are organized to build community and to honor the individuals or families hosting the celebrations. The role of the church is to provide moral support and mobilize financial and material resources (through individual contributions) for the celebrants. The celebration of birthdays seems to be more important among Ghanaians in the United States than among those in the home country. For members of PCGNY, each birthday is marked with joy—those celebrating birthdays offer a “thanksgiving offering” which is announced to the congregation during worship service. The celebrants are asked to stand for prayers to be said on their behalf. Also, the entire congregation sings “happy birthday” for them. Birthdays for people aged fifty and above—particularly sixty, seventy, seventy-five, and eighty— are considered very important landmarks in members’ lives and are celebrated in grand style. Most birthday celebrations are hosted by church members who were turning fifty. Many people said that by fifty one had reached a time in one’s life when one’s hard work could be expected to bear fruit. At fifty, one’s children were likely to be in or out of college and one’s job(s) or investment(s) may be yielding dividends. The fiftieth year also marks the climax of a person’s youthful and robust life. After fifty, one generally begins to experience a gradual decline in health, energy, and physical beauty. It was therefore a time to celebrate and look back on one’s achievements. Birthday parties are not a common feature of church life in Ghana. Though some members of the home church who have the means organize birthday parties from time to time, congregations are seldom involved in such celebrations. In Ghana, members of PCG congregations join fellow members in the celebration of their birthdays and even donate money, time, energy, and other essentials toward it. As institutions, however, churches play a minor role in the organization of such parties, as compared to what pertains in PCGNY. Many good reasons can be adduced to explain the different levels of involvement. The most compelling reason is that unlike in Ghana, where a person benefits immensely from the support and help of the larger family (both immediate and extended) in organizing birthdays, in the United States, one can count on just the immediate family and perhaps one’s friends for such help. The PCGNY therefore acts as a surrogate family that provides the necessary help and support to its members. 104

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A fiftieth-birthday celebration

In this surrogate family, the pastor serves not only as the “a minister of word and sacrament,” but also assumes two other complementary roles. He acts as both the surrogate head of family, abusuapanyin, and head of household, ofiewura. Both roles require of the pastor the ability and willingness to provide guidance in theological as well as cultural matters, and also to have the leverage and knowhow to resolve or at least mediate in the many individual and family conflicts within the church. Such conflicts sometimes involve people who do not physically reside in the United States.

Community The promotion of harmonious community life remains one of the most important concerns for Ghanaian churches in the diaspora. This is evidenced by the emphasis congregations such as PCGNY place on virtues such as hospitality, generosity, unity, and harmony to promote community building. As a sociological concept, community defies a single definition. In our context, community refers to group life organized around common norms, values, and goals. The group shares common resources, and members interact with each other. Ghanaian belief suggests that a person derives his or her personhood from both God and the community. This notion is well expressed in the popular The Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare

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Akan proverb, “When a person descends from the heavens [is born], he or she descends into a human society.” Ghanaians therefore understand community as an organic whole of which the individual is a part. The community sustains, guides, and protects its members and through its norms, values, and traditions defines their individual statuses and roles. It also provides the context within which a person is socialized. Within the community, people are expected to live cooperatively. N. K. Dzobo puts it this way: “The individual’s being emerges from a prior social whole, which is truly other; it comes into being for the sake of him and exists for his development and growth. Hence an individual who is cut off from the communal organism is nothing.”2 The importance of communal life to Ghanaians and Africans in general is not a new subject. It is in community, it has been argued, that an individual finds the fullness of his or her being. Through interaction and interdependence the individual becomes socialized. Mbiti’s much-quoted statement, “I am because we are, and since we are therefore I am,” describes this interrelatedness. We should note, however, that the communities that Mbiti and others describe differ in some respects from religious and cultural communities of PCGNY and other African congregations in the diaspora. First, those communities, unlike the African immigrant communities, are organized within shared geographical spaces. Also, membership is not voluntary. Individuals are born into them. Though they may leave, they do so at the risk of being isolated. The community of PCGNY, however, is not geographically defined and is also highly voluntary. Nonetheless, this typically African understanding of the relationship between the community and the individual stands in opposition to the individualistic ethos of many Western societies, particularly the United States.3 Commenting on the relationship between the individual and the community within the context of the conflict between liberty and authority, Peter Paris writes: In short, the modern Western world gradually became heir to a tradition that is greatly suspicious of every form of external authority. Western philosophy, theology, and political science, whether liberal or conservative, are replete with thought that elevates the importance of the individual above the community. Although this tradition has been a corrective for all systems that diminish the value of individuality, it in turn has spawned many unresolved problems that can be helped by those whose traditions view community as the fundamental condition for personhood.4

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“Compound House” versus “Self-Contained (Condo)” Communities Ghanaians who migrate to the United States and other Western countries have a different understanding of community from what they find in their respective host countries. The difference between Ghanaian immigrants’ sense of community and the one they are confronted with in American society is best explained by means of two images well known to many Ghanaians. These are the compound house understanding of community as against a selfcontained (apartment) or condo sense of community. A compound house, in Ghanaian parlance, refers to a house shared by two or more families. The families may either be blood relations or, as is often the case, tenants who are unrelated. Such a house often has a large compound whose use and upkeep is shared by all inhabitants. While each family has exclusive use of the bedrooms and living rooms they occupy, bathrooms and kitchens are shared. Facilities such as tap water, lights, and so on are also used on a cost-sharing basis. The common use of bathrooms and kitchens depends on the number of tenants in the house and other variables such as whether or not the landlord or landlady lives with the tenants in the house. For instance, five families living in a house with two bathrooms will share both bathrooms. But if the house owner happens to live in the house with the other tenants, he will have one bathroom to himself and his family, while the other families use the other. Life in a compound house has three crucial features which relate to our discussion. The first is a sense of shared ownership. Even though the owner (or the owner’s representative) makes the final decisions regarding structural changes to the house, all who live in it have a say in the day-to-day running, particularly as it relates to community life in the house. Second, there is a sense of shared responsibility. Both the owner(s) and tenants are responsible for the upkeep of the house and the community within it. The third, and perhaps most important, is “nonavoidance.” Members of the household cannot avoid each other. They must necessarily interact with one another, some more closely than others. Just as the use of spaces and facilities is shared, so also is the responsibility for cleaning and maintaining the common areas of the house. Thus, at a mimium the occupants of the house have to meet from time to time to discuss and apportion responsibilities. Such nonavoidance often fosters communal, and sometimes familylike, relationships among the residents. Of course, nonavoidance also means that conflicts arise from time to time. The Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare

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The self-contained apartment or condominium (or condo, as it is commonly called in the United States) on the other hand, refers to an individually owned unit of real estate. Generally, it is meant for the occupation of one person or one family at a time. Consequently, there is relatively little interaction between families living in different condos. There is no sense of shared ownership and responsibility, since each family is confined to its own space. There is therefore avoidance between families. This means that there is little interaction and fewer conflicts between families living in a condominium complex. The lack of interaction also results in boredom and loneliness. For many Ghanaians who come to the United States, particularly those who have never lived in a Western country, community life in America and its attendant individualism are a rude shock which they interpret as selfishness and a lack of concern for the other. Like other immigrants, the biggest challenge Ghanaians face when they first arrive is a sense of displacement coupled with alienation. As indicated in chapter 2, members of PCGNY and Ghanaians in New York are spread out in different areas of the city. Some live in suburbs, whose population is overwhelmingly white. Living in such neighborhoods, they feel like they are living in condos where there is very limited interaction between families. The church provides a semblance of the “compound house” community many seek. Many people told me stories about their experiences and especially how their membership of PCGNY had helped ease their sense of loneliness and isolation. Some, who lived in suburbs with no other Ghanaians or even Africans nearby, were able to get in touch with and network with other Ghanaian individuals and associations. One person was reunited with family members he had not seen in a long time through the church. A couple of people also found and married their spouses through the church. One member of the church who lives in New Jersey, is also a member of a Presbyterian Church of USA (PCUSA) congregation. Since the mid-1990s he has attended worship services with the congregation in New Brunswick on Sunday mornings and driven to New York in the afternoon to worship at PCGNY. He told me he had joined the New Brunswick congregation some years before the PCGNY was formed. Though he was happy at his church in New Brunswick, he found the community life of PCGNY so warm and helpful that he decided to be part of it. He is not the only member of PCGNY who is also a member of a PCUSA congregation. Esther, the clerk of session of the church, for instance, is a member of the Mt. Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church. So is Eugene, the Director of 108

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Finance for the church, who is an ordained elder of a PCUSA congregation in Connecticut. They had both been members of their respective congregations long before the formation of PCGNY. Though they have friends and “wonderful colleagues” in these churches, they described the PCGNY community as “home away from home.” Aside from providing the space and the opportunity for persons to interact and link up with others, PCGNY assists members in numerous other ways, particularly during birth, marriage, birthday celebrations, bereavement, and other crises.

Welfare Services The church has a Welfare Committee set up expressly for the purpose of catering to the welfare of the congregation. The pastor of the church compares this committee to the seven-member committee appointed by the early disciples to “serve tables,” that is, to facilitate the sharing of food among the widows.5 The job schedule of the Welfare Committee included planning visits to the sick, collecting and collating information and scheduling celebrations for birthdays, naming ceremonies and the like, reviewing benefits or donations to be paid out to members, receiving donations from members and presenting them to the appropriate people, and so on. Members of this committee are selected from all the church groups and they meet at least once a month. Celebrations or ceremonies planned for each month are printed in the “events” column of the church bulletin and also announced to the congregation several Sundays preceding the events. The most frequent events are “outdooring,” that is, the naming ceremony, birthday parties, and funerals. In what follows, I describe some of the events in which I participated.

Naming Ceremonies Naming ceremonies (abadinto), referred to in Ghanaian parlance as “outdooring” (a translation of the Ga word kpojiemo), are a common feature of Ghanaian cultural life. A traditional ritual which has defied Western missionary attacks, it is practiced with modifications by Ghanaian Christians. The essence of the ceremony is to confer a name upon a newborn child and to celebrate his or her birth. Following tradition, the head or a respected member of the lineage or clan to which the child belongs must perform the naming ritual. Over the years, however, the incorporation of this ritual into the church has meant that pastors and church elders have also performed The Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare

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this role. In the United States, the Ghanaian churches have come to represent lineages or clans, with the pastors representing “family heads.” On February 21, 2003, the pastor and some of the church elders traveled to Princeton, New Jersey, a distance of about sixty-five miles, to perform the naming ceremony for my child. Despite the heavy rain that morning, about twenty other members of the church joined the pastor and elders for the ceremony. Many of them as well as my family were dressed in Ghanaian attire. Among the other guests were friends and family, some of whom had come from as far away as Boston, Massachusetts. The ceremony began with prayers and then the amaneebo, that is, an explanation of the purpose of the ceremony. The baby was then handed over to the pastor who in turn asked the parents and godparents of the child as well as elders of the church to join him as he performed the ritual. Holding the baby on his left arm, the pastor said a few words of welcome to the baby and then announced the name that was being conferred on him. He then addressed the baby thus: “You came into this world on Tuesday, so we call you Kwabena.6 Also your parents are naming you after your grandfather, that is, your father’s father and so we call you Ohene B---. Your full name is Kwabena Ohene B--.” With a spoon the pastor then fetched a drop of plain water from a glass and put it on the baby’s tongue, and said: “Kwabena, this is water. If you see (taste) water, say it is water.” Then following the same manner the pastor put a drop of salt water on the baby’s tongue and said once again: “Kwabena, it is salt that you taste in this water. If you see (or taste) salt, say it is salt and nothing else.” The purpose of this part of the ritual, as the pastor explained during the ceremony, was to point out the importance of truth in life and also to instill in the child from the very beginning the virtue of truth-telling in life.7 After this, the pastor gently lowered the baby and slightly touched him to the floor three times, saying, “Kwabena, we welcome you! This is the earth, on which we live, we welcome you! This is the earth on which we depend, we welcome you! Live with us on this earth.” The naming ritual, which lasted for about ten minutes, concluded with a prayer for the child and our family. The next part of the ceremony, as the pastor put it, was for “merry making.” Before the ceremony began, assortments of prepared Ghanaian food and drinks had been brought by my family, and also by friends and members of the church. These were served out to all the assembled guests. The rest of the ceremony was devoted to eating, drinking, and chatting. At this time, individuals and the church made donations to the family. 110

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Funerals As I have indicated earlier, another lifecycle occurrence that prompts the church’s involvement in the lives of its members is bereavement. During my research two members of the congregation died while many others lost family members both in the United States and in Ghana. These deaths were announced during worship services and members were asked to call or visit the bereaved families to offer their condolences. Almost every Sunday, flyers announcing the funeral celebrations of members’ relatives are passed round. It has become customary among Ghanaians in the United States to organize funerals for their dead relatives in addition to the funerals held for them in Ghana. The most important reason for this trend is that due to immigration issues some of the bereaved are unable to travel to Ghana to pay their last respects to their dead relations. Organizing a funeral in their honor in the United States, particularly if it is in honor of one’s mother, father, or very close relation, helps to reduce the pain and sometimes the guilt of the bereaved. Even when members of the church travel to Ghana to bury their dead relatives they still organize funerals, memorials, and thanksgiving services for their loved ones upon their return to the United States. Such funerals and services offer friends and sympathizers the opportunity to mourn with the bereaved. During funerals, members of the congregation give monetary donations to the bereaved in order to help defray the expenses. This is a common practice in Ghana. Originally (and even now), paying for the funeral expenses of a deceased person is considered the primary responsibility of his or her family. However, because Ghanaian churches are considered to be their members’ extended families, they have come to play an important role in providing financial and material resources toward members’ funerals. I personally have witnessed, in Ghana, churches taking full charge of organizing and paying for the funerals of their deceased members. This is also the case in PCGNY. However, this practice seems to have been abused. Some members of PCGNY complained that some congregants were taking undue advantage of this privilege. I learned that in order to raise money through the funeral donations, some people had resorted to organizing the funerals of very distant relatives, some of whom had been dead for several years. Indeed, the Welfare Committee of the church took note of this problem and decided that the church would help only when a member lost his or her parents, spouse, or child. In each such case, the church would help to organize the funeral and would make a financial contribution toward its cost. The Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare

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Offering libation at a funeral

In all cases of death, however, the pastor consults with the bereaved family regarding what their plans are. The family may decide to send the body of the deceased to Ghana for burial (that is, if he died in the United States).8 If so, the pastor of PCGNY will write a letter to the pastor and session of the deceased’s home congregation, informing them of the death. He will also inform them of the deceased’s membership status and ask for their help in giving him or her a fitting burial. This arrangement is similar to what happens in Ghana when a member of the PCG dies outside his or her hometown. The general practice in Ghana is for the family of a deceased person to bury the deceased in his or her hometown even if the deceased had not lived there for the greater part of his or her life.9 In such a case, the pastor of the deceased’s current congregation has to make arrangements for burial with the pastor of the church in the deceased’s hometown. The procedure for such an arrangement is just like what has been described above, except that in this situation plans are also made for a delegation from the deceased’s current church to participate in the funeral. The pastor of the current church may, for instance, preach at the funeral. 112

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If the deceased person is buried in the United States, the pastor officiates at the funeral. The burial service may take place in a funeral home or on church premises. After the burial, the family of the deceased gathers in one of the church halls or in some other public hall they have chosen for the funeral. Members of the church generally join the family to mourn their dead and make some financial contributions toward the cost of the funeral. On the Sunday immediately following the burial a thanksgiving service is held for the deceased. I recall the funeral of the late Clement, husband of a prominent member of the church, in November 2001. Even though I had then not begun serious study of the church, I attended the funeral due to the family relationship I share with the deceased’s wife. About eighteen months after the funeral, when I had started my research, I spoke with his widow on a number of occasions. She shared with me the details about the role played by the church in the organization of her husband’s funeral. The deceased was a Methodist but often attended services at PCGNY with his wife Angelina. In fact, over the years he virtually became a member of the congregation. His death in October 2001 was therefore seen as a great loss to the church. Soon after news of his death got around, Angelina recalls, several members of the church called at their home to sympathize with her. Some people visited and brought her food, beverages, and other basic necessities. According to Angelina, the pastor and four presbyters of the church visited her a day after the death of her husband and among other things pledged to help her organize a befitting burial for him. On the scheduled day of the funeral, about two hundred people, made up of family, friends, and fellow church members, gathered in the sanctuary of the Mount Morris Ascension Church clad in either red or black attire. Red and black clothes are generally associated with death and disaster in Ghana and are therefore worn during funerals.10 Those present had received news of Clement’s death through announcements made at the church weeks earlier and from flyers for the obituary, which were circulated through Ghanaian ethnic associations and shops. Before the service began, a casket containing the mortal remains of the deceased was set in the center of the sanctuary. At about 5 p.m., family members, friends, and well-wishers filed past the casket as they paid their last respects to the deceased. Many broke into tears, some wailing loudly. I observed a woman of about sixty standing beside the casket and singing a dirge in praise of the deceased. This is typical of all “normal” funerals in Ghana.11 In Ghana the body of the deceased is normally laid in state for public viewing at the deceased’s personal or family home throughThe Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare

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out the night. During this time of “wake-keeping,” the family and friends of the deceased and other well-wishers mourn the deceased until the morning. Since 1998, however, the home church has officially banned wake-keepings.12 Since then, many church members have allowed public viewing of their deceased relatives in the morning, before burial.13 Even though the PCGNY does not necessarily adhere to such a ban, the legal and social conditions regarding funerals in the United States impose limitations on what can be done during funeral services. The general atmosphere in the sanctuary during the funeral service was one of solemnity and reverence. The service consisted of hymns, Bible readings, tributes, and a sermon, all of which aimed at consoling the family of the deceased. After the funeral service, the body of the deceased was sent back to the funeral home to await its flight home to Ghana for another funeral and internment. After the service, the family and friends of the deceased and well-wishers gathered at the social center of a nearby Methodist church for what one of them called the “actual” funeral celebration. I got to the center at 11 p. m . The mourners were in black and red clothes, which, as noted above, are the traditional colors for mourning in Ghana. The widow was seated at one end of the hall, sandwiched between two elderly women, the ayipasohene or chief mourner, elders from both the widow’s family and that of her deceased husband, and the church leaders. These were the organizers of the funeral and therefore the ones that everyone who entered the hall made sure they shook hands with, except for the widow.14 Family members, friends, and well-wishers were also seated on chairs arranged in a horseshoe pattern. The gathering was by far less formal than the funeral service. People in the room exchanged greetings and chatted with one another. Drinks, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, were served together with spicy kebabs. Aside from these, candies, pastries, and an array of Ghanaian food were also served. There were few signs of mourning. This was in sharp contrast to the atmosphere in the sanctuary a few hours earlier where weeping, and the singing of hymns and dirges had been much in evidence. Here, there was eating, drinking, and dancing. This is typical of contemporary funerals back in Ghana. Funerals have become occasions for both mourning and feasting: for grieving the departure of a loved one and the celebration of life.15 In the midst of the drinking and dancing, it was announced that four persons had been designated to receive donations on behalf of the widow and the bereaved families. I followed several others to the corner of the room and gave my donation. At about 2 a . m . I left the hall for New Jersey, where I live. 114

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As I was leaving, many more well-wishers were coming in, for the funeral was to continue until 4 a . m . Though the central purpose of this funeral was to honor the deceased and console the bereaved family, it was also a social occasion, an opportunity for members of the church and other members of the Ghanaian community to meet with one another. Sociologically, therefore, the funeral—like others organized by the church from time to time— created the space for socialization among members of PCGNY in particular and Ghanaians in New York City in general. Not all funerals lead to greater internal cohesion and bonding. Some have the opposite effect. In August 2003, a forty-one-year-old member of the church, Kwasi, died. His parents and other family members officially communicated news of his demise to the church leadership and arrangements were made for his burial. It was decided that a funeral service would be performed in the church sanctuary, after which the body would be sent back to the funeral home for burial the next day. The funeral service began soon after the body had been brought into the sanctuary. Hymns were sung and verses of a scripture were read before the pastor began preaching. From the very beginning of the service, I observed that the program was being followed with a certain urgency that was not typical of Ghanaian funerals. Later, I learned the reason for the rush. Barely ten minutes into the sermon, a number of policemen accompanied by the American wife of the deceased, and four men who I later learned were pallbearers from a funeral home, entered the sanctuary. The service was interrupted while the policemen spoke to the pastor and some leaders of the church. After a few minutes of discussion, the service was stopped and the pallbearers carried away the casket containing the remains of the deceased. Astonishment was written all over the congregants’ faces, as they wondered what was happening. We watched in utter disbelief as the casket of the deceased was carried away. The hitherto solemn service was thrown into confusion. People broke up into small groups and talked about what had just happened. Many, particularly the family members, were angry that the wife of their “son” had prevented them from giving him a befitting burial. “Okani baa biara nni ho a obeye eyi” (no Akan woman would do this), a woman shouted angrily from among the crowd. For her and others, the incident confirmed their conviction that marriage between persons from different cultures, particularly between a Ghanaian man and an American woman, was a recipe for trouble.16 More importantly, the woman’s statement points to the serious repercussions such a disruption would have had if it had occurred in Ghana. Among many ethnic groups in Ghana, particularly among the Akan, The Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare

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a deceased’s kin in principle have far more control over his or her funeral arrangements than the spouse and children. In fact, in this case the father of the deceased or his representative would have been in charge of the funeral and burial. In practice, however, the responsibility for the funeral is always shared between the extended and nuclear families of the deceased. Though differences between the immediate family and the lineage of a deceased person regarding his or her funeral arrangements are not uncommon in Ghana, it is inconceivable that the wife of a deceased man can disrupt her husband’s funeral in this manner. From all indications, this case represented a deviation from the norm with regard to church members’ funerals. First, the wife of the deceased was not a member of PCGNY, while the deceased, his parents (then deceased), and siblings were. According to informants close to the family, when Kwasi died his wife and parents had a disagreement about how his funeral should be organized. While his brothers wanted the funeral to take place in the church sanctuary, his wife wanted him cremated without a funeral. The two parties compromised, agreeing that the deceased would be sent to the church for a short funeral service after which he would be sent to the funeral home. The funeral at the church exceeded the two hours agreed upon, thus prompting his wife to interrupt the service. Such occurrences are rare in the church but when they do occur they threaten the church’s cohesion and community life. This in turn causes congregants and the church as an institution to make new adjustments to accommodate the realities of American sociocultural life. My purpose in describing these ceremonies in such detail is to give the reader a sense of some of the specific ways in which the church is involved in what many Americans may consider the “private” lives of its members outside the formal worship setting.

Extending and Expanding Community Immigrant communities appear to be closed communities, which is why scholars have called them “ethnic enclaves.” It is true that immigrant religious congregation like PCGNY have a tendency to be clannish. This is because the norms and values which guide their community life emanate from and are identified with particular cultures and traditions. But immigrant churches are not the only ones whose communities are closed. As many studies have shown, all American congregations are by and large exclusive.17

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Thus, Stephen Warner points out that “the prototypical local religious form in the United States is not the (inclusive, geographically delimited) ‘parish’ but the (exclusive, culturally distinct) ‘congregation.’” According to him, new immigrant groups are only “acting consistently with this expectation.” Most congregations in the United States are by shape and orientation niche congregations that target particular segments of the population based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or denominational affiliation. In doing so, they close themselves off to others. PCGNY makes no apologies for its distinct culture. In fact, both the leaders and the members are aware that the congregation’s Ghanaian Presbyterian culture constitutes its main source of attraction. This has always been used as bait for drawing Ghanaian immigrants to this particular church rather than other Presbyterian Church of USA congregations. Despite this, members are not oblivious of the need to extend their fellowship and community life beyond the boundaries of the congregation and to be receptive toward people from different cultures. A clear indication of this awareness is members’ attitude toward persons from other countries and cultures. The church tries to expand its community in three main ways—by accepting non-Ghanaian and non-Presbyterian persons as members; by extending its services to individuals and groups who are nonmembers; and by maintaining close relations with other Ghanaian, African, and African American groups. During my visits to the church, I saw hospitality extended to the nonGhanaian spouses of some members and to other Africans and Americans who periodically came to the church. On such occasions the use of indigenous Ghanaian languages in formal worship is reduced. In deference to nonGhanaians much of the worship is conducted in English. Marriage is thus an important way by which the church opens not only its doors, but also its community to others. During the course of this research I met a married couple in the church who belonged to different faiths—a Christian and Muslim. In my conversation with them I learned that the wife, a forty-seven-year-old woman who had been a Christian all her life, fell in love with her husband, a fifty-one-year-old practicing Muslim and they were married in the church about three years prior to our meeting. It was a great surprise to me that the church had accepted this marriage, much less blessed it. I could not think of any circumstance under which this would happen in the home church. This was a departure from the attitude of the home church toward marriages involving those they refer The Compound House: Communal Life and Welfare

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Ghanaian traditional rulers at a worship service at the church

to as “nonbelievers.” The 2000 constitution of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana states, “Marriage with non-believers shall not be encouraged (vide 2 Cor. 6:14).” Further evidence of the PCGNY’s attempts to expand its community, or at least its influence, beyond its members is its relationship with Ghanaian ethnic, hometown, and other associations. These associations are essentially cultural and social groups who promote the interests of their particular ethnicities, towns, or regions. They spend much of their time fund-raising in support of projects back in Ghana, and fostering fellowship among their members. During my research I became aware that there was a close working relationship between the PCGNY and many of the eleven or so Ghanaian ethnic associations. Leaders and members of the congregation belonged to a number of associations such as the Okuapemman, Okwawu, Akyem, Ewe, and Ga-Adamgme. On several occasions announcements about the activities of one of these associations were made during worship services. Also, members often attend association meetings right after church services. 118

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Conflicts and Tensions within the Community Like all communities, PCGNY is not without its share of tensions and conflicts. Conflicts arise when needs or values are, or are perceived to be, in opposition. Conflict within groups or associations is evident from the disagreements and tensions that arise between individual members or interest groups within the larger group. Major conflicts within PCGNY often stem from disagreements about leadership, the observance of particular worship practices, and the role of the youth in the congregation. As indicated in chapter 3, disagreements over the appointment of the pastoral leaders of the church have by far generated the greatest conflict in the church. This may continue for a while since a clear process of appointing pastors to the church has still not been laid down. Another crucial cause for tension is differences between the first- and second-generation members of the church. Although this tension has not bubbled to the surface yet, at least not in the discussions of adult members, yet I believe it is simmering and could erupt into open conflict at any time.

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Conflict and Cohesion

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Gender and Intergenerational Relations

“I wish our men were a bit romantic and considerate. Some are too steeped in the customs of the past. They want to dominate at home and even here in the church. My husband, for instance, wants me to cook, wash the dishes, and do the laundry all the time even though we both work long hours each week at our respective jobs.” (a forty-year-old Ghanaian woman) “Our women easily forget who they are as soon as they get here. When they are in Ghana, they are so obedient and respectful but get them over here and they want to ride you like a donkey! They won’t even cook at home and when you ask them to, they will arrogantly say, “Do you want to control me just because you paid for my flight to the U.S.?” (a fifty-two-year-old Ghanaian man)

Community life within the PCGNY is characterized by both cohesion and conflict. Central to this dialectic are the relationships between men and women, and also those between the young and the old. The nature of these relationships often reflects the cohesiveness or chaos inherent in the congregation. More often than not, whether or not harmony is maintained in the congregation is partly related to the apportionment of roles and the way power and authority are shared between and among the different genders and age groups. As indicated in the excerpts quoted above, the challenges of gender relations among members of the church and Ghanaian immigrants in general are related to the changing social roles of men and women as well as children. These role changes, soon to be discussed, create new and different expecta120

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tions which, if not met, generate friction. Though the quotations above do not tell us much about gender roles within the church, they provide us with useful background for understanding some of the attitudes in the church. Interestingly, my conversations with members revealed the desire on the part of both genders to let go of some aspects of Ghanaian culture while holding unto others. What they often disagreed about were the particular aspects that needed to be discarded. I discovered that they engaged in selective use of the home culture. Appropriation of the American culture was also done selectively.

The Role of Women The role of women within immigrant congregations must be seen against the backdrop of the feminization of migration to the United States. Since the nineties we have seen a steady growth of women migrants to the United States. Numbering about 9.1 million in 1990, women constituted about 46.7 percent of the immigrant population; this number rose to about 55.4 percent in 2000.1 These percentages generally reflect what is happening in the Ghanaian immigrant community. Out of a total of 8,195 Ghanaians awarded legal permanent residence in 2008, 4,104, that is, more than 50 percent, of them were female. The females range from children under eighteen to women over sixty. One implication of the large numbers of women migrants is that immigrant religious congregations often have more female members than men. At PCGNY, it is impossible to miss the visible female presence when a person enters the worship service and other gatherings. Upon entering the sanctuary during worship service, one or two women are sure to meet you, give you the bulletin for the service, and usher you into the sanctuary. As the choir sings and enters the sanctuary from a makeshift vestry, the visitor would very likely notice that at least two-thirds of the choristers are female. This can be said for almost all groups. Even the Men’s Fellowship had two women “members.”2 In essence, women not only outnumber men in the PCGNY, but they are also very involved in the structure and activities of the church. Their larger numbers, however, do not necessarily translate into greater administrative power in the church. Studies on immigrant religious communities have pointed out the subordinate status of women in immigrant congregations. Commenting on the role of women in thirteen immigrant congregations they studied, Helen Ebaugh and Janet Chafetz indicate: Conflict and Cohesion: Gender and Intergenerational Relations

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In none of the congregations we examined did women perform the role of head clergyperson. In only one (the large, multi-ethnic Protestant church) was a woman employed who was an ordained member of the clergy. In [a] majority of cases, women are officially barred from ordination as clergy by religious doctrine. In addition only one lay board/ council had ever been chaired by a woman (the Chinese Buddhist temple). In short, men run the spiritual and administrative affairs of all thirteen religious institutions. However, in almost all cases at least a token number of women are involved in formal congregational roles, including the leadership positions, many of which do not even exist in their counterpart institutions abroad.3

The situation at the PCGNY is much more complex than what is described above. Ebaugh and Chafetz’s general assessment that men are in charge of the spiritual and administrative affairs of many immigrant congregations is largely true of the PCGNY, but the dynamics are in many ways different. First, like its parent church, the church’s policies and doctrines permit the participation of women at all levels of church government and leadership. Though the church has had no female pastors since its formation, this is not due to any conscious effort to bar women from being ordained as clergy in the church.4 When I began my research, the Session, which is the governing council of the congregation, was made up of eight elected leaders, of which two were women. This was an underrepresentation of women considering the fact that women make up over 50 percent of the church’s population. The leadership of the church itself was not unaware of this imbalance. The pastor lamented the fact that fewer than half of the Session members were women. He noted, however, that since membership of the Session was through election rather than by appointment, many women would have to consent to being nominated and voted for. To correct the imbalance he intended to adopt a quota system during the next election so that at least four positions would be reserved for women.5 The views of many of the women I interviewed on women’s role in the congregation were quite varied, as reflected in the following comments:6 “I am aware that only a few women serve on the Session but I am not bothered by that. We women play several key roles in the congregation. The clerk of the Session is a woman. We don’t feel left out.”

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Women dancing during offertory time

“It would have been fair if men and women were equally represented on the Session. But many of us women don’t want to stand for election. I personally prefer to teach the Junior Youth group. Also, the Session meets on a weekday when I have to work. And they spend too many hours during their meetings. I have to take care of the children and make sure they do their homework and prepare for school the following day.” “The men have monopolized the Session. They don’t want others, particularly women, to also have a turn in serving as leaders. Take for instance Messrs X, Y, and Z. They have been on the Session for several years—ever since I joined this congregation. Somehow they always get to be on the Session.”

If there was one thing both men and women could agree on and complained about regarding the leadership of the church, it was that certain people had served on the Session for far too long. They wanted to see change. A few of Conflict and Cohesion: Gender and Intergenerational Relations

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A section of the Women’s Fellowship at worship

the women were prepared to serve on the Session and were planning to seek nominations in the impending elections. Some of the men also felt that the underrepresentation of women on the Session was unhelpful, but they were quick to say that there was no deliberate plot to keep women out. Though women in the church are poorly represented on the governing council of the church, the case is different when one looks at the “spiritual” leadership. The list of lay preachers in the church revealed that half of them were women.7 Preaching by laywomen is a common feature of the congregation, just as it is of its parent church. Indeed, the preacher for the 2003 Father’s Day celebration was a woman. The women in the church were very active in different areas of church life. Women were represented on various church committees such as those for welfare, worship, and harvest. They were also represented and served as leaders in all the church groups with the exception of the Men’s Fellowship. Most members agreed the Women’s Fellowship of the church was one of the best organized groups in the church, far more organized than the Men’s Fellowship. 124

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Gender Relations Generally, the relationship between women and men, at least during the period of my research, was cordial. The two sexes sat and mingled together during worship services and at other social gatherings. This serene atmosphere, however, is only part of the picture! Behind the scenes and under the surface were serious issues of cultural adjustment, especially in relation to the change in gender roles, that were causing estrangement in some families. Through informal conversations and gossip I heard many stories about husbands and wives cheating on each other, cohabitation, the insubordination of children, problems of family reunification, and the like, some of which I narrate below: Mr. X arrived in the United States in 1988, leaving behind his wife and three children. When he left home, the three children were ten, eight, and five years old. For over ten years he tried unsuccessfully to secure legal permanent residence, or a “green card,” for which reason his family could not join him. Frustrated by this long separation between himself and his family, he paid a male American citizen (not a member of the congregation) ten thousand dollars to “marry” his wife so she could migrate to the United States. Eventually, his wife and children—who were now teenagers—arrived in the country. They were all issued with green cards and had permanent residence status. Mr. X, however, remained “undocumented” and lived and worked with an assumed identity. Though he lived together with his family, his wife, Mrs. X, was officially called Mrs. Y. The plan was that, after his wife became a U.S. citizen in about three or four years she would seek a divorce from her surrogate husband and legally marry Mr. X. Once that happened, Mr. X would become a permanent resident. But it was not to be. A couple of months after the wife and children arrived, the family could not get along. The kids had hardly known the father and could not bond well with him. They always took the side of their mother against the father and the two disagreed on many issues. Then the wife got a job as a home health aide and was often out of the house. One day, Mr. X, who works with a security company, got mugged when returning from work. In his scuffle with the robbers they hurt his lower back so badly that he could not stand on his feet for a long time. He was, as a result of the back injury, laid off from his job. He stayed at home and took care of Conflict and Cohesion: Gender and Intergenerational Relations

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the household chores while his wife was the breadwinner. Soon after this, according Mr. X, his wife became very disrespectful toward him, insulting him over the least disagreement. “She treated me like a doormat,” he said. Eventually, he could not bear the insults and mistreatment any longer and left home to live with a friend. Mr. X is still an “undocumented alien” after over two decades’ sojourn in this country. He is separated from his wife and sees his children once in a while. Several times during our conversation he would burst out: “She [his wife] is ungrateful! Our wives are ungrateful!”

Here is another story I heard: Mr. Z came to the United States in 1986. In two years he succeeded in getting a green card. Five years later, his wife and ten-year-old son joined him. They lived together peacefully for the first year. By the second year the wife had found a job at a shop and was therefore earning some income. Then began the trouble! She would spend all that she earned on shoes, dresses, bags, and so on. This became a source of worry for Mr. Z and in fact a source of constant conflict between the couple. While Mr. Z wanted her to help pay the bills, she argued that she didn’t have to. Mr. Z was the man, according to her, and had to provide for the family as he did when they were in Ghana. Several attempts to get her to understand that life in America was different and that it would take two incomes for them to survive, did not work. In addition to this, Mrs. Z began a romantic relationship with another man. She would from time to time leave home to be with this person when the husband had gone to work. Eventually she asked for a divorce and the marriage was dissolved.

And here’s another story: [Like the two men mentioned above] Mr. A left his family in Ghana and came to the United States. His wife joined him after six years. During these years he had married an American citizen and it was through her that he acquired American citizenship. They later divorced. His wife in Ghana not only knew of this arrangement, but agreed to it since that was the surest and fastest way her husband could become a U.S. citizen. He was very happy when his wife arrived. Prior to her coming, he had purchased a home and had a good job. All was well a couple of years after the wife arrived. Things changed when the wife, according to Mr. A, became greedy. “She would sacrifice everything for dollars,” he said. The two began 126

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to quarrel constantly over money because Mrs. A refused to disclose how much she earned from her job and would always depend on her husband for money. Mr. A had to work two jobs and therefore spent long hours away from home. Because of this Mrs. A accused him of cheating—that he was having a romantic relationship with the former wife. These issues led to several quarrels. One day Mr. A left home after a quarrel and returned only to discover that the locks to his home had been changed. Furious, he banged on the door and shouted at his wife who was inside the house. A few moments later, the local police arrived and arrested him for abusing his wife. He could not believe the wife he had worked so hard to bring into this country would call for his arrest. When they divorced, the wife got to keep the home Mr. A had bought.

The women had their own stories to tell too: Miss B came to the United States when she was eighteen years old. She studied and trained to become a registered nurse (RN). She married a man from one of the Caribbean countries and gave birth to a son. For some reason, the marriage fell apart; they divorced not too long after the baby was born. Then in her thirties Miss B went home to Ghana and reconnected with an old high school sweetheart. Soon they got married and the man joined her here in the United States. A year or so after her marriage, she discovered that her husband had lied about the number of children he had—he had four other children (from two women) besides the two he had told her about. But that was the least of her problems. Her husband always insisted that Miss B must cook and do all the household chores. Moreover, he was abusive and exploitative. He virtually lived off her income since he could never keep a job. Instead of working, he would drink and entertain friends at home. This was too much for Miss B so she threw him out of her home. Now she feels she still needs a husband, but is wary of Ghanaian men.

Mrs. C also had a story: She and her husband had been in the United States for over twenty years and were American citizens. At a point in their marriage, her husband suggested that they divorce so that each of them could “marry” one of their siblings and help them migrate to the United States. At the time, the proposition sounded reasonable so she agreed to it. She wanted to sponsor her brother but that would take about ten years. The fastest way to get Conflict and Cohesion: Gender and Intergenerational Relations

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him here was to “marry” him. She and her husband then divorced legally but continued to live together as a couple. Little did she know that her husband had other plans. Soon after the divorce was finalized, he started making plans to marry a woman he had been courting for some time in Ghana. Their married life deteriorated suddenly, as her husband showed little interest in it. Mr. C eventually married the other woman and brought her to the United States to the chagrin of Mrs. C. Since Mr. and Mrs. C were divorced, no legal action could be taken against him.

Such were the painful stories I heard. These stories, and others not narrated here, reveal two important issues. First, they show how migration complicates the relationship between men and women, and often distorts marriage and family life among African immigrants. In the United States, the fastest way to secure permanent residence is through marriage to a citizen or a permanent resident. Many immigrants, eager to get green cards either for themselves or for family members, sometimes engage in marriages of convenience. In the process, some get swindled or marry persons they do not really love. During the research, I became aware of a deep cynicism toward marriage among both men and women. Three single women I spoke to were all very suspicious of the motives of the men they were dating. So were a few young men. They wanted to be sure the women they were dating were not “gold diggers” or marrying merely for the sake of getting green cards. The crucial question for many—both men and women— was whether to marry someone from the African immigrant communities or from outside. Second, gender roles change when immigrants come to the United States. This is how one member explained it: One thing I have noticed is that when a husband and wife come to the United States the wife gets a job first. In many cases the women even get better paid jobs. This often reverses the power dynamics in the marriage. The African man wants to maintain the leadership position as the breadwinner and head of the family but often, since the woman may be the breadwinner or contributing substantially to the family budget, she demands a greater say in the final decisions of the family than she had before. This often creates problems in marriages. I have seen beautiful Christian couples whose marriages have almost ended in divorce after just six months of being in the United States.

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Men preparing to serve food during a Mother’s Day celebration

According to this informant, women seek greater autonomy and independence from the patriarchal and hierarchical home culture as a result of their changed economic circumstances. Though the correlation between women’s job opportunities and their autonomy is hard to draw, this is the explanation that is proffered by many immigrants, particularly men, as the reason for gender role changes.8 What is not often factored into the debate are the legal and social protections America offers women. One of these is the law in many states regarding who gets to live in the matrimonial home, at least temporarily, when the married couple are separated. I also heard casual comments such as, “Our men are not romantic,” and “Our men don’t buy us flowers,” from some women. While these comments may be considered frivolous, they point to expectations that first-generation immigrant men in the church may find new, but must live up to. Not all the stories I heard were tragic, nor were all the men and women cynical about marriage. Some of those interviewed spoke glowingly about Conflict and Cohesion: Gender and Intergenerational Relations

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their marriages and specifically about the role their spouses had played and continued to play in their lives. A seventy-year-old woman recalled how her husband, now seventy-five, had to work a number of jobs while she took care of the children. Now their five children were all “highly paid professionals.” A number of times during the research, I witnessed couples celebrating their wedding anniversaries. Others celebrated the birthdays of their spouses.

Reproduction and the Subversion of Culture The general scholarly verdict is that immigrant women play a vital role in the reproduction of the home culture.9 Through the performance of their roles as wives and mothers, it is said that they reproduce their culture. Thus, cooking foods native to the home country, nurturing children, dressing in native attire, teaching the youth at church, and so on, provide avenues through which women teach the second generation about the traditions and customs of the home country. This was true of the women at PCGNY. Nonetheless, I found something more—that the women not only reproduced the home culture but paradoxically, they also subverted it, or at least were quick to modify it. I observed that the women adapted more quickly to American sociocultural life than their male counterparts did and were therefore faster at effecting cultural change. While I would need to do more in-depth analysis to prove my hypothesis, some of the evidence I gathered during my research points in that direction. The first element of this adaptation process that I noted was in the area of dress and fashion. Though the women congregants often wore traditional Ghanaian clothes like kaba and slit to church on Sundays, they were more attuned to the latest American fashions and wore other forms of clothing to church and at community gatherings. Not only do they purchase these fashionable clothes for themselves, but they also do so for the children, particularly their daughters. At a church picnic, for instance, I observed some women of the church wearing denims, pencil skirts, and anklets. Even more surprising to me was the fact that a few middle-aged women and a number of younger women had tattoos on their bodies. Others had pierced noses with rings in them as well as several earrings. Body piercings and tattoos are considered culturally unacceptable by many Ghanaian Christians. Another area of adaptation is in the use of American English and colloquial expressions. Generally, Ghanaian immigrant women, particularly those 130

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Church picnic at Westport, Connecticut

with a formal education, are able to learn or mimic American ways of speaking faster than their male counterparts. This was also the case in PCGNY. Not only do the older women adapt more quickly, but they also assist the younger ones, sometimes against the wishes of the men, in their appropriation of American popular culture. Through conversations with some of the youth and young adults in the church, I learned that generally their mothers were more open to, and supportive of, their having proms and “sweet sixteen” celebrations than their fathers. Also, two young adults who had got married during the course of my research revealed to me that their fathers were very much against their marriage to non-Ghanaian men while their mothers were in favor. In many ways, the tensions between American popular culture and Ghanaian culture often generated disagreements between married couples and especially between parents and their children. More often than not, such disagreements and other family palaver spilled over into the larger congregation. In such cases, the pastor of the church and other leaders tried to intervene and resolve the problem. Conflict and Cohesion: Gender and Intergenerational Relations

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The Second Generation One of the major challenges facing adult members of the church is how to keep their children and grandchildren in the church and, even more importantly, how to train them to fit into American sociocultural life and yet not lose their identity as Ghanaians. For many of the second generation, this attempt at keeping a tenuous balance between adaptation to American life (whatever that may be) and the maintenance of Ghanaian identity is stressful, confusing, and frustrating. The frustration begins with trying to define who they are. Their struggle revolves around whether they should define themselves as African American, Ghanaian, or Ghanaian American. While the easiest way to be classified would have been “African American,” they are fully aware of the restricted way the designation is used—to refer to the descendants of African slaves in America. Also, they sometimes face objections from their peers when they indicate that they are African Americans. Kobe, an eighth grader in one of New York City’s public schools, told me that he was “shouted down” one day by his African American friends when he called himself “African American.” They saw him as an immigrant from Ghana even though he is a U.S. citizen by birth. Others, such as Gee, did not want to be called African American. They preferred to call themselves Ghanaian American. They said they hoped to avoid the stigma associated with being African American. What they did not realize was that no such category exists in American social classification. Others simply referred to themselves as Ghanaian. Another said, “I am an American but my parents are from Ghana.” Scholars have noted the fact that nativity patterns often affect the selfidentification of the children of immigrants.10 The youth of the church, generally referred to in this chapter as the second generation, are made up of two groups—those who are citizens of the United States and those with green cards (permanent residents). Based on their immigration status, then, those with green cards are Ghanaians. Furthermore, even among the U.S.-born citizens some have lived in Ghana for several years and identify equally with Ghana and the United States. Whatever their classification, almost all of them tried to avoid being seen as “foreign born.” They spoke and behaved in ways that would help them blend into American social and cultural life. The church, one of them told me, was one place they felt less peer pressure.

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“Vitamins” I attended youth meetings in the church three times during the period of this research—in August 2003, May 2004, and January 2005. The average number of people at these meetings was twenty-five. I sat in on two of the meetings to observe the proceedings, and had a discussion with the youth during the third one. All of the youth I met indicated that they understood at least one Ghanaian language, while about 80 percent said they could speak a Ghanaian language fairly well.11 Yet during their meetings and in my discussions with them, the majority of them spoke English. The few who spoke Twi interspersed it with English and mispronounced many of the Twi words. Generally then, these youth showed signs of an imperfect ability to speak Ghanaian languages. The meetings always began with a prayer, followed by a thirty-minute session called “vitamins time,” when every one of those gathered would share a Bible passage they knew or had read during the week and say what it meant to them. Other times the leader would lead a meditation on a passage of scripture. They also had conversations about how their week had been and would pray for one another. During my visit in May 2004, I arrived about twenty minutes before the meeting began. I sat in the classroom that serves as the usual meeting place for the youth. This was one of the classrooms for the preschool run by the Mount Morris church. As I sat on one of the small chairs in the room, the youth began coming in. They were between ten and eighteen. Some of the boys wore suits while others were in jeans. The girls also wore a variety of clothes, from dresses, to skirts, to jeans. They sat down without acknowledging my presence in the room. A few minutes latter, some more young people—three girls and two boys—came in. One of the girls who knew me mentioned my name and drew attention to me. The leader of the group, a twenty-year-old man, then entered. He greeted me and asked if I wanted to “share a word” with them. I greeted them and told them I was there to visit. The meeting began after the leader had said a prayer. Then it was time for “vitamins.” One after the other, each quoted a Bible passage he or she had read in the course of the week and what it meant to them. Many of the quotations were from the New Testament, particularly from the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Mark. Some of the youth did not know any Bible passages and were encouraged to study some passages for the next week. They then moved on to talk about a proposed trip. Conflict and Cohesion: Gender and Intergenerational Relations

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Youth group of the church, May 2004

During my meetings and informal conversations with them I found them to be very outspoken, and some were even abrasive. One of them, for instance, told me without any hesitation that she considered the adult members of the congregation to be hypocrites. “They tell as to do one thing,” she said, “and they do the opposite.” “They tell us, for instance, that we are the future of the church, but they pay little attention to our concerns and needs.” In another’s view, “Those upstairs [the adult members of PCGNY] engage in politics more than worship. They are always quarreling over things which don’t matter.”12 Such outspokenness and abrasiveness (when talking about matters of the church) is not typical of the church youth in Ghana. Indeed, I observed a contrast in terms of attitudes toward authority between the youth who had arrived from Ghana recently and those who were either born in the United States or whose parents brought them when they were very young. While those who had arrived from Ghana recently showed a great deal of respect for the church leadership and for adults in general, many of those who were born in the United States or came while they were young showed a general distrust and sometimes disdain for the leaders of the church. 134

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A member of the group who had just been elected to serve the interests of the youth on the Session raised certain fundamental concerns. He indicated that the church had no planned program for the youth nor did it make any budgetary provisions to cater to their needs. According to him, the members of the youth group often had to provide their own bottles of water, juice, and other everyday needs. Some of the youth said they preferred to stay at home over coming to church but their parents insisted that they come. Such insistence (by parents and other adult members of the congregation) on what the youth ought to do often generated misunderstanding between the first- and second-generation members of the church. The misunderstanding and attendant tension largely revolves around what each generation considers to be the good life and how one can attain it. For many parents, education, practical wisdom, discipline, respect, hard work, and moral and religious virtues are indispensable for the attainment of a good life and must therefore be instilled in their children at whatever cost. While the younger generation do not necessarily dispute the importance of these values, they believe that they have the right to determine for themselves how to attain them. They find their parents’ attempts to guide their lives too overbearing. Some also believe that their parents are not in touch with the realities of American life and that their counsel cannot be trusted on certain issues. During the research I heard some parents complain to the pastor about their children’s rebellious attitudes and asked him to intervene. One woman complained that her sixteen-year-old son refused to come to church with her. He had also begun staying out late and she was afraid that he was keeping bad company. Another woman, Mrs. A—whose twenty-one-year-old son, a college student, had died suddenly—lamented: “He used to come with me to church every Sunday and then all of a sudden he decided he was not interested in the church. He said the church services were boring. Now he is dead! The same church he did not like had to conduct his funeral.” The irony of the relationship between the two generations and the church is that the very things that the first generation cherished and which drew them to the church were the things that the second generation disliked, and which have caused them to stay away from it. The use of Ghanaian indigenous languages, for instance, that was crucial to the identity of the adults, was also that which estranged many of their children and grandchildren from the church. Also, sharing personal problems with one another with the intention of seeking or offering help, which the adults considered very important to their community life, was for the younger generation nothing but interference in people’s private lives. For many of the second genConflict and Cohesion: Gender and Intergenerational Relations

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eration, the issue of leaving or remaining in the church was just a small part of the larger problem of trying to negotiate two worlds—their parents’ world and their own contemporary one—in order to form their own identity. Adwoa, a fifteen-year-old girl, presented the problem as follows: My mum wants me to eat, speak, dress, and generally behave like her, when she was my age. But when I do that my friends and schoolmates tease and laugh at me. It’s like, I’m kin’ of, from Mars. She doesn’t understand, you know, that things have changed and we are in a different era. She doesn’t want me to have a boyfriend, she doesn’t want me to hang around with friends. I know she loves me and wants me to succeed, but she must let me have a life of my own.

How“her own” life unfolds is also of great concern to the parents. Mr. M—the father of two teenage boys—points out: My main reason for coming to the United States was to be able to take care of my family the best way I could. I want my boys to get the best education, so they can do something good with their lives. But look at where we live; look at what surrounds us—drugs, guns, crime. If I don’t protect my children from these, I will have toiled in vain. This is what they don’t understand. They want to have what they call “freedom.” Is “freedom” that leads to death and destruction really freedom? The Bible says, “Train a child the way he should go,” and that is exactly what I am trying to do.

Another member of the church had this to say: We are very concerned about the second and third generations. We look at the popular youth culture here and we are worried for our children and grandchildren. What we are doing is to have a Sunday school for the youth. During their meetings they are taught the word of God and also about good character. So far we have made an impact. They come to Sunday school, they are happy.

Such contrasting views between the first and second generations about the way the second generation should lead their lives generated friction at various levels. The church played a mediating role between parents and their children through the pastor and elders. Though there has been no open confrontation between the first and second generations in the church, the tension and misunderstanding between the two groups is palpable. 136

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Spirituality and Identity

Just before I began my research for this book, I received a letter from the secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana Overseas Mission Field.1 This was in response to my request for information about Ghanaian Presbyterian churches in the United States. The letter, parts of which I reproduce here, raised some important issues, which will set the stage for the discussion in this chapter. Dear Rev. B, As you are aware, the mainstream Presbyterian Church here in the United States is the PCUSA. Obviously, the doctrines that bind Presbyterians remain the same, but it is the role the church plays in the individual’s life that differs. In our case, the role of the church in Ghana differs remarkably with that of the U.S. churches. Notably, funeral responsibilities, newborn babies, birthday celebration—all of which finds itself under welfare—are very important church obligations. Here in the United States the churches play little or no active role in the death of a church member. However, in Ghana the church takes full control of the cost of the funeral.2 This is the outcome of the social structure of the United States and its laws concerning the church as a religious corporation and as a nonprofit organization. In your studies, you may want to look into this area very closely. The church registered under the authorities of the United States is limited under the statutes from offering help to their members. That makes it an uncaring church and a cold one, by Ghanaian standards. However, we must care. The scriptures enjoin us to care for the bereaved and the orphans and the widows. That is why some of us Ghanaians have found it imperative to stay away from the PCUSA and turn to their home |

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church—the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Under PCG, an opportunity exists under the umbrella of the Welfare Committee to cater for such activities. . . . In the years gone by when the white man came to Africa and realized we used drumming in all pagan worship, he dissuaded us from drumming during Christian worship. We could not even wear our native clothes to church. The person wearing the African cloth must leave his footwear at the door while those in a suit must keep their shoes on. We have come to realize that these were nonbiblical interpretations and have broken from our neck the yoke of bondage. Thus, when we came here [to the United States] we brought with us our freedom to worship in Spirit and in Truth. We worship with what we have; the variety of drums, which make specialized sounds, and we dance before the Lord. Thus by providing the “brand” of worship akin to the form of worship we left behind we inculcate in the Ghanaian the thirst for worship and a forum whereby he can continue to keep in touch with his or her roots. For those who were not active churchgoers, now find themselves in church. The memory of home becomes fresh in their minds. Salvation then becomes a by-product for the joy he or she receives on earth through the services of the church. Sincerely, EA Secretary Overseas Mission Field in North America

The writer of this letter is a naturalized American citizen who immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s. He used to be a member of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York before joining a group of other people to form another Presbyterian Church of Ghana congregation in the Bronx. In this letter, he distinguishes between Ghanaian Presbyterian congregations such as PCGNY and mainline American Presbyterian congregations, specifically those of the Presbyterian Church of America (PCUSA). His distinction is based not on “doctrine,” as one would expect, but, on the nature of community and the expression of spirituality within it. Both of these, he points out, shape as well as reflect Ghanaian Presbyterian identity. In effect, the writer highlights the importance of communality, identity, and spirituality to the members of the Ghanaian immigrant churches. This chapter will

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examine the nature of spirituality in this congregation. It will also attempt to assess how the congregation’s spirituality fosters communality and helps maintain or reshape its identity. To do this, I will examine some of the theological and ethical beliefs which underpin the church’s communal life and how these are expressed.

Spirituality Spirituality is not an easy term to define. Its meaning ranges from the very narrow and esoteric to the broad and general. In a narrow sense, it refers to matters of the spirit as opposed to material things. I use the term spirituality in the same sense as Peter Paris’s definition: “the animating and integrative power that constitutes the principal frame of meaning for individual and collective experiences.”3 Speaking about African peoples, Paris writes: Metaphorically, the spirituality of a people is synonymous with the soul of a people: the integrating center of their power and meaning. In contrast with that of some peoples, however, African spirituality is never disembodied but always integrally connected with the movement of life. On [the] one hand, the goal of the movement is the struggle for survival while, on the other hand, it is the union of those forces of life that have the power either to threaten and destroy life on [the] one hand or preserve and enhance it, on the other hand.4

The spirituality of a people, generally, derives from and is shaped by their apprehension of and relationship with cosmic forces they consider to be crucial to their existence. Among Africans generally, spirituality involves the fostering and maintenance of a harmonious relationship between humanity, on the one hand, and natural and supernatural forces such as God, the divinities, ancestors, and the environment on the other. African spirituality, which is often expressed through formal worship, prayers, songs, myths, art, names, and so on, has proved to be one of the most enduring aspects of African identity both on the African continent and in the diaspora.5 Throughout this research I realized that individual members of PCGNY and the congregation as a whole continue to hold firmly, sometimes unconsciously, to beliefs and values that are typical of Ghanaians in the home country. These beliefs and values are largely reflected in the theology, ethics, and communal life of the church. Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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Theology An essential part of a people’s spirituality is their theology. This defines and reinforces their sense of both individual and group identity. I use the term “theology,” in this context, to mean “the reflection on the self-disclosure of God in this world.”6 This, as John Pobee rightly points out, involves “the reflection and articulation by real human beings of their hopes and fears.”7 In this sense, theology does not refer merely to a theoretical “science” studied in seminary and university classrooms, the preserve of the few who have had the privilege of formal theological training and research. Rather, it refers to the practical application of a people’s understanding of a supernatural being, in this case God, to their day-to-day search for meaning in life. Insofar as theology essentially involves the search for the nature of God and God’s relationship with creation, it cannot, and ought not, to be the preserve of a particular race, culture, or class. The importance of religious beliefs and theological convictions in the communal and social lives of religious groups has frequently been noted by scholars. Among other things, a people’s knowledge and understanding of who they are in relation to who God is, greatly influences their sociocultural life. Max Weber attempted to show both in his The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism and its companion piece, The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism, how a people’s theological or religious beliefs can influence their social life. He argued, for instance, that the belief in the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, which postulates that God had already chosen those who would be saved in heaven and those condemned to hell, gave rise to an ascetic lifestyle among the Calvinistic Puritans. According to Weber, this way of life—that stressed discipline, hard work, and thrift, among other things—was instrumental in generating a new spirit of capitalism.8 Despite Weber’s controversial thesis, his general argument that religious beliefs influence communal and social life cannot be disputed. A practical instance of how theological beliefs shape a people’s sense of identity and also offer motivation and direction for communal life and social action is found in the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. King’s central concern for the creation of the beloved community stemmed from his theological understanding of the Judeo-Christian belief that God created humanity and gave every person His divine image. Thus, all human beings bear in equal proportion the image of God.9 God is love, King believed, and requires all creation to live in love and harmony. 140

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Lectern cover depicting African and Christian symbols

For immigrants, as Timothy Smith pointed out in 1990, migration is a “theologizing experience.”10 Religion becomes an essential means by which immigrants explain their new circumstances and deal with their new experiences. Based on this assumption that theology is vital in the immigrant community, I tried to identify the dominant theological beliefs that influenced the community life of PCGNY. My attempt was broad in scope. Aside from seeking information from written sources such as the church’s constitution, the manual of order and liturgy, and hymn books, I listened to twenty sermons preached by both clergy and laity on different occasions, reflected on the words of some of the songs sung and prayers said, and also engaged in discussions with a cross section of congregants on a wide variety of issues. It did not take me long to realize that two theologies coexist in the PCGNY, namely, the official theology, which I call “pulpit theology,” and “pew theology,” that is, the theology professed by congregants. Lay members of the congregation revealed profound theological insights to me during our conversations, though they had no formal theological training. In some cases, their interpretations and application of scripture were very pragmatic—far more in tune with the realities on the ground than the church’s official position. Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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The community life of PCGNY is characterized by an understanding of itself as Onyame (Onyankopon) asafo,11 the church of God. Pastors and other leaders of the church address the congregants as Onyame abusuafo, members of God’s family, or as Onyame adehye, heirs or royals of God, or as anuanom, brothers and sisters. Pastors of the church are referred to as papa, father. The pastor’s wife is mama, mother. This self-understanding of the church is an extension of that which obtains among PCG congregations in Ghana. Like its parent church, the congregation considers itself a part of the Reformed family. Many of the laity I spoke to, however, had little or no knowledge of what it meant to be part of the Reformed tradition, or considered it irrelevant to their day-to-day theological search for meaning. None of the lay congregants I spoke to knew much about John Calvin, John Knox, or the Reformation. In practice, the church generally holds on to many of the confessions and practices typical of the Reformed tradition. For instance, great emphasis is placed on the study and proclamation of scripture and on the doctrine of sin. Generally, I found a wide variety of theological views among the members of the church. Their beliefs ranged from the highly evangelical or pietistic to the very “liberal.” Despite the different theological viewpoints among members, I was able to identify certain theological beliefs that were central to the community life of the church.

Nyame Oboadee (God the Creator) A central theological motif reflected in many of the sermons, teachings, liturgy, and songs of the church as well as the beliefs of members is that God is oboadee, creator of the universe. During worship service on several Sundays, congregants sang the following song and danced to the beat of drums: Oboade Nyame ne wo (You are God the Creator) Wo nko na wo se ayeyi (You alone deserve praise) Wo nko na wo se ayeyi O (You alone deserve praise) Oboade Nyame ne wo (You are God the creator) Wo nko na wo se ayeyi O (You alone deserve praise)

The biblical view of creation, Diogenes Allen points out, constitutes the foundation of all Christian theology.12 The notion of God as creator of the universe has a long history. Early Greek philosophers such as Plato spoke about it. Throughout the ensuing centuries the idea has persisted despite countevailing treatises, particularly by modern philosophers. David Hume and Immanuel 142

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Kant, perhaps the two most prominent philosophers of the Enlightenment, argued that it was unnecessary to seek any external cause for the existence of the universe. Since the Enlightenment such arguments have undermined the biblical view of creation in the Western world. For PCGNY members, however, God’s role as creator of the universe was incontrovertible. One Sunday in spring 2004, I arrived at the church about forty-five minutes before the start of worship service. The doors to the church building had not yet been opened, so I waited outside. As I stood in front of the door, two members joined me. Two more arrived about five minutes later. They had come straight from their respective jobs. They worked in Manhattan on Sundays and therefore found it more convenient to come straight to church after work rather than going all the way to their homes in the Bronx first. One of the last two to arrive, Ofosu, told us about a near-death experience he had had that morning. He went on to describe how a driver with a stolen car nearly ran him over. According to him, he got out of the subway number 2 at the intersection of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. He then walked down toward 122nd Street and began crossing over to Mount Morris Park West. Just then a car crossed the traffic light, which was on red, and raced toward him. Two police cars followed in hot pursuit. At that moment Ofosu knew he faced death, for the car was coming directly at him. In a matter of seconds the car literally grazed him, missing him by no more than an inch. Ofosu was so grateful to God for the miraculous escape that he immediately thanked God: “Tweduapong nko the ogyee me fii owu ete see mu” (God the dependable one alone has delivered me from this death), he said. Ofosu’s story reminded me of similar ones I have heard in the church, especially during the time for “testimonies,” when members are given the opportunity to tell the entire congregation what they believe God had done for or with them in the preceding week or month. In many of these testimonies, God is revealed as the controller of human life and human destiny. For Ofosu and others to whom I spoke during the course of my research, because God is creator, he is in direct control of all creation—human lives, events, the future, and so on. However, they said that God shows more care and concern for those who worship him, he sustains and protects those who profess their faith in him and worship him. God’s sustenance and support, or “the hand of God,” as they put it, was evident in their migration to, and life in, the United States. Madam Amoakoa, a sixty-two-year-old woman, told me how God had intervened in her life to enable her to come to the United States: Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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I wanted to travel to a foreign country when I was young but I did not have the means. Though I always felt that an opportunity would come one day, I did not know when and how. When I married and started a family, all dreams about traveling outside Ghana disappeared. After many years, God’s plan for my life came to pass. One afternoon in March 1998 a friend stopped by my office to say hello. During our short conversation she told me about the U.S. visa lottery and gave me a form to fill and mail. I had heard that many people who applied annually for U.S. visas were often rejected, so I initially did not make anything of the suggestion. Later I decided to try. I filled the form, mailed it, and forgot all about it. Several months later, I received a letter informing me that I had been selected to receive a U.S. migrant’s visa. I followed through with the process and finally came here with one of my granddaughters. Since our arrival in this country God has seen us through many difficulties and blessed us. I believe God, who brought us here, will see to it that we prosper.

For James, a veteran of the Ghana Armed Forces, not only did God bring him into the country but he also “created him anew.” This is part of his story: Though I used to drink alcohol in Ghana, it became a dangerous habit when I arrived in this country. I became an alcoholic. Indeed I kept on abusing alcohol till I became seriously sick and also lost my job. My condition became desperate. No amount of advice from my family and friends could convince me to give up my drinking habit and I did not want to join Alcoholics Anonymous. A friend then invited me to attend this church. With prayers and counseling from the pastor I was gradually able to quit the alcohol abuse. Through the providence of God, I regained my strength and dignity. Moreover, I found a new job that pays more than the one I lost. I am a happy person now and so are my wife and my children. My life is now a testimony to many. I tell all those who care to know that God has created me anew. I intend to remain in this church and help in whatever way I can. For it is through this church that God turned my life around.

The liturgy for Sunday worship gives worshipers the opportunity to make personal and intercessory prayers. At such times, individual members are invited to pray to God regarding specific issues listed by the liturgist. Such prayers are said extemporaneously and out loud. These prayers always reflect the congregants’ strong belief in God as creator, sustainer, and controller of 144

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human life. During one worship service, the liturgist asked that prayers be said for the political leaders of both the home country Ghana and the United States, for those in the congregation who were facing problems with their immigration statuses, those seeking jobs, and those having marital problems. On another occasion the prayers centered on the safety of children, particularly the Ghanaian second generation, the sick, and the bereaved. The intensity of these prayers is punctuated by resounding “amens” of approval, indicating the congregants’ strong belief in God’s ability to accomplish what they asked of him. A prayer said by a seventy-year-old woman during a Sunday service caught my attention. She prayed in Twi: Onyame deefoo, yeda w’ase (Majestic God, we thank you) Tete ntredee Nyame , Yeda w’ase se w’ama adepa be akye yen (God of ages, we thank you for today) Wama yen aduan adi, wama yen nsu anom (You have given us food to eat and water to drink) wama yen mframa pa ahome, yeda w’ase (You have given us good air to breathe, we thank you) Otwereduapong, y’ahyia ha de yen abisade reba wanim, Awurade (Dependable One, we have come into your presence with our requests) Yemu bi hia adwuma, Awurade (Some of us here need jobs, Lord) Yesre wo ma yen adwuma nye (Please give us jobs) Obooadea, wo boo w’asaase maa nnipa nyinaa na wo yee se obiara tumi tena babiara; wamisa pasepoto ansa na woma ye baa wiase (God the creator, You created the world for all people that we may live in any part of your world; you did not require us to have passports before bringing us into this world) Nanso nnipa ayemunwono ene koma den nti ene nnipa ntumi ntena babiara kwa (But due to human wickedness and hardheartedness, people cannot live anywhere they choose peacefully) Awurade, yen mu bi hia krataa a ye de betena krom ha, enti ma yen bi (Lord,some of us need immigration documents to live in this country, please provide us with these) B’rekyirihuade, wo a wo ye ade nyinaa, wo na de yen aba America man mu ha (One who sees into the future, you have brought us to America) Yen asetena wo ha beye yie, efi wo ara (The success of our lives here depends on you) Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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Yesre wo ho yen mmobo na yen asetra nye yiye (We plead for your grace and mercy, let our stay here be prosperous) Yi yen fi oyare ne mpatuwuo mu (Protect us from sickness and premature [accidental] death) Yi yen fi amanenyasem mu. Mma aban mfa yen dedua (Protect us from getting into trouble [with the law] and don’t let us be taken to jail) Hyira, hyira, adwuma ye ye so na enye yiye (Bless the work we do and let the work bring prosperity) Obaatanpa, hyira ye mma ne yen mma nana (Good mother, bless our children and grandchildren) Ma wonsua adea; wonko college na wonye adoktorfoo, loyafoo ne anwuma akese akese (Let them be studious, let them study in colleges, and become doctors, lawyers, and other noble professions) Won a waye aso brakye no, Awurade sakra won koma na ma wontie won awofo asem (Change the hearts of stubborn children and let them obey their parents) Obonsam nwuma biara a wahye hye ama yen mu biara, yesee no wo Yesu din mu. (In the name of Jesus, we destroy all the evil plans the devil has made for each one of us) Awurade, hyira yen nne ne daa nyinaa, Yesu din mu nti, Amen (Lord, bless us today and forever in the name of Jesus, Amen)

This prayer was said with intense passion. Some members of the congregation showed their approval of her prayer and urged her on with cries of “Yes!” “Amen!” and other exclamations. Two points need to be made here. First, the prayer clearly touched on issues that resonated with many of the congregants; in fact all Ghanaian immigrants have faced issues such as the need for protection, proper immigration documents, jobs, and so on. During my research, I learned of the immense anxieties that the process of acquiring visas, green cards, and citizenship creates for the Ghanaian community. Other worries include finding and retaining jobs, keeping children in school, exercising parental control, and keeping away from gang violence and drug addicts, who often live in the same neighborhoods. As the prayer quoted above shows, the congregants believe that God is capable and willing to help them deal with these problems. The second interesting thing about the prayer is the use of the many honorific names for God. These come from indigenous Ghanaian religiocultural expressions. Names like oboadee (creator), Tete ntredee Nyame (God of old who has existed since time immemorial), and Twereduapong (the depend146

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able one)13 are Akan expressions used in traditional Ghanaian worship which have found their way into Christian worship. The use of these and other honorifics, which are typical of African churches, points to two notable features. First, it points to the continuity between the African religious worldview and Christianity about which many African theologians—notably John Mbiti, John Pobee, Lamin Sanneh and Kwame Bediako—have written extensively. Second, it underscores the fact that members’ apprehension of God depends not only on the biblical account of God’s relationship with the universe but also on indigenous Ghanaian worldviews. Curious to find out what role the Bible plays in the congregants’ belief in God as creator, I spoke with fifteen members of the church about the Genesis accounts of creation. About 80 percent of them believed, without question, that God created the world just as described in the Genesis account(s). The others, however, were skeptical about the historicity and accuracy of these accounts and questioned aspects of the creation stories. Maame Ama A., a fifty-year-old woman, wondered whether it was possible for two people, Adam and Eve, to be the progenitors of the entire human race, made up of different peoples of different colors and so on other physical features. For Yaw, a twenty-eight-year-old man, the importance of the stories lay in their social and political implications for life. He indicated that what the creation accounts told him was that Africans—and for that matter all peoples— were of the same essence. Referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other such conventions, he said: I wonder what would have been the fate of us Africans if the notion that “all human beings were created equal”—a notion derived from the biblical account of creation—had not gained acceptance in international circles. We probably would still be slaves and subjects of the colonialists. I strongly believe that God created all people in his own image and therefore all are equal. That is one sure reason why we Africans should not belittle ourselves and allow other peoples, particularly those who consider themselves to be racially superior, to trample on us.

As indicated earlier, a majority of the members of this congregation believe strongly that God created and controls the universe and all that is in it, including human lives. Not only do members of the church believe that God created the universe but they also believe that God controls it and directs the affairs of humanity. However, members differed about the extent to which Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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God controls human life. I discerned three trends from my discussions with congregants. One view, which is largely deterministic, holds that God has a predetermined plan for every human being that is essentially good. In order to follow the blueprint of his or her life, each person must worship and be obedient to God’s will, and the guidelines of how to do this are spelled out in the Bible. Another viewpoint, diametrically opposed to the above view, and held by fewer members of the church, is that God does not control human life. Instead, God has given all humans free will to act in whatever way they choose, and also adwene (sense) and nhumu (discernment) to distinguish right from wrong. For those who were of this view, occurrences in human life stem from human action. Whatever happens in a person’s life here on earth and in the hereafter is the result of the choices that person makes. A third view, one that is held by many of the congregants I spoke to, may be called “moderate free will.” According to Mr. Ohene, a fifty-five-year-old man whose comments clearly summed up this view, God created the universe and continues to sustain it. However, God does not control every detail of day-to-day human life. Like those who adhere to the second view, he maintains that God has given each and every individual the will to act freely and so a person’s life largely depends on the choices he or she makes. However, according to him, God can, and in fact does, intervene in people’s lives from time to time either to correct their way of life or save them from danger. In spite of these differences of opinion about how God relates to human beings, there is general consensus among members that God’s preference is for the poor and dispossessed. This is the central message of most Liberation theologians. This was clear from some of the sermons and discussions about God. However, these sermons—unlike Liberation theologians who often sharply criticize rich and powerful nations for neglecting the poor—focused on God’s promises of hope to the poor and needy. Salvation from God was seen as essential to human prosperity.

Salvation Church members’ understanding of salvation is a curious mix of orthodox Christian thought and Ghanaian religiocultural ideas. The concept of “salvation” is used in Western Christianity, particularly among Protestants, in reference to Christian conversion and belief. This largely New Testament understanding of salvation refers to human redemption from sin and damnation resulting from the vicarious death and resurrection of Jesus. To be saved, therefore, one must be “born again”: a process that involves repen148

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tance and renunciation of sin, baptism, and a commitment to live one’s life in obedience to the will of God as taught by the church. This notion of salvation emphasizes the present and also anticipates a future time when full salvation will be attained after the second coming of Christ. Though members of the PCGNY generally hold this understanding of salvation, my conversation with members indicated that the majority had a holistic view of salvation— one that takes into account both the spiritual and the physical needs of a person. For many of the members, salvation involves more than merely seeking to enter heaven. It also involves redemption from life’s negating forces such as evil spirits, poverty, misery, barrenness, disease, calamity, and death. In the members’ view, a symbiotic as well as causal relationship exists between salvation from sin and salvation from life-threatening forces. They believe that when a person is saved from sin he or she comes under the protection of God and is therefore shielded against physical harm and danger. They believe that God also provides for such a person, causing him or her to prosper. As Edith, a forty-three-year-old member of the church put it, a person becomes the “apple of God’s eye” and is therefore protected from adversaries and adversity.14 Conversely, a person who refuses to repent from sin and continues living a life of disobedience and apostasy is outside God’s special protection and providence and risks being attacked by spiritual and physical forces. Members of the church are often admonished to live righteous lives so that they will succeed in fulfilling their goals. The principle underlying this view of salvation is largely in keeping with that of the Prosperity Gospel, though there are differences in emphases and in practical application. Members of PCGNY, unlike most believers in the Prosperity Gospel, place more emphasis on protection and redemption from adversities and less emphasis on the acquisition of material possessions. This understanding of salvation on the part of PCGNY members may be traced to both biblical and Ghanaian, particularly Akan, notions of salvation. As Adrian Hastings points out, Old Testament concepts of salvation largely revolved around “redemption from danger, ransom from slavery, healing in sickness and victory in battle.”15 According to him, these concepts have been carried into the daily life of churches through the use of the Psalms as prayers. Members of PCGNY, like other African Christians, cherish the book of Psalms as a means of help for meditation and healing.16 They therefore read, memorize, and recite portions of the Psalms either in prayer to God or to ward off evil. With this great interest in the Psalms and the Old Testament in general, it cannot be doubted that their notion of salvation may have been partly derived from the Old Testament. Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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The other source is the Ghanaian indigenous worldview. The translation of the Bible, catechisms, hymns, and other Christian literature into indigenous African languages has always required the use of preexisting words and concepts in those languages. More often than not these words and concepts carry with them certain denotative and connotative meanings that reflect the indigenous African worldview. Among the Akan, who constitute the majority of the members of this church, nkwagye, translated as salvation, essentially means deliverance from calamity or that which is life-threatening. Rendered as a verb, gye nkwa either means “receive life,”17 where life means “vitality; vigor; health; happiness; felicity,”18 or “save from” life-threatening circumstances. Among the Anlos of Ghana also, Dagbe, which is translated as salvation, actually means “abundant life” or “total well-being.”19 This understanding of salvation, which finds confirmation in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, is a typical feature of most Christians in Ghana, including members of the PCG. Its presence among PCGNY congregants confirms the continuity of thought and belief that exists between members of this church and the home country.

The Bible By far, the most important written source of theology and ethics for the church is the Bible. To many church members (both rank and file) the Bible contains Onyame asem, the “the word of God,” and must be the main guide and standard for Christian living. Many scholars have noted the importance of the Bible to the lives of African Christians. John Mbiti, for instance, has indicated in several of his writings that the explosive growth of Christianity in Africa is partly due to the presence of the Bible. In his book, Bible and Theology in African Christianity, Mbiti underscores the uniqueness of the Bible. He indicates that though the Jews had originally compiled the Bible, it has become a universal book and for that matter an African book. The Bible has found its home in Africa. To Mbiti, the translation of the Bible into indigenous African languages has given many Africans the opportunity to hear the word of God in their own mother tongues. Even before Mbiti’s book (published in 1986), participants of the Pan African Conference of Third World Theologians had issued a communiqué at the end of their conference in Ghana in 1977 stating that the Bible is the basic source of African theology because it is the “primary witness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.” For this reason, according to the communiqué, no theology can retain its Christian identity apart from scripture. Such a strong confi150

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dence in the Bible has not waned among African Christians either at home or abroad, in spite of the considerable sociocultural changes that have taken place in Africa since the communiqué was issued. Writing about African Christians in Europe, Gerrie ter Haar indicates: The place accorded to Bible reading is a significant point of distinction between African and Western Christians in general. African Christians carry their Bibles with them, they read and quote from them constantly. During church services, they make notes in the margins, underline certain sections to mark important passages which they can reread and study at home, or they take notes in separate notebooks.  .  .  . Today, the same is happening in Europe, where their reading of the Bible leads African Christians to develop an analysis of what, in their view, are the faults of European society and what should be done to redress it.20

This description fits the attitude of PCGNY toward the Bible. Members are reminded during church announcements to bring their Bibles with them to church. They are also encouraged to read their Bibles both at home and at church. Moreover, the church devotes the third Sunday of each month to Bible studies. On these days members discuss a selected theme or text from the Bible, using Bible study guides which are provided by the home church. One such guide is the Basic Bible Study, Book One, which deals with topics such as sin, salvation, Christian assurance, faith, and Christian growth. Through discussions and observation, it became evident to me that three main reasons underlie the importance of the Bible to the PCGNY. First, the Bible offers motifs and themes with which members define and make sense of their lives and sojourn in the United States. For many members the biblical world, particularly that of the Old Testament, talks of events, practices, and beliefs that are similar to what pertains in the homeland and in their own life as immigrants. Second, the Bible provides an authoritative guide that helps members of the church sort through the many perverse sociocultural influences that confront them and their children in the United States. Third, it provides the church with the basis for maintaining and even enforcing certain cultural and moral values. Generally, biblical interpretation in the church is a mixture of the literal, metaphorical, and symbolic hermeneutic methods. The interpretation is done in ways that speak to the concerns of members as immigrants and sojourners in a foreign country. This is similar to what Justin Ukpong has described regarding biblical interpretation among African Christians Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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in general. According to him, the focus of this method of interpretation is to “create an encounter between the biblical text and the African context.”21 This method involves various ways of linking the biblical text to the African context. The focus of the interpretation is always the community receiving the text rather than the text itself or those who produced it. In this sense, the average African Christian is less concerned with the historical context and literary styles of biblical passages than he or she is with the way the passages speak to his or her present situation. Such a way of interpreting scripture obviously stands in contrast to Western scholarly approaches such as the historical critical method and literary approaches. Preachers at PCGNY often utilize biblical stories and events as metaphorical or symbolic motifs to address issues pertinent to the members. The members are often compared to the Israelites during their days in captivity and exile or during their exodus from Egypt. During a Watch night service to usher in the year 2003, the preacher compared members (as they entered the New Year) to the people of Israel about to enter the Promised Land. He then used the injunctions supposedly given by God to the Israelites through Moses, recorded in Deuteronomy 11: We are not the people of Israel, and we are not going to occupy any geographical territory. But like the Israelites we are being ushered into new circumstances, new challenges, and new opportunities. And like them, we need Moses’ advice recorded in Deuteronomy 11:11–17 as we prepare to enter a new year and take advantage of all the opportunities it offers. The people of ancient Israel were told that the land they were about to occupy was made up of hills and valleys (vr.11a). So also we need to be cautioned that next year will be a year of hills and valleys, of ups and downs, of joys and sorrows, of successes and failures for us. Again, they were told that the land “drinks rain from heaven” and the Lord cares for the land. We should understand that our endeavors in the coming year will only succeed with the blessing of God. Though we may work hard at two or three jobs, though we may have the best of plans for our lives and that of our families, though we may study hard, an important ingredient in our lives’ recipe we cannot dispense with, is God’s blessings. The Lord cares for our survival and prosperity and is more than willing to bless us.

During our discussions congregants, particularly those who considered the Bible the most important source of guidance for life, showed that they were very suspicious of, and in fact worried about, aspects of American sociocul152

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tural life. Even more disappointing to many was the fact that many Western theologians have, in their view, reduced the Bible to a book for mere academic speculation. One church member could not help taking a swipe at Western theologians and Western Christians in general who, he believed, had lost sight of the spiritual importance of the Bible: Too much wisdom cost the crab its head.22 These people (Western Christians) were the ones who brought the Bibles to us in Africa but now they say they know too much. . . . Some do not read the Bible at all; others read Bibles with missing pages and yet others have inserted their own written pages into the Bible.

In our discussions congregants referred me constantly to 2 Timothy 3:16–17 which many of them knew by heart.23 “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” The lesson from this passage and comments made by my discussants suggested, among other things, that the Bible was very important for shaping character. In essence, not only does the Bible have theological value, but it also has ethical value. A sixty-year-old woman summed up the importance of the Bible in her life aptly: “The word of God [in the Bible] is food for my soul; it is a manual of directions for my life, and a catalog of God’s promises to me.” Indeed, this lady’s description of the Bible reflects the general attitude of the entire church toward the Bible. To many, the Bible was an important guide not only for the individual but also for community life.

Ethical Values The Bible, as noted above, is a major source of ethical values for both the leadership and membership of the church. In addition to Ghanaian traditional moral values, the Bible constitutes an important basis for determining immoral as well as virtuous acts and determines sanctions for the former in the church. It also provides preachers and teachers the spiritual and moral authority to preach against what they consider to be sinful. In spite of this dependence on “divine command” for moral prescription and judgment, members did not subscribe entirely to a deontological approach to moral issues. Rather, their views on what was moral and virtuous or immoral and sinful revealed a syncretism of deontological, teleological, and responsive approaches. Even when they considered a biblical injunction as a commandment of God that ought to be obeyed, they determined whether to obey it Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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or not, particularly when two moral demands clashed, by evaluating the final consequences of each action. Again, many of the preachers I listened to focused on the results or effects of sinful and immoral acts on the individual, the immediate community, and the larger society instead of looking at them solely as infractions of God’s commands. Commenting on divorce in a sermon on relationships, for instance, Rev. Asiedu, the pastor of the church, notes that God considers divorce to be sinful, indeed “God sees divorce as suicidal.”24 Marriage, he contends, is meant to be a “lifelong commitment and therefore indissoluble.” He continues: “God hates divorce because, like all sins, it destroys his beautiful creations on earth. Like an atomic bomb, it leaves deep emotional craters and strikes all kinds of innocent by-standers with the fallout. Divorce is another contribution to all the chaos in our world today.25 Such harsh condemnation of divorce in a society where it is virtually the order of the day may seem unreasonable or naïve. Though such a disapproval of divorce is not uncommon among Ghanaian churches both in the home country and outside, the pastor’s uncompromising stance against divorce was aimed at stemming the tide of separations and divorces that were wrecking the families of Ghanaian immigrants. After the sermon he told me in private that he worried that fidelity in marriage and concern for the family were declining among Ghanaians in the United States, at least among those in the New York tristate area. But away from the high pulpit and sitting in the pews below were members who—though they expressed their dislike for divorce and were also concerned about the marital problems of some Ghanaian couples—still felt that divorce was acceptable when a marriage had become irreparably dysfunctional. Others told me about the personal challenges they faced as a result of their long separation from their spouses. During a conversation with a fifty-yearold man who I will refer to as Manu, I asked him about his family. He paused for a while, trying to make up his mind whether to confide in me or not: “Hmm,” he sighed. “They are in Ghana. I have not seen my wife and children in eight years, but I talk with them on the phone every week and I also send them money at the end of each month,” he replied finally. His face showed signs of despair. This revelation did not surprise me. I had heard similar painful accounts from other African immigrants both in and outside the church. For many of them, living in the United States poses a serious ethical dilemma. On the one hand, they work hard in order to provide for their families back in Ghana. But on the other hand their stay in the United States means depriving their 154

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spouses and children of their physical presence. Though they stay in touch with their families through the telephone and e-mail, the sense of physical distance and separation is very difficult to bear. The lives of some immigrants are complicated in other ways due to this separation. I heard a lot of gossip, during the research, about church members who were living with “girlfriends” or “boyfriends” in the United States while maintaining their connections with spouses back in Ghana. Others, I learned, had married American citizens in the hope of acquiring the necessary legal status. Sometimes the marriage failed. Some immigrants were taken advantage of or even abused by those they married. During one of the Bible study sessions in the church, the discussion centered on sin. The study outline dealt with the nature, origin, types, results, and remedies for sin. Many of the questions were structured in such a way that the answers would be directly based on a specific passage from the Bible. However, this did not prevent some members from candidly expressing their personal opinions during the discussion, sometimes disagreeing with the “conventional” interpretation of the texts. Asked to give examples of sin, members listed the following: greed, pride, hatred, cheating, murder, robbery, adultery, idolatry, abortion, and dereliction of responsibility toward family, homosexuality, and divorce. In addition, they listed dangerous habits such as smoking, drug abuse, gambling, pornography, premarital sex, and disobedience to parents. Curiously, however, no one in the group mentioned acts such as working without legal authorization, using another person’s documents to seek employment, or contracting a false marriage in order to gain permanent residence status, as examples of sin. When I asked whether they thought any or all of the above were sinful, there was disagreement. While some saw these as acts of wrongdoing, they would not characterize them as sins because to them they were simply infractions of unjust human laws. These laws, they believed, were discriminatory and unfair. One person who was very defensive of such actions suggested that laws that deprive some people of their livelihood or make it difficult for them to feed themselves and their families are against the will of God. The response of the leader of the Bible study group, like that of other leaders I spoke to later, was quite ambivalent—though he would not condone such acts, he did not condemn them harshly either. Three weeks after this Bible study discussion, a chairperson of one of the presbyteries of the mother church in Ghana visited the congregation. In his sermon, he advised the congregants against using other people’s identification papers and immigration documents. According to him, to do so was sinful. Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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This pronouncement raised a lot of dissention among members. After the sermon many of the people I spoke to said they disagreed with the preacher on the matter. Many felt he was out of touch with the reality of living as an immigrant in the United States. Consequently his advice was ignored. Generally, I found members of the church quite pietistic. They took those sins that destroy human life and community seriously. Indeed, they believed that sin deprived a person or a people of God’s providence and protection, and also wrecked the life of the person involved and that of the community. The pietistic outlook of this church and its understanding of sin shows continuity between the home church and the PCGNY. All the acts mentioned by my discussants as sins (or worse), are also considered to be so by the parent church. At the same time this understanding of sin shows some discontinuity between the ethical beliefs of members in the home church and the PCGNY in two ways. First, it indicates a level of accommodation by members of the PCGNY to certain acts which would have attracted condemnation in the home church. Second, it points to a shift in the definition of sin among members of PCGNY. Ghanaian ethnic groups do not sharply dichotomize acts that are immoral and those that are illegal. The Akan word bone (evil, bad, immoral, sinful), for example, is used in reference to that which is Onyame akyiwade (that which God hates), mmusu (an abomination), or mmarato (an infraction of the law). While distinctions may be made based on the gravity of the wrongdoing, all such actions are nonetheless considered morally wrong.

Spirituality outside Worship The nature of a person’s spirituality is better assessed through his or her interactions with others in different settings. In fact, a person’s attitude and behavior within the context of formal worship, in this case within the church setting, only tells half the story. During my research I had the opportunity to visit the homes of twelve members of the church. I also interacted with many others at picnics, Ghana Day celebrations, parties, weddings, funerals, and other celebrations. Such occasions were very helpful. I got to observe people in informal settings when they were less conscious of themselves and their actions. Occasionally I also met congregants while buying groceries in Ghanaian shops. On one such occasion, the member, a woman in her forties, momentarily stopped doing her own shopping and helped me carry my bags of

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Ghanaian food items to my car. In one small shop that sells African goods, I observed that the proprietress, who is a member of PCGNY, had placed dried red pepper together with the money in the cash register. Based on my knowledge of this common practice among traders in Ghana, I jokingly asked her: “Are the spirits taking away your money here in New York too?” Laughing, she answered, “Osofo, abosomamfo dee se wo wo babiara” (Pastor, the evil spirits are everywhere.).26 By interacting with members in a variety of settings, I became aware of, and in fact experienced firsthand, the importance they attached to hospitality and charity. Several church members wanted me to visit their homes during the course of this research. I was unable to visit more than a few due to pressure of work. On one occasion, my wife and I spent a weekend with the Canacoo family. We were treated with much kindness and generosity. Visitors to the congregation that I spoke with expressed a similar opinion about members of the church. Spirituality takes different forms. It is revealed through formal acts of worship and theological beliefs as well as people’s interpersonal relations. In this chapter, I have attempted to identify some of the basic elements of spirituality among members of the PCGNY. These include a strong belief in God as creator and sustainer of the world in general and of humanity in particular, an understanding of salvation as deliverance from sin and other life-negating forces, an emphasis on virtues and character formation based on biblical principles and traditional Ghanaian values, and a reputation for hospitality and generous giving. These may not be peculiar to members of this church alone—after all, many Christian congregations adhere to one or more of these values. However, in the PCGNY they are expressed in a milieu and culture that is essentially Ghanaian. It is always difficult, if not impossible, to identify and isolate the different strands that form a people’s spirituality. This is no less the case for the PCGNY. The church’s spirituality, as I have tried to show, is a tapestry crafted from aspects of Ghanaian cultural values, biblical interpretation, interpretations of nineteenth-century missionary theological beliefs and practices inherited through the Basel, Scottish, and Moravian missionaries, and the realities of the congregants’ lives as immigrants in the United States of America. This spirituality is what currently defines, and in many ways provides authority for moral action and sanction in the community life of the PCGNY. On the other hand, this spirituality is given expression to and is also shaped by the church’s community life. Ebenezer: Spirituality and Identity

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Perhaps nothing captures the spiritual mindset of members of PCGNY more than the signature tune of the Women’s Fellowship, sung during worship services both in the United States and in Ghana: Ampa, Nyankopon n’adom ara kwa na yeda so te ase (Indeed, it is by the sheer grace of God that we are alive) Se obra mu kore-ne-bae ye den ara, w’ayi yen ne nyinaa mo sonn (Whatever difficulties we’ve gone through in life, He has delivered us from them) Dwuma pa biara a yedi, efi Nyame mmoa mu. (Whatever good work we are able to do, is through the help of God) Enti, yebeto Ebenezer na y’akyere ase—nea nyame aboa yen abedu nen. So, we will sing Ebenezer and explain—thus far the lord has led us. Ebenezer! Nyame n’adom ara kwa Ebenezer! It is by the sheer grace of God.

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Paddling on Both Sides

8

Analysis and Conclusion

“A canoe must be paddled on both sides” (okorow, wohare no afanu). So goes an Akan proverb. In plain English, this means, “cooperation engenders success.” But the motif and context within which it is used provides us with an even deeper meaning which enriches our analysis. To fully appreciate the import of this saying, we need to understand the cultural context. As I indicated in chapter 3, most communities in Ghana have chiefs who are invested with both political and religious power and who serve as traditional rulers of particular communities and clans. In the court of every chief is the chief ’s spokesman, okyeame. The okyeame, the linguist, is always an individual well-versed in the traditional law, traditions, and customs of his community, and is a gifted communicator. He serves as the chief ’s right-hand man, ambassador, and spokesperson. Each okyeame has a staff of office, a carved wooden staff with a symbolic emblem on its top. These emblems depict things such as proverbs, cherished virtues and values of society, folktales, and historical events or persons. The emblem of the saying quoted above is a canoe placed on the top of the staff of the okyeame, the chief ’s spokesman.1 In the context of the chief ’s court, “paddling on both sides” may mean, among other things, fostering cooperation between opposing factions, finding the right balance between continuity and change, and reconciling conflicting visions for community progress. I will return to the image of the canoe later in this chapter, but for now let us keep this pithy saying in mind as we analyze the adaptation of Ghanaians immigrants within the context of the mission and community life of PCGNY and its interaction with society. I will conclude this book by summing up the nature and importance of the PCGNY (and by extension other such immigrant churches) in the lives of its members and adherents within the context of American society. I will also note some of the congregation’s failures in their attempts to facilitate the |

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incorporation of its members into American sociocultural life on the one hand, and in helping them to maintain and reproduce their Ghanaian identities on the other. Let us begin by turning our attention to the contours of the American landscape and outline some of the social structures the church interacts with.

Ethical Demands of Cultural Pluralism Nathan Glazer’s book boldly proclaims, “We are all multiculturalists now,” and argues that a multicultural explosion has taken place in the United States since the 1990s.2 According to Glazer, values and attitudes toward women, gays and lesbians, and racial minorities have changed for the better in America in the last twenty years. This is evident in the general acceptance of women as equals to men; the partial acceptance or at least tolerance of gays and lesbians; and changes in social policies and educational curricula to reflect the cultural changes in American society. Robert Wuthnow also sees evidence of an increasingly multicultural ethos in America. He writes, “the United States is increasingly multicultural, not simply because the population can be divided into a pie chart showing more diversity, but because individual Americans are experiencing more diversity and in the process have to come to terms with who they are.”3 Both scholars’ assessment of the American sociocultural landscape is largely accurate. Cultural pluralism is now a growing trend in the United States as reflected in the openness of many Americans to other cultures—an attitude that was nonexistent as recently as the 1970s. A crucial reason for this change in attitudes is the presence of large numbers of post-1965 immigrants in the United States. With friendlier immigration policies than those of many European countries such as France, Netherlands, Germany, and Austria, the United States has become a magnet for immigrants from diverse backgrounds. Unlike immigrants from the previous generation who were largely European, the majority of the new immigrants are non-European and they bring with them different languages, cuisines, music, and other religious and cultural practices. The Ghanaian community I have showcased and discussed in this book is part of this larger context. However, as may be expected, not everybody is happy with the rate at which America is becoming culturally diverse. The print and electronic media, particularly those owned by cultural conservatives, are replete with articles, letters, and news items that reflect people’s resentment of multicul-

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turalism. Arguments against immigration reform and amnesty for undocumented immigrants reveal both hatred and fear of the reality of cultural and religious diversity. Those in the Christian right, Wuthnow points out, see multiculturalism as their enemy.4 Conservative individuals and groups continue to advocate the ideology of “Anglo-conformity,” which expects immigrants to abandon their indigenous cultural beliefs and practices for Anglo-Saxon ones.5 Anglo-conformity has been and continues to be the battle cry for people with diverse motives ranging from nationalism to straightforward racism. Those who advocate this ideology fear, for reasons either real or imagined, that multiculturalism and its institutions weakens the oneness of America and contaminates the purity of its values. America, they claim, will become “balkanized” if several cultures are permitted to flourish simultaneously.6 The desire to favor the dominant culture over and above all others is not new in America. Slavery, racism, and the denial of women’s rights are part of America’s history. As this history shows, oppressed groups have always had to fight for their legal rights and for social recognition. These rights have only been accorded them grudgingly, after a protracted and occasionally violent struggle that has led to bloodshed. This history has led to the formation of interest groups such as those representing blacks, Hispanics, feminists, gays, lesbians, and so on. The struggles of the civil rights movement in the 1960s for desegregation and the equal treatment of blacks under the laws of the country is a case in point. Thus, despite the great strides it has made, America is still far from accepting and creating a level playing field society for all peoples regardless of their ethnic background, religion, and sexual orientation. The fear and fury displayed by sections of American society before and after the election of the first black president is clear testimony of this fact. For multiculturalism to be meaningful, it must not be a token recognition of the existence of minorities nor mere tolerance of persons of different cultural backgrounds. Rather, it must be a celebration of difference, a recognition that no single culture, no matter how sophisticated, possesses all the answers to life, and a humble acceptance that cultures other than one’s own can provide better ways of living. This must translate into interaction on equal terms by people of different cultural backgrounds and the mutual sharing of ideas. This is not only a social, but also an ethical, demand. Such an understanding of multiculturalism is similar to what philosopher Joseph Raz has termed “value pluralism.” This “is the view that many differPedaling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

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ent activities and incompatible forms of life are valuable.” Value pluralism “rejects the belief in the reducibility of all value to one value that serves as a common denominator to all other valuable ways of life.” 7 Raz also argues that a person’s freedom and prosperity depend on his or her “full and unimpeded membership in a respected and flourishing cultural group.”8 In a multicultural society, according to Raz, people must find their identity and freedom in a community. I agree with Raz’s argument completely on this point. In my view, PCGNY and similar immigrant congregations are communities within which individual members find their identity and freedom. As pointed out throughout this book, the immigrants from Ghana seek to attain a bit of the so-called American dream without losing their sense of who they are. Group identities will never disappear or be wished away. The important question, then, is whether maintenance of these identities is necessarily antithetical to integration and cohesion in the larger society.

Identity Matters The importance of identity to individual and group life cannot be overemphasized. Erik H. Erikson, who popularized the concept of identity through his psychoanalytic studies, postulated that a person’s identity was a strong and persistent sense of sameness deeply rooted in his or her unconscious. However traumatized or physically changed the person is over time, he or she still sees him- or herself as the same person and not somebody else. In current usage, “identity” refers to two contrasting qualities—uniqueness and sameness. In one sense identity denotes individuality and uniqueness, that is, that which distinguishes a thing, person, or group of persons from another. However, in another sense it refers to the quality of sameness, or that with which a person or group of persons associate themselves.9 As an anthropological and sociological term, “identity” refers to individual selfhood or commonalities associated with groups such as language, mode of dress, norms and values. Individual identity is thus distinguished from group or collective identity.10 Some scholars also make distinctions between individual (personal), group, and social identities.11 Collective identity is both acquired and created.12 While a group of peoples may possess certain inherent and commonly shared qualities, whether biological or cultural, their identity is a selective appropriation of certain values, beliefs, and practices. Identity, whether of the individual or the group, is never stagnant nor is its shape definite. It is reshaped over time although its core values may remain the same. The maintenance and reshaping of a 162

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people’s identity happens unconsciously in response to their adjustment to changing social, economic, and cultural realities. Ghanaians in the United States constantly have to define and redefine themselves against other cultural groups. Moreover, they have to appropriate new values and norms in order to survive and adapt successfully in the United States. With virtually no state institutions to support them in the process of adjustment, Ghanaian immigrants have to create and use their own supportive spaces and communities within which adaptation can take place. But as Kivisto says, the Ghanaians, like other immigrants, do not seek to live in a “communal bubble,” one that will isolate them from the rest of society.13 While they may dislike, and in fact sometimes abhor, aspects of American popular culture, they nonetheless participate in the larger society. They live in the same neighborhoods as people of other cultures; their children have to attend public schools, and they have to use the same hospitals and health facilities as everyone else.

Integration: A Two-Way Street Social scientists have observed a certain dialectic between identity and integration.14 Group identity is exclusive by default, since it is largely derived from symbols, myths, narratives, and values that are shared by members or affiliates of the particular group in question. All groups define what they are in reference to what they are not.15 Thus, for example, Protestants define their identity in relation to the Reformation, which was essentially a repudiation of the Catholic church and its traditions. But to avoid being islands unto themselves or reclusive cults, groups also loosen their boundaries of exclusivity and join on equal terms with others in the larger society in certain spheres of life. The logic, then, is that integration requires both loss and gain of identity. To integrate is to “bring or come into equal participation or membership of a society.”16 Within the context of American race relations and immigrant incorporation, integration has meant different things to different people at different times. During the days of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, integration was understood to mean desegregation—the breaking down and crossing of racial boundaries. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed otherwise. He argued that desegregation was only the first step in the process of integration. While desegregation referred to the breaking down of the barriers against participation and was enforceable, integration was the positive acceptance of blacks and their welcome participation in all sectors of American social, political, and economic life.17 This distinction has direct bearing Pedaling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

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to our discussion. For average Americans “integration” and “assimilation” mean the same thing—an “immigrant’s ability to fit into the American society without creating undue problems for themselves or those already here.”18 However, such an understanding wrongly places the full burden of integration on the shoulders of immigrants. Integration is a two-way street. To use the image from the Akan linguists’ staff mentioned earlier, integration is like a canoe; it must be paddled on both sides. This implies that Ghanaian immigrants (particularly those who are citizens) need to fully participate in American social, economic, religious, and political life, both as individuals and as a group, with support from the American society. While this requires the immigrants to step out of their memories about the “original country” and explore the opportunities of their “new country,” the onus on the host country to welcome and assist them into all areas of the American life as provided under the laws of the land is even greater. Unlike classical assimilation, integration must not be an unconscious process by which one loses one’s identity in favor of a new one, but a positive engagement with one’s sociocultural environment in order to selectively appropriate values and practices from it as well as infuse one’s own into it. It should not mean merely living side by side with others but interacting with them. This way of understanding integration raises two important and related questions which we need to deal with before moving on. First, is there a dominant or mainstream American culture with which the immigrants must engage in their integration process? And second, if there is, what is it? Scholars are divided in their answers to these questions. While assimilationists argue that there is a mainstream culture, namely, middle-class Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture into which immigrants should assimilate, the multiculturalists argue that there is no such mainstream culture. I say, there is. We would be mistaken or perhaps disingenuous if we failed to acknowledge that despite the decline in the white population and the enormous increase in the number of Spanish-speaking peoples and other cultures in America, Anglo-Saxon culture continues to dominate many areas of American life. America is far from being a colorless society. It is a society where whiteness continues to be privileged. In fact, a simple count of the number of white congressmen and women and senators, compared to those of other races and ethnicities, will confirm this fact. Also, social value systems that are touted as being crucial for success in America are far too often devised by Euro-American philosophers. Take, for instance, the con164

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cept of “utilitarian individualism” which Robert Bellah and others consider the dominant American culture. In a short article, Bellah has argued rightly that “utilitarian individualism”19 owes its intellectual roots to the English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and now operates autonomously under the pressure of the market economy, mass media, and mass education. Everybody in America—conservative or liberal, immigrant or citizen—buys into this culture. Perhaps the most crucial question, then, is not whether there is a mainstream American culture, but rather, whether all cultures do or must completely assimilate into it. The answer, as this research shows, is no. The transnational nature of the lives of the Ghanaian immigrants and their simultaneous involvement in the affairs of both country of origin and host country indicate that total assimilation will not happen soon, if ever. In my interviews with members of PCGNY, they did not deny that they were in “obronikrom,” that is, the land of whites. Yet they were well aware of many other cultures around them. Some regarded the United States as too diverse to have one mainstream culture. One congregant, who had lived in five different states in the United States, told me, “It depends on where you live and where you look; within every locality there is a dominant culture.” In answer to my question whether they found any all-pervasive values in American life, they listed attitudes such as hard work, individualism, openness, patriotism, and consumerism. They pointed out, however, that there are so many contradictions in American society that it is dangerous for a person to uncritically embrace any of these values. For instance, hard work is good. But one’s life in America particularly as an immigrant could be so wrapped up in work that she or he may lose any sense of social life. They were quick to point to wealthy but lonely persons with whom they worked. For many, the teachings of the PCGNY provided valuable help in assessing the good and bad influences of the United States. We cannot discuss integration without interrogating the issue of bounded cultural, social, and religious groups in the United States. The American cultural landscape is a mosaic in which cultural boundaries are firmly set, allowing for little interpenetration. Like its neighborhoods which are often segregated, associations are often based on race and ethnicity. Very little intermarriage takes place between persons of different races and ethnicities. Immigrants often find it difficult to transcend such hardened social boundaries. It is not by accident that most of the Ghanaian immigrants live in areas with large black populations in the Bronx and Harlem. Pedaling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

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Also, the lack of proper integration in America is related to political and economic power. The lack of integration in America largely stems from a majority population that has overwhelming political and economic power, and that is unwilling to share its privileges with others. Ghanaian immigrants are part of the minority populations that have very little economic and political power. In fact, as indicated elsewhere, most of the Ghanaians are noncitizens and therefore have very limited privileges. The majority group’s near-monopoly on power often leads on the one hand to a false superiority complex, bigotry, and disdain for other cultures and on the other hand, to the minority groups’ frustration, anger, and sometimes hatred for the majority group. As one interviewee put it succinctly, “How can we integrate when one group says, we know it all, we have it all, therefore think and behave like us if you want to be successful in America?” But the minorities, including Ghanaian immigrants, cannot afford not to participate in mainstream society. As discussed in chapter 2, many Ghanaian immigrants are resisting the temptation to confine themselves to the peripheries of American society. They are striving to put down roots in their communities and embed themselves in the economic, social, and religious life of the United States. At the same time they rely on their cultural and religious communities for social capital, space, and support in renegotiating their identities.

Religion and Adaptation At the core of all religious belief and practice is the search for salvation. This is what sociologists refer to as the manifest function of religion.20 Bryan Wilson, an eminent scholar of sociology of religion, suggests that the manifest function of religion is to offer “the prospect of salvation” and also guidance as to how it might be attained.21 For the Ghanaian immigrants salvation becomes especially meaningful within the context of their attempt to survive in a foreign country. Throughout this book I have used the term religion in two senses: first, as a system of meaning, and second, as an institution. The two are symbiotic. On the one hand, it is through their religious beliefs, imagination, and practices that immigrants create religious institutions for themselves, and on the other, it is in these institutions that religious belief and practice are fostered and nurtured. But religion whether as an institution or as a system of beliefs, as I have tried to show, provides immigrants far more than spiritual salvation or the hope of heaven. In other words, religion offers not merely a “pie in the sky,” 166

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but concrete social support. Sociologists suggest that religion also has latent functions, which are “the functions that arise unseen or unintended by men in the practice of their religion.”22 In other words, religious practice produces certain additional social benefits such as social cohesion, conferment, and reinforcement of identity, and as an agency for emotional expression and regulation. As several scholars have shown, religion provides immigrants with religious and social spaces where their home cultures can be maintained and reproduced, together with opportunities for networking, social capital, and skills for civic engagement.23 In essence, immigrant religious congregations do two vital things—they provide immigrants with a community and they help members adjust to their new country. What has often not been adequately explored (and which I do in this book), are the challenges and difficulties immigrants face as they seek to balance their home culture and American culture. Many of the stories narrated here reflect real human experiences, particularly the moral choices and compromises immigrants have to make in their personal lives, for which reason religion becomes a vital need. Prominent among these challenges are: how to preserve their marriages and families in the face of American sociocultural and economic realities; how to acquire legal immigration status; and how to counteract social alienation and isolation.

Religious Congregations and Agency Religious congregations are also social institutions. Their beliefs and practices are shaped by their particular historical, cultural, and social contexts. From an ecological perspective, we note that immigrant congregations are not merely communities for adaptation. They also possess agency, that is, the capacity to interact with social structures such as diversity, poverty, and racism. In the process, not only do congregations shape the identities of their members, but they also create their own congregational identities. In the face of such structures, they define missions for themselves and create ministries that are reflective of the challenges faced by their church community, immediate neighborhood, or both. Such ministries such as soup kitchens, pastoral and chaplaincy services for immigrants, and clothing giveaways, add to a congregation’s culture and identity. 24 Nancy Ammerman is right when she points out that congregations are subcultures within a larger culture and that each congregation derives its distinctive identity from what its members crePedaling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

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ate together. A congregation, she says, creates its identity from both its local culture as well as its larger denominational tradition. “What a congregation cooks,” she writes, “is a mix of local creativity and larger tradition.”25 What she fails to emphasize, however, is that such creativity is a pragmatic reaction to challenging social realities. The reasons for PCGNY’s emergence and current setup can be traced to both extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Extrinsic factors here refer to the political, social, and religious factors outside the church community that serve as pressures that motivate members to form and maintain the church. A crucial extrinsic factor was the threat of death and extinction. As we indicated in chapter 4, the inexplicable deaths of many Ghanaians in the New York tristate area in the 1980s created a lot of anxiety in the Ghanaian community. This fear, coupled with the need for befitting funeral services, led to the formation of a prayer group that eventually grew into the PCGNY. Other important extrinsic factors include immigration problems, racial discrimination, language and communication barriers, hostile attitudes from some members of the host community, and a general sense of marginalization and alienation. During my research, members of the PCGNY pointed to a number of factors—unfamiliar worship style, and the lack of congeniality and inclusiveness in mainline American churches, among others—as reasons why they either left the American churches or continued to maintain dual membership. Some indicated that they felt unwelcome and sometimes slighted in some American churches, particularly churches with predominantly Caucasian members. For others (particularly those who were church leaders, deacons, and so on), it was the lack of opportunity to participate fully in worship services as they did back in Ghana that they complained about. For yet others it was their belief that the theology and ethical values of most mainline churches in America have been watered down, or “decaffeinated,” as one interviewee called it, that kept them away from those churches. One PCGNY congregant left a church he had begun attending because he felt the pastor was not a good role model for his children. “Though the pastor was very loving and accepting of immigrants, I disapproved of his smoking habit,” he told me. For a few, their desire to have a church organized and led by Ghanaians was a political statement. They simply did not want “colonialists” controlling their religious life. “Y’asom abrofo abre!” (We are tired of serving whites), a seventy-year-old man who had lived under British colonial rule in Ghana, exclaimed during one of our discussions. For him, it was his sojourn in the United States which had, ironically, made him fully aware of the selfishness, 168

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chicanery, and paternalism of the West and their tendency to always be in control. According to him, Africans must avoid giving whites the opportunity to lord it over blacks. But for most members, their interest in PCGNY was derived from intrinsic factors—the shared cultural and religious values of the congregation, and the effervescence generated when they meet together. They liked the use of Ghanaian languages, the familiar hymns and liturgical practices, the welfare services aimed at helping one another, and the social gatherings at which Ghanaian foods were shared and where networking took place. It was the combination of these extrinsic and intrinsic factors that led to the founding of the PCGNY and that has continued to attract members ever since. For most church members, then, the church offers space where they gain acceptance through worship and active participation in the church community; where their material concerns are heard and attended to; where their spiritual needs are culturally packaged and made meaningful to them; and where their cultural needs are in turn given a Christian flavor. It is a “sanctuary” where at least once a week they have their individual identities affirmed; where fellow members call them by their real names; where they can speak without being constantly reminded of their “accent”; and where they can engage in their own palaver without having to look over their shoulders to see who is watching them. A crucial issue which arises, is whether the PCGNY (and other such churches) is capable of integrating its membership into the larger society. In other words, does the church not run the risk of being a closed society serving only the parochial interests of its members? This raises the larger sociological issue of whether the maintenance of subgroup identity and its attendant differentiation necessarily leads to disintegration in the larger society, and a corollary question, whether there is any ethical justification for the formation of a church based on a particular group identity.

Significance of PCGNY Philosopher and poet George Santayana (1863–1952) states in his Reason in Religion, “Any attempt to speak without speaking any particular language is not more hopeless than the attempt to have a religion that shall be no religion in particular. . . . Thus every living and healthy religion has a marked idiosyncrasy. Its power consists in its special and surprising message and its bias which that revelation gives to life.” Though these lines address the general religious context, they also speak to our particular situation. Every Pedaling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

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church has a particular identity characterized by its denominational affiliation, membership, its goals, its beliefs and practices, and so on. From my analytic description of the worship and community life of the PCGNY it should be clear at this point that the church possesses it own “idiosyncrasy” and “bias” that makes it distinct from others, including its parent church, PCG. In spite of a number of continuities between the congregation and its parent church, particularly in terms of liturgy, rituals, and general worship style, there are clear areas of discontinuity as well, especially in its structure, composition, and functions. The simultaneous sameness and difference between the PCGNY and its parent church, its particular idiosyncrasies and biases, constitute the church’s actual identity. Like its mother church, the motto of PCGNY is, “That they all may be one,” based on John 17:11. The motto, just like the priestly prayer of Jesus Christ from which it is culled, calls for unity. The mission statement of PCGNY, which differs from that of its mother church, reads as follows: The proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind; The shelter, nurture and spiritual development of the children of God; The maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of truth; The promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of God.26

The objectives cited above obviously set a broad agenda for the PCGNY. It is interesting to note that nothing in the mission statement suggests that PCGNY is intended as a congregation for Ghanaians only. However, the truth is that its activities are tailored to suit members of the Ghanaian community. Moreover, it is unclear at this point how, given its essentially Ghanaian ethos, the church can reach out to members of other cultural groups in New York and beyond. Nonetheless, not only does the church play an important role in the lives of its members and the larger society, but it also has the potential for creating avenues for genuine multicultural interaction. This is not to suggest, however, that attending mainly to the needs of its members is wrong. After all, helping these immigrants and their children to become properly adjusted is a service rendered not only to the immigrants but even more importantly, to the American society. It can be said that PCGNY, like every religious congregation, has both intended and unintended benefits. This brings us to an important question this book seeks to answer: “How important is the PCGNY to its members and the larger society?” We can get some answers by examining the congregation’s activities through five prisms—religious, cultural, sociological, eco170

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nomic, and political. By so doing I hope to counter the stereotypical assumption that the sole benefit of immigrant churches is the preservation of ethnic identity. And second, as a practical matter, I hope to provide useful suggestions for the PCGNY’s future growth.

Religious Significance This is by far the most obvious function of the congregation. Most of its activities are geared toward providing spiritual support for its members. Indeed, the primary purpose of most of the members of the church in being part of the church is to fulfill their need for Onyame asem, the word of God and awurade nhyira, the Lord’s blessings. Through preaching, teaching, Bible study, and prayer meetings the church helps its members to sustain and increase their Christian faith. “Deliverance services” (discussed extensively in chapter 4) are organized from time to time to offer members both bodily and psychological healing. These services, which involve healing and exorcism, point to the persistence of Ghanaian indigenous understandings of healing and wholeness in the church. Furthermore, the ethical teachings of the church help congregants sort through many of the ethical dilemmas they face as a result of their encounter with a new and permissive environment. They constantly have to deal with ethical issues such as whether to seek jobs with other people’s green cards and employment authorization papers; whether to engage in romantic relations with persons other than their spouses while they are separated from their spouses for several years, and so on. The second-generation members of the church are taught values such as humility, respect for adults, chastity, and sobriety, as alternatives to the popular youth culture. Without more concrete data, it is difficult to determine how much impact such values have on the younger members, though many to whom I spoke appreciated to various degrees the importance of these values. Part of its religious significance is the church’s missional role. The PCGNY is the seed of an overseas mission and demonstrates the attempt by Ghanaians to establish their own brand of presbyterianism in the United States. This is a clear example of what some scholars call “reverse mission.” Through the worship and community life of this congregation, we see a Presbyterian brand highly influenced by Moravian and Basel Mission pietism and use of the vernacular, Scottish mission polity, and Ghanaian religious and cultural beliefs and practices. The congregation attracts and has gathered a membership consisting not only of people who were originally Presbyterians but also of non-Presbyterians as well as non-Christians. Pedaling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

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Cultural Significance Through the church’s worship and community life, cultural symbols, myths, and practices are transmitted to second-generation members and are also reinvented. Of particular importance is the use of Ghanaian indigenous languages during worship services and other informal gatherings. The use of Twi and Ga in the worship services of PCGNY reinforces congregants’ identity as Ghanaians. For many, particularly the second generation, it is within the context of the church’s worship and community life that they get the opportunity and the space, outside their homes, to communicate in these languages.27 Again, the wearing of Ghanaian clothes serves as a way of reproducing Ghanaian cultural identity. Also, cultural items which have become part of the religious paraphernalia of Ghanaians, such as the Kente cloth (used to cover the lectern), musical instruments such as the dondo and frikyiwa and the musical rhythms help reinforce the identity of the first generation and familiarize the second generation with their parents’ culture. As discussed in chapters 2 and 5, the church also serves as a nexus that connects Ghanaian cultural, religious, and community leaders and associations.

Sociological Significance It is difficult to assess the full extent of the sociological impact of the PCGNY and for that matter any religious congregation on society at large, particularly in technologically advanced and the so-called secularized nation-states within which they are found. Some sociologists have pointed to indirect ways in which religious practices have been instrumental in the workings and advancement of societies.28 Bryan Wilson has argued that advanced and technological societies operate on rationalized principles such as division of labor, large-scale production, rational distribution of facilities and resources, and so on. Modern systems which are characterized by “standardization and routinization” need human beings to function well. Human beings, unlike machines, require virtues in order to function well within the social system. According to Wilson, religious communities are therefore necessary for the proper socialization of individual people.29 Based on Wilson’s argument, I contend that the sociological value of the PCGNY lies mainly in its provision of basic values, the spiritual reassurance, emotional comfort, and the sense of community it gives its members. Through sermons and teachings its members are constantly reminded of virtues such as hard work, faithfulness, love, 172

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cooperation, and the like. Through weekly meetings new bonds of friendship and cohesion are established between and among persons of different ethnic, class, and social backgrounds. Such relationships reduce stress and its attendant depression among members. Another important social function of the church is that its existence makes an important ethical statement. It challenges the “majoritarian” and cultural uniformity thinking of the larger society and points to the importance of diversity in society.

Economic Significance The church also provides the space for economic activity through buying and selling. Each Sunday some members of the church bring Ghanaian food items such as yams, dried fish, and bread for sale. These are sold outside the church sanctuary after church services. Other items that are often sold are recorded video tapes and DVDs of special occasions such as the church’s annual harvests. In addition, many Ghanaian entrepreneurs, non-PCGNY members included, advertise their businesses through the church. Almost every Sunday, flyers for such businesses are circulated among members. Another important economic function of the church is its provision of job recommendations to prospective employers. Many employers rely on the recommendations of the pastors of this church to evaluate prospective employees who are members of the church.

Political Significance I use the term “political” here not in the sense of active participation in partisan politics but in a loose Aristotelian sense to mean participation in civil discourse and the decision-making process of the polis. Although the church does not actively participate in party politics, either as an institution or as a community of individuals, it provides the space for the discussion of issues important to the church, the Ghanaian community, the host society, and Ghana. The church’s congregational meetings sometimes offer the formal occasion for such discussions. During one such meeting, members discussed what could be done about a ban placed on the Ghanaian national airline, Ghana Airways, from flying to and from the United States. Apart from such formal events, members always discuss issues of burning importance to them in small groups or among themselves. Also, during national elections in both the United States and Ghana, the church sets aside time to pray for the success of the elections in both countries. Pedaling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

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Where Do We Go from Here? Having assessed the significance of the PCGNY, we must look at the limitations the church needs to surmount in order to be able to assist its members in their process of adaptation. While the future of the church in large measure depends on U.S. immigration policies and laws regarding the formation of churches, the PCGNY needs to make certain changes in its current practices if it is to survive. Based on an assessment of the church’s current setup and practices, and weighing that against its own objectives (spelled out in the previous section), I suggest that there are three areas in need of the church’s attention and critical engagement. These are: intergenerational relationships within the church, the church’s relationship with other religious bodies, and its relationship with the larger society. The first has to do with intergenerational problems in the church. There is every indication that the church’s concern for its second generation lags far behind its concern for the first generation. There are no structured programs for youth under the age of twenty-five, even though they constitute the bulk of the second generation. During the period of my research, the church did not have a substantive Youth Director or anybody trained in youth ministry to take care of the youth. The youth ministry of the church functioned as a mere addendum to the ministry of the church. Obviously, the youth were not oblivious of these lapses and expressed their frustration and sense of neglect. Another problem is the differing views of what constitutes the “good” between the two generations. While first-generation members base their moral judgments on Ghanaian religiocultural values, the second generation, naturally, make judgments based on American pragmatic and utilitarian values (the “bottom line”). Since the cultural assumption is that adults are always right, the youth feel cheated when they are judged to be wrong when they disagree with adult members of the church on an issue. According to the youth I spoke to, these two issues make them feel like leaving the church, but they cannot do so without disobeying their parents. While the second problem, which is not peculiar to PCGNY, will always be there and requires long-term solutions, the former can be addressed by providing the youth with trained youth leaders, curricula, and programs that address issues of immigration and adaptation, and other necessary needs pertinent to them. The second area relates to ecumenism: During my research, I found no formal ecumenical relationship between the PCGNY and an American congregation other than the Mount Morris Ascension Church, whose worship 174

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space they rented, and with congregations with a largely Ghanaian membership. Its relationships with other congregations in the United States are confined to honoring the reciprocal attendance of services and events of other Ghanaian churches and joining other churches for annual Easter services organized by the Black Churches Caucus in New York. Such a situation is definitely unhelpful. It is in the best interests of the church and its members to have ecumenical relationships with other churches, particularly the black churches and other minority churches, as this will promote the exchange of ideas. This is not only a theological imperative but a practical need. If they work together with these other churches, they will be more effective in dealing with the social problems confronting them. Third, the PCGNY plays no active public role; it is involved in neither public advocacy nor social programs. This is understandable, considering that a majority of the church members are noncitizens. This limits the congregants’ ability to participate in social and political advocacy. The church itself, like most churches in the United States, risks losing its status as a nonprofit organization if it engages in politicking. Also, with a large percentage of its membership in the lower- to middle-income category, and no endowment funds, the church has very limited financial resources and is therefore unable to finance any social programs. These problems notwithstanding, I believe PCGNY could do more to assist its members in their adjustment to society. Civic educational programs, such as those that inform their members of their rights and responsibilities as residents of the United States; citizenship requirements; resume writing and job searches; the public school system; volunteering opportunities, and so on, will go a long way toward helping members engage with their new society.

Back to the Canoe Canoes have a long history of use in many societies as a means of travel. While in our day, and in many Western societies, canoeing is no more than a sport, in villages and towns in Ghana and Africa as a whole, it serves as a means (sometimes the only one) of crossing rivers and lakes that separate villages or towns from one another. Often, it is used to carry not only people, but also cargo. If not properly handled, canoes can easily capsize. A crucial way of avoiding this is for the travelers on the canoe to fervently and faithfully paddle on both sides of the canoe, always striving for balance between the force applied on either side and keeping their force of gravity low. An imbalance in the paddling will tilt the boat to one side and cause the canoe to capsize. Pedaling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

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Thinking about this image of canoeing offers us several levels of analysis regarding the adaptation of Ghanaian immigrants to the United States. However, what is most essential is the concept that the Ghanaian immigrants must “paddle on both sides.” This means they must always search for ways to cooperate and compromise between the forces that pull them toward home and those that pull them toward the host society. Simple as this may sound, it is perhaps the most difficult task facing the Ghanaian community, especially when they have virtually no control over the “water” on which they travel (and the wind buffeting their canoe), that is, American socioeconomic life.

Conclusion In this book, I have attempted to showcase the community and religious lives of Ghanaian immigrants in New York City, and also to demonstrate, through the case study of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York, how religion assists post-1965 Ghanaian immigrants in the United States in their process of adaptation. This is a story of Ghanaian migration and religion. Indeed, it is a story made up of many stories; the stories of individuals who seek order in their changed and ever-changing circumstances; the stories of those who seek to combine two cultural worlds within themselves; and the story of a community of faith that seeks to maintain its distinct identity while also accommodating the sociocultural values of its host community. The PCGNY is a congregation that owes its formation and existence to the search for survival among the Ghanaian community in the New York tristate area. For this reason, spirituality and communal life constitute the two principal concerns of the church. It seeks to strengthen its members’ understanding of who they are in relation to who God is, and also to provide the space and the community within which new symbols, myths, and values can be both maintained and reshaped. Though it shares the larger vision of the universal church and indeed understands its mission to be the “proclamation of the Gospel of God to all humankind,” it is at this stage largely organized to serve the interests of Ghanaians. In its organizational structure, liturgical practices, worship services, and community life, though largely patterned on that of its parent church in Ghana, it has its own particular identity. In its attempts to replicate the rituals and community life of the home church, PCGNY facilitates a lot of transnational activities between the church and its home country. Thus, members and groups

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from the church often travel to Ghana to participate in annual conferences and church celebrations. Monetary and material donations are often sent to support church projects back in Ghana. On the other hand, the leadership of the PCG and other church agents such as pastors, evangelists, and deliverance specialists are invited to officiate at important functions such as the ordination of priests and other church celebrations. In spite of these continuities between the PCGNY and its home church, it is in many ways independent of its parent church. The church does not only seek to help its members maintain their Ghanaian identity, but it also helps them to adjust to American sociocultural conditions. Among other things, it provides its members guidance in making sound ethical decisions in their new environment. It also provides the physical and social space within which networking between different categories and classes of immigrants take place. Congregants who have been in the United States for fifteen years and above, many of whom are now naturalized citizens, meet with recent arrivals, professionals, and members of the middle class. They also meet with the lower class, women meet with men, and the first- and second-generations interact with one another. Through such interactions the members help one another to deal with problems such as where to find accommodation, jobs, an efficient attorney, and how to deal with a difficult teenage daughter or son, among other things. Secondgeneration congregants also get to know one another and form bonds of friendship. Like all human institutions, the church is not without its problems. Within the church community gender, and particularly intergenerational issues, create tensions. The tensions are often related to the differences between the rights and roles of women and children in the United States and that of the home country. In the United States, women and children find more protection under the law than they do in Ghana. Also, since in Ghana many men are the breadwinners they control the finances of their respective families. Life in America often changes that dynamic. In the United States, many of the Ghanaian women earn far more than their husbands and therefore provide the greater part of the family income. Children sixteen years and above also work and earn incomes in the United States, for which reason they demand to be part of the family decision-making process. These changes also play out in the church. Here, women outnumber men and play a vital role in the running of the church. They wrestle with men who want to be in control of everything in the church. The second generation also Pedaling on Both Sides: Analysis and Conclusion

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believes they are entitled to be heard by the church leadership. The congregation therefore is not like a “Noah’s ark” where values are conserved and saved from the destruction of the flood of secularization, materialism, and unbridled individualism in the outside society. Rather, it is like a “canoe” on water. It is assailed within and without by the storms of continuity and change. Its future direction depends on how fervently it “paddles on both sides,” that is, how it utilizes the resources available to it from Ghana and the United States. This book raises several issues, not all of which, for practical reasons, have been fully explored here. I therefore conclude like a typical Akan storyteller: Anansesem a metoo yi se eye de o se enye de o ebi nko na ebi mmra (This is the story I’ve told. Whether interesting or not, let somebody else tell another story.)30

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Notes

Introduction 1. John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (New York: Praeger, 1969). 2. For example, Anna Karpathakis and Tony Carnes’s book, New York Glory: Religions in the City (New York: NYU Press, 2001), which describes the contemporary religious landscape of New York City, says virtually nothing about African immigrant religious communities that are growing by leaps and bounds in the city. 3. See, for instance, Gerrie ter Haar, Halfway to Paradise: African Christians in Europe (Cardiff: Cardiff Academic Press, 1998); Afe Adogame, “Who Do They Think They Are? Mental Images and the Unfolding of an African Diaspora in Germany,” in Afe Adogame et al., Christianity in Africa and the Diaspora: The Appropriation of a Scattered Heritage (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008), 248–264; Hermione Harris, Yoruba in Diaspora: An African Church in London (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). 4. Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (New York: Doubleday, 1960), 27–28. 5. Raymond B. Williams, Religions of Immigrants from India and Pakistan: New Threads in the American Tapestry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 29. 6. R. Stephen Warner and Judith G. Wittner, eds., Gatherings in the Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 16. 7. Helen Ebaugh and Janet Chafetz, Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations (Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2000), 385.

Chap ter 1 1. In his well-known book, The Uprooted (1951), Oscar Handlin wrote: “Once I thought to write the history of immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.” Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that Made the American People, 2d ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). 2. See, for instance, Ellen P. Kraly and Ines Miyares, “Immigration to New York: Policy, Population, and Patterns,” in Nancy Foner, ed., New Immigrants in New York, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 33–79. 3. The nation of origin quota system was later embodied in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, otherwise known as the McCarran-Walter Act. Among other things, the provisions of this Act required that all those who were not citizens of nations

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in the Western hemisphere be issued with visas on the basis of their countries of birth before they could enter the United States. 4. Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 7. 5. An important book that compares the two waves of immigration in New York is Nancy Foner, From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). 6. Nancy Foner, “Introduction: New Immigrants in New York,” in Foner, ed., New Immigrants in New York, 13. 7. Will Herberg, Protestant—Catholic—Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday-Anchor, 1955). 8. A number of scholars have noted this aspect about the new immigrants. An important book which discusses the diversity of the American religious landscape is Diana Eck, A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001). 9. This is a congressionally mandated visa program which makes available 50,000 visas for persons from countries considered to be underrepresented in the United States. Each year applicants from such countries who are eighteen years old or above file applications, which are drawn in a lottery. Winners are then screened and those deemed to qualify are granted permanent residence visas. 10. See the 2001 Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 2001). 11. It must also be noted that official records of immigrants in the United States do not reflect the reality on the ground, since many immigrants remain undocumented. 12. John Arthur, Invisible Sojourners: African Immigrant Diaspora in the United States (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000), 59. 13. See also Kofi Apraku, African Emigres in the United States: A Missing Link in Africa’s Social and Economic Development (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1991). 14. Arthur, Invisible Sojourners, 20. 15. Though some immigrants have lived in other Western countries and may have reached the United States in a stepwise fashion, they are always surprised to find that life in the United States is far different from what they had been led to believe. For additional information regarding migration patterns of Ghanaians, see Margaret Peil, “Ghanaians Abroad,” African Affairs 94, no. 376 (July 1995): 345–367. 16. John Anarfi et al., “Migration from and to Ghana: A Background Paper,” issued by Development Research Center on Migration Globalization and Poverty, December 2003. Also see Micah Bump, “Ghana: Searching for Opportunities at Home and Abroad,” Migration Information Source, March 2006. 17. Anarfi et al., “Migration from and to Ghana.” 18. Ibid. 19. Bump, “Ghana: Searching for Opportunities at Home and Abroad.” 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Jacqueline Hagan and Helen R. Ebaugh, “Calling upon the Sacred: Migrants’ Use of Religion in the Migration Process,” International Migration Review 37, no. 4 (2003): 1145–1162. 180

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23. A favorite passage for many prosperity preachers is Jabez’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 4:9–10. This is often interpreted to mean that a person with determination, faithfulness, and a direct request for God’s intervention, will be able to change bleak circumstances into blissful ones. Bishop Agyin Asare, of the World Miracle Church International, for instance, explained 1 Chronicles 4:10 this way: “The breakthrough (territory) you have given me is now not enough. I need more. . . . May be you have one house, a car, and are married and so you feel contented and think that moving forward is not necessary. No! No! No! You need more territories, more coasts, and more breakthroughs.” See J. Kwabena Asamoah Gyadu, African Charismatics: Current Developments within Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 210. 24. E. Allen Richardson, Strangers in This Land: Pluralism and the Response to Diversity in the United States (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1988), 21. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Ruben G. Rumbaut, “ Assimilation and Its Discontents: Between Rhetoric and Reality.” International Migration Review 31, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 943. 28. Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgress, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1921; reprint, 1969), 735. 29. Robert Park, “Human Migration and the Marginal Man,” American Journal of Sociology 33: 881—893. 30. Min Zhou, “Segmented Assimilation: Issues, Controversies, and Recent Research on the New Generation,” International Migration Review 31, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 975—1008. 31. Ibid. 32. Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Religion, Race, and National Origins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 61. 33. Ibid., 77. 34. Ibid., 81. 35. Ibid., 71. 36. Ibid. 37. Richard Alba and Victor Nee, “Rethinking Assimilation for a New Era,” International Migration Review 31, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 863. 38. Herbert Gans proposes reconciliation between assimilation and pluralism. He argues that the polarization of the two paradigms to analyze immigrant incorporation was entirely unnecessary. See Herbert Gans, “Toward a Reconciliation of ‘Assimilation’ and ‘Pluralism’: The Interplay of Acculturation and Ethnic Retention,” in International Migration Review 31, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 875–892. For a discussion of the bumpy-line path to assimilation see Herbert Gans, “Comment: Ethnic Invention and Acculturation, the Bumpy-Line Approach,” Journal of American Ethnic History 12: 1 (Fall 1992). 39. Zhou, “Segmented Assimilation,” 981. 40. Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot: Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1963). 41. Ibid., v. 42. Zhou, “Segmented Assimilation,” 982. 43. Kathleen N. Conzen, “ Mainstreams and Side Channels: The Localization of Immigrant Cultures,” Journal of American Ethnic History 11: 1 (Fall 1991).

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44. Alejandro Portes and Ruben C. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 248. 45. Zhou, “Segmented Assimilation,” 984. 46. Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) 45–46. 47. Ibid., 45–46. 48. Ibid., 46. 49. Ibid., 47. 50. Ibid. 51. Min Zhou, “Assimilation, the Asian Way,” in Tamar Jacoby, ed., Reinventing the Melting Pot: The New Immigrants and What It Means to Be American ( New York: Basic Books, 2004), 147. 52. Ibid., 151. 53. Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 12.

Chap ter 2 1. Department of City Planning, The Newest New Yorkers 2000: Immigrant New York in the Millennium (New York: Department of City Planning, 2004). 2. See Min Zhou, “Assimilation, the Asian Way,” in Tamar Jacoby, ed., Reinventing the Melting Pot: The New Immigrants and What It Means to Be American (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 139–153; and Kenneth J. Guest, God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving Immigrant Community (New York: NYU Press, 2003). 3. Lewis Mumford, “What Is a City?” in R.T LeGates and F. Stout, eds., The City Reader (London: Routledge, 1996),184–189. 4. Anthony Giddens, Sociology, 4th ed. (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2001), 591 ff. 5. Saskia Sassen points out that as a result of economic globalization, economic functions have become very concentrated in major cities. Unlike in the past, when cities were essentially centers for imperial administration and international trade, these days they are places where all kinds of businesses—industries, suppliers and markets, labor markets, and so on—are created. See Saskia Sassen, “Rebuilding the Global City,” and Saskia Sassen, “Analytic Borderlands: Race, Gender, and Representation in the New City,” in Anthony D. King, (ed.), Re-Presenting the City: Ethnicity, Capital, and Culture in the Twenty-First-Century Metropolis (New York: NYU Press, 1996), 23–42, 183–202, and also Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York , London, Tokyo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 6. Lowell Livezey, “Ministry When Urban Is Global Connecting Church, City, and Seminary,” unpublished Webber Lecture delivered at New York Theological Seminary on October 26, 2007. Also see Paul Stoller, Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 17 ff. 7. The City of New York, Department of Planning, The Newest New Yorkers: Briefing Booklet (New York City: Department of Planning, 2004), 5, and also at: http://www.nyc. gov/html/dcp/pdf/census/nny_briefing_booklet.pdf (accessed December 10, 2009). 8. In January 2006, the forty-nine-year-old Ghanaian woman, Hagar FrempongManso, was reported killed on her way to work when a beer truck backed up into her. She died soon after being sent to the Bellevue Hospital. 182

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http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/diaspora/artikel.php?ID=98159. My interviewee referred to this and other tragic deaths as evidence of the perils of living in New York City. 9. Stoller, Money Has No Smell, 144–175. 10. See Ian E. A.Yeboah, Black African Neo-Diaspora: Ghanaian Immigrant Experiences in the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio Area (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2008), 88–120. 11. Agyemang Attah-Poku has discussed the activities of these ethnic associations and outlined their importance in the sociocultural adjustment of Ghanaians in the New York area. See Agyemang Attah-Poku, The Socio-Cultural Adjustment Question: The Role of Ghanaian Immigrant Ethnic Associations in America (Farnham, Surrey and Williston, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 1996). 12. See the NCOGA website, www.ncoga.org 13. Some of the names of the Ghanaian congregations I came across during the research for this book are: Abundant Life Baptist, Agape Teaching Ministries, Apostles Revelation Society, Apostolic Church International, Association of Ghanaian Catholics, Believers Fellowship International, Bethel Faith Temple, Bethel Prayer Ministry Int. (USA), Christ Apostolic International, Church of Pentecost, Church of Pentecost Inc. (USA), Day Spring Glory, Ebenezer Assembly of God, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Fellowship of Ghanaian Baptists, First Ghana SDA Church, First United Christian Church, Ghana Presbyterian Reformed Church, Ghana United Methodist Church, Ghanaian Presbyterian Church, Glorious Ministries Int. Inc., Grace Christian Fellowship, Healing Church of Joshua, Living Faith Ministries, Love Gospel Assembly, Miracle Church of Christ, New Covenant Baptist Church, New Christian Center, Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York, Queens Ghanaian SDA, and Victory International Bible Church. 14. “African Immigrants in the United States are the Nation’s Most Highly Educated Group,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 26 (Winter 1999–2000): 60–61. 15. See Jehu Hanciles, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2008), 312–315, for a discussion of this issue.

Chap ter 3 1. This is one version of an anecdote told in Ghanaian communities. 2. The Old Ghana Empire lay between Niger and the middle of the rivers Senegal and Gambia. Albert Adu Boahen, the renowned professor of African history, points out that the Akan custom of reserving all gold nuggets for the king, their system of inheritance, the structure and content of the king’s palace, court etiquette, their use of drums, the burial of their kings, and their system of worship are all similar to that of the people of ancient Ghana. See Adu Boahen (with J. F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Tidy), Topics in West African History (Essex, England: Longman, 1986), 22–23. 3. Daniel M. McFarland points to the possible human habitation at Jaman on the Oti River around 10,000 B.C.E. See his book, Historical Dictionary of Ghana (Metuchen, N.J. and London: Scarecrow Press, 1985), xix. See also Steven J. Salm and Toyin Falola, Culture and Customs of Ghana (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002), 4. 4. McFarland, Historical Dictionary, xix.

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5. See the World Fact Book 2002, published by the CIA, available at www.cia.gov/cia/ publications/factbook 6. Adu Boahen, Topics in West African History, 22–23. 7. A contingent of one hundred engineers and workmen and five hundred soldiers led by a Portuguese admiral, Don Diego d’Azambuja, arrived at Edina. They had been sent by King John II of Portugal to secure a trading post for his country and to plant a Christian church in West Africa. See F. L. Bartels, The Roots of Methodism in Ghana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 1–19. 8. Salm and Falola, Culture and Customs, 21. 9. J. C. Turner, M. A. Hogg, P. J. Oakes, S. D. Reicher, and M. S. Wetherell, Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theorization (Oxford, U.K.: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1987). 10. Michael Hogg, “Social Identity Theory,” in Peter J. Burke, ed., Contemporary Social Psychological Theories (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 111–136. 11. Because these regions are demarcations for largely administrative and political purposes, they cut across ethnic boundaries. The “Eastern Region,” for instance, is home to a number of distinct ethnic groups—Akuapems, Akyems, Akwamus, Ga-Adangmes, Guans, Kwahus, and others. 12. Julius N. Fobil and Raymond A Atuguba, “Ghana: Migration and the Urban Complex,” in Toyin Falola and Steven J. Salm, eds., Globalization and Urbanization in Africa (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2004), 254. 13. Robin Lowin, “Ethos,” in James F. Childress and John Macquarrie, eds., The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 208–209. 14. Max Stackhouse and Peter J. Paris, eds., God and Globalization: Religion and the Powers of the Common Life (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000), 10. 15. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 127. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Sandra E. Greene, Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Change on the Upper Slave Coast: A History of the Anlo-Ewe (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1996), 12. 19. The 1992 Constitution of Ghana recognizes the institution of the chieftaincy. Article 270 (2a and 2b) prohibits parliament from passing any laws that will interfere with the process of choosing chiefs or denigrate the institution. 20. John S. Pobee, Toward an African Theology (Nashville: Pantheon Press, 1979), 44. 21. Steven Salm and Toyin Falola also record the “Clap for Jesus” barber shop and “In God’s Time” hair salon. See Salm and Falola, Culture and Customs of Ghana, 47. 22. David Barret, George T. Kurian, and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 23. See Bartels, The Roots of Methodism in Ghana, 1–19, and Robert T. Parsons, The Churches and Ghana Society, 1918–1955 (Leiden: Brill, 1963). 24. The Basel Mission resulted in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, the Bremen Mission became the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana, which has currently split into two, and the Methodist Mission became the Methodist Church of Ghana. 25. Cephas Omenyo, Pentecost Outside Pentecostalism: A Study of the Development of Charismatic Renewal in the Mainline Churches in Ghana (Zoetemeer: Boekencentrum, 2002), 34. 184

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26. Abamfo Atiemo, Aliens at the Gate of Sodom and Other Reflections (Accra: Presbel Printing Press, 1997), 5, and quoted by Cephas Omenyo, Pentecost Outside Pentecostalism, 40. 27. See Peter A. Schweizer, Survivors on the Gold Coast: The Basel Missionaries in Colonial Ghana (Accra: Smartline Publishing, 2000), 8. 28. Ibid., 8. 29. Noel Smith, The Presbyterian Church of Ghana, 1835–1960: A Younger Church in a Changing Society (Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1966), 20. 30. Ralph M. Wiltgen, Gold Coast Mission History, 1471–1880 (Techny, Ill.: Divine Word Publications, 1956), 109 ; Smith, The Presbyterian Church of Ghana. 31. Schweizer, Survivors on the Gold Coast. 32. See Smith, The Presbyterian Church of Ghana, 35–44, and N.T. Clerk, A Short Centenary Sketch: The Settlement of West Indian Immigrants on the Gold Coast under the Auspices of the Erstwhile Basel Mission Evangelical Missionary Society, 1843–1943 (Basel: Basel Mission, no date), 8–13, for more information regarding the recruitment of the missionaries. 33. See Smith, The Presbyterian Church of Ghana, 44. 34. Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Reports Presented to the 6th General Assembly, August 18–26, 2006, 685–751. 35. Andrew F. Walls has suggested that throughout church history two opposing tendencies have showed up in Christianity’s encounter with other cultures. Both tendencies, which he calls the “indigenizing” principle and the “pilgrim” principle, have their roots in the Christian gospel. While the former emphasizes the fact that Christ accepts us “as we are,” in order words, just as we have been conditioned by our family, society, and by culture, the latter tells us that following Christ implies being out of step with our society and culture. See A. F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1996), 7–9. 36. Several writings on the religious life of the Akan mention and explain this saying. They include Kwame Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 37. J. B. Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God (London: Lutterworth Press, 1944), 55. 38. C. R. Gaba, “The Idea of a Supreme Being among the Anlo of Ghana,” Journal of Religion in Africa 2, no.2, (1969): 64–79. 39. For instance, Robert Moffat, the Scottish pioneer missionary to South Africa for over fifty years, said: “Satan has employed his agency with fatal success, in erasing every vestige of religious impression from the minds of the Bechuanas, Hottentots and Bushmen; leaving them without a single ray to guide them from the dark and dread futurity, or a single link to unite them with the skies.” Quoted by Edwin W. Smith, African Ideas of God: A Symposium (Glasgow: Edinburgh Press, 1961), 83. 40. I use the present tense advisedly here. As I discuss later in the chapter, the impact of Christianity, Islam, and Western “civilization” is so pervasive in Ghanaian communities that it is hard to find an entirely “indigenous” community in Ghana today. In most Ghanaian communities, traditional values and practices exist alongside those associated with other religious and social orientations. 41. I derived some of this information from David Brokensha, ed., Akwapim Handbook (Accra: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1971), 33–34. 42. John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (New York: Praeger, 1969), 74. 43. C. A. Ackah, Akan Ethics (Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1988), 121–122.

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44. The story was reported by Joy 99.7 FM and also found on the station’s website www.myjoyonline.com. 45. G. Jahoda, “Supernatural Beliefs and Changing Cognitive Structures among Ghanaian University Students,” in J. W. Berry and P. R. Dasen, eds., Culture and Cognition: Readings in Cross-Cultural Psychology (London: Methuen, 1974), 141–157, and cited by D. Ayim-Aboagye, The Function of Myth in Akan Healing Experience (Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University Press, 1993), 42–43. 46. It is believed that male witches (wizards) are fewer in number than female witches, but far more powerful and diabolic than the females. 47. See Kofi Asare Opoku, West African Traditional Religion (Accra, Ghana: FEP International Private Limited: 1978), 91. 48. See Joyce Engmann, “Immortality and the Nature of Man in Ga Thought,” and J. N. Kudadjie, “Towards Moral and Social Development in Contemporary Africa: Insights from Dangme Traditional Moral Experience,” in Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye, eds., Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies I (Washington, D.C.: Council for High Values in Philosophy, 1992),153–198, 207–222. 49. The okra is said to be a unique feature of humans. Animals and some plants are believed to possess some kind of spirit called sasa. See Asare Opoku, West African Traditional Religion, 95. 50. A common Akan maxim expresses this belief thus: “Onyame nwu na mawu, or Onyame bewu na mawu bi (Onyame [God] does not die, so I will not die, or if Onyame dies I shall also die, but since Onyame does not die I shall not die.” See Asare Opoku, West African Traditional Religion, 95. 51. Kwame Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 97. 52. K. A. Busia, The Challenge of Africa (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1962), 19, quoted by Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical Thought, 101. 53. Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical thought, 154–162. 54. Ibid., 104. 55. Ibid. 56. The eight abusua (with their subdivisions in parentheses) are: Oyoko (Dako); Bretuo (Tena); Aduana (Abrade); Asakyiri (Amoakaade); Asenee (Adonten); Agona (Toa); Asona (Dwumina, Dwum); Ekoona (Asokore). The twelve patrilineal groups are: Bosommuru; Bosompra; Bosomtwe; Bosom-Dwerebe; Bosomakom; Bosomafi; Bosomafram; Bosom-kons; Bosomsika; Bosompo; Bosomayensu; and Bosomkrete. See A.A. Opoku, Obi Kyere (Tema: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1973), 20–23, and also Asare Opoku, West African Traditional Religion. 57. Asare Opoku, West African Traditional Religion, 99.

Chap ter 4 1. The Presbyterian Church of Ghana owes its origins to the missionary effort of the Evangelical Mission Society of Basel, better known as the Basel Mission, which began operations in Ghana in December 1828. To this day, some people refer to the church as Basel asore (the church formed by the Basel missionaries) and to the members as Baselfo (people who belong to the church started by the Basel missionaries). 186

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2. Pastors of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) are commonly addressed as “papa” (father) or “mama” (mother), as the case may be. Since I was dressed in the typical pastoral regalia—a dark suit and a clerical collar—the lady immediately knew that I was a pastor. 3. See Okristoni (The Christian): A Pictorial Journal of Ghana Presbyterian Church, USA (No place: no publisher, 1995), 8. 4. From all indications, this was a very troubling time in the life of the Ghanaian community. In their conversations with me, founding members of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York as well as members of other Ghanaian religious and social groups referred frequently to these mysterious deaths. Rev. Yaw Asiedu, the current pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York, estimates that in one year alone about twenty-five Ghanaian immigrants died under mysterious circumstances in New York City. 5. Mrs. Margaret Ohemeng undoubtedly played a central role in the formation of this church. The initial vision for a church was hers. Moreover, she provided spiritual and material support for the church for many years. Almost all the historical accounts of the church that I have read confirm this. Thus, the original idea of forming the Singing Band is attributed to her, and she asked one Mr. J. L. Boateng to help start it. She is also said to have initiated the formation of the Church Choir and Women’s Fellowship and she was one of the first Presbyters of the church. 6. See Kwame Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 76–84. 7. Interview with Mrs. Margaret Ohemeng at her home on June 12, 2004. 8. Mr. Dwamena became the first pastor of the church after receiving his Ph.D. in education, and after his ordination by the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. 9. The Presbyterian Training College was founded in 1848 by the Basel Mission. In Ghana it is popularly known as the “mother of all schools.” 10. Interview with Rev. Dr. Kumi Dwamena at his home on December 2, 2003. 11. Okristoni (The Christian), 8. 12. Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Liturgy and Service Book (Accra: Waterville Publishing House, 1987, rev. ed.), part 2, 54. Emphasis added. 13. The link between the PCGNY and the home church is clear from the fact that pastors and leaders of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, many of whom were students in the United States, have been instrumental in expanding the church. Records show that Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Martey, Rev. Dr. Obiri Addo, Rev. Dr. Kwasi Yirenkyi, and Rev. Dr. Abraham Akrong were involved in church life in different capacities. 14. Most Presbyterian Church of Ghana congregations have both a Singing Band and a Church Choir. 15. Helen R. Ebaugh, Jennifer O’ Brien, and Janet Chafetz, “The Social Ecology of Residential Patterns and Membership in Immigrant Churches,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 39, no.1(2000): 107–116. 16. The Akan constitute about half of the Ghanaian population. They are made up of the following peoples: Asante, Akuapem Akyem, Akwamu, Fante, Bono, Kwahu, Sehwi, Awowin, Nzima and Ahanta. The peoples represented in the PCGNY are the Akuapems, Akyems, Asantes, Kwawus, Akwamus, and Fantes. 17. Interestingly, this gender ratio is similar to what pertains in the home church. The Clerk of General Assembly’s Report to the Third General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana indicates that 63.45 percent of the church membership is made up of women while 36.55 percent are men.

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18. Victoria Hyonku Kwon makes the same observation in her study of the Korean Ethnic Church in Houston. See Victoria Hyonu Kwon, “Houston Korean Ethnic Church: An Ethnic Enclave,” in Helen Ebaugh and Janet Chafetz, eds., Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2000), 113. 19. Jehu J. Hanciles, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Immigration, and the Transformation of the West (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2008), 326. 20. Ibid. 21. The term was first used by John Higham in Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism,1860–1925 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1955). Recently, Robert Orsi has used the term in his discussion of dark-skinned Italian immigrants in the United States. See Robert Orsi, “The Religious Boundaries of an In-Between People: Street Feste and the Problem of the Dark-Skinned Other in Italian Harlem,” in Robert Orsi, ed., Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 257–288. 22. Stephen R. Warner, “The Place of the Congregation in the American Religious Configuration,” in J. P. Wind and J. W. Lewis, eds., American Congregations, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). See also Stephen Warner and Judith G. Wittner, eds., Gatherings in the Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998). Emphasis added. 23. Warner and Wittner, Gatherings in the Diaspora, 21. 24. Ebaugh and Chafetz, Religion and the New Immigrants, 347. 25. Ibid., 347–358. 26. P. J. DiMaggio and W. W. Powell, W.W., “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review, 48(2) (1983): 147–160; and J. W. Meyer and B. Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony,” American Journal of Sociology, 83(2) (1977): 340–363. 27. However, the home church has recently asked the PCGNY to contribute annual “assessments” to support its budget. 28. Note that under the PCG system, a commissioned pastor must serve for at least two years before he or she is fully ordained. As a probationer, he or she is licensed to administer the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but cannot bless marriages. This restriction is based upon the Republic of Ghana’s legal requirement that the minister officiating at a wedding be a fully ordained pastor. In this case, since Rev. Asiedu was a ministerial probationer he needed to be supervised by an ordained pastor. 29. The Overseas Mission Field was formed in the year 2000 but was officially inaugurated by the leaders of the PCG on October 24, 2004. It was intended to be a de facto presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana that would serve as a governing and coordinating body for all congregations in the United States and Canada affiliated to the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Soon after its formation it was saddled with several problems. The main problem has been how to incorporate into its fold all the Ghanaian Presbyterian churches that have different structural affiliations. Currently the body is registered as the Presbyterian Church of Ghana Overseas Presbytery—USA Inc., and serves as an umbrella body to which all churches that operate under the logo, banner, and constitution of the PCG must belong. Apart from its supervisory role, it acts as a link between the PCG churches in the United States and their parent church in Ghana. 188

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30. Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Report for 1999 presented to the 71st Synod Held at Abetifi Kwahu Presbytery 26th August–1st September, 2000 (Accra: Presbyterian Press, 2000), 191. 31. As mentioned above, Ghanaian Presbyterian churches in the United States are generally of two types: those directly under the structural control of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, and those operating under the constitution of Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. and the Reformed Church of America, while also being affiliated with the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. 32. Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Constitution 2000, Article 9: 7(o), 32. 33. Groups in the church such as the Church Choir, Women’s Fellowship, and Singing Band periodically celebrate the anniversaries of their formation in order to generate funds for the running of the groups. 34. Deliverance services involve healing and “casting out of demons” (exorcism). This is fully described later in this chapter. 35. John S. Mbiti, Bible and Theology in African Christianity (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1986). 36. Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1989). 37. Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995), 60. 38. See A. A. Opoku, Festivals of Ghana (Accra: Ghana Publishing Corporation, 1970). 39. Among most of the ethnic groups in Ghana people are named according to the day of the week on which they were born. Among the Akan, for example, a male born on Friday is Kofi and a female Afua. A male child born on Saturday will be named Kwame, and a girl child Ama. During the kind of offering described here, popularly referred to as Kofi ne Ama (Kofi and Ama) people come to offer their money in the order of the day of the week on which they were born. 40. I learned that the preparation and serving of the food is assigned to one church group each year. On this occasion it was the Women’s Fellowship’s turn. 41. This section on deliverance was previously published in my article, “Singing the Lord’s Song in a Foreign Land: Spirituality, Communality and Identity in a Ghanaian Immigrant Congregation,” in Jacob Olupona and Regina Gemignani, eds., African Immigrant Religions in America (New York: NYU Press, 2007). 42. African Independent churches, also known as African Initiated churches, were formed by indigenous Africans. Examples are, the Mosama Disco Christo Church, and the Cherubim and Seraphim. These are different from the mission churches, which are generally products of the Western missionary enterprise of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 43. Healing and deliverance are sometimes treated as two distinct elements, as evidenced by many posters and advertisements for deliverance services. I have chosen to put the two together because in reality—and based on the Ghanaian understanding of healing—they are considered to be synonymous. 44. See Aaron K. Vuha, The Package: Salvation, Healing, and Deliverance (Accra: EP Church of Ghana, 1993), 36. 45. Ibid., 36. 46. Paul Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role (London: Hurst & Company, 1998), 98–99. 47. Ibid., 97.

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Chap ter 5 1. Most functions organized by congregants, particularly parties, start at night and continue into the early hours of the morning. 2. N. K. Dzobo, “The Image of Man in Africa,” in Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye, eds., Person and Community, 132. 3. For a good discussion on the central role played by individualism in American sociocultural life and the challenges it poses to community life, see Robert N.Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). 4. Peter J. Paris, The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995), 115–116. 5. See Acts 6:1–6. 6. Kwabena is the Akan name for a male born on Tuesday. 7. There are differences between the way this naming was done and the traditional way of doing it in Ghana. Traditionally, liquor such as gin or schnapps is used together with water for the naming. Here, brine was substituted for the liquor. Also, whereas in traditional ceremonies the right forefinger is used to put the water and alcohol in the baby’s mouth, in this case a spoon was used. Among the Akan, the forefinger is called akyerekyerekwan (that which shows the way). It is the finger used to point things out to others or to give directions. Symbolically, then, by using the forefinger the person performing the naming is showing the child the right way to live. The pastor later informed me that health considerations had dictated the changes in the traditional way of naming and the creation of new symbols. 8. This is common practice among Ghanaian immigrants, even though it is far more costly to send the body of the deceased to Ghana for burial than to bury the person in the United States. In fact, many of the members I spoke to, including the current pastor of the church who has lived in the United States for over thirty years, said they would prefer to be buried “at home,” that is, in Ghana, when they died. 9. Among Ghanaians, particularly among the Akan, a person’s hometown is not necessarily the place where he or she has lived for a long time, or even where he or she was born. Rather, it refers to the person’s ancestral home. 10. Sometimes exceptions are made if the dead person was above seventy years old and died peacefully of natural causes. In such cases, white and bright colored clothes are worn for the funeral since the deceased is considered to have lived a full lifespan and to have been victorious. 11. By “normal,” I mean the funerals of people who die of natural causes such as disease or old age. But the funerals of those who die of unnatural causes, particularly if the death was the result of violence or tragedy, are handled differently by different churches in Ghana. The Presbyterian Church of Ghana takes a very strong stance against suicide and therefore does not permit the body of a person who dies through suicide to be brought into the church premises. 12. Other churches in Ghana, such as the Methodist Church of Ghana and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ghana, have imposed similar bans on “wake-keepings.” Among the reasons given for the ban are the fact that “wake-keepings” are very costly to organize, and also that they create the context for drunkenness, debauchery, and other antisocial behavior. 190

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13. This ban has not been very effective. Since “wake-keeping” continues to be part of the national culture, many church members bow to the pressures of their families (especially when they are not members of the PCG) and find ways of circumventing the ban. 14. Among the Akan and many other ethnic groups in Ghana, the spouse of the deceased is not permitted to socialize during the mourning period. 15. Writing about the Akan of Ghana, Adjaye indicates that the crucial indicators of a successful Akan funeral are its grandeur and how well guests are entertained with music, food, and drinks. See Joseph K. Adjaye, Boundaries of Self and Other in Ghanaian Popular Culture (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004), 148. 16. The deceased, I later learned, was originally married to a Ghanaian woman. He divorced her and then married an American woman. 17. In their book, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), Michael Emerson and Christian Smith point out that the racialized nature of American society is reflected in the composition of its religious congregations. See also Curtiss DeYoung et al., United by Faith: The Multicultural Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), for a similar assessment.

Chap ter 6 1. See the executive summary, and also Min Zhou’s paper, “Contemporary Female Immigration to the United States: A Demographic Profile,” presented at a conference entitled, “Women Immigrants in the United States, Proceedings of a Conference Sponsored by the Windrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Migration Policy Institute,” September 2002. 2. These women were considered “affiliate members” of the Men’s Fellowship. They often sang with them during church services. 3. Helen R. Ebaugh and Janet S. Chafetz, eds., Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations (New York: Altamira Press, 2000), 363. 4. The church has had only two pastors in its entire existence. The first pastor who served for seventeen years, retired in 2002 and was replaced by a new one. 5. On December 19, 2004 new elections were held which corrected the gender imbalance. Half of the ten members elected were women. Also, a twenty-five-year-old young adult was elected to the Session to represent the youth of the church. The election of this person was in contravention of the PCG constitution that stipulates that one must be at least thirty years old to be elected Presbyter. 6. As a male pastor asking these women questions about gender relations I am fully aware that the power dynamics might have influenced the responses they gave me. Although the women were very forthcoming with their answers (since the questions were asked during informal conversations), I cannot be certain that their responses represent their true views on the issues discussed. 7. Unlike many Protestant churches in the United States, where the resident pastor preaches on almost every Sunday, the PCGNY—like its parent church—allows lay members who have the required training to preach as well. 8. See Regina Gemignani, “Gender, Identity, and Power in African Evangelical Churches,” in Jacob K. Olupona and Regina Gemignani, eds., African Immigrant Religions in America (New York: NYU Press, 2007), 133–157.

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9. See, for instance, Ebaugh and Chafetz, eds., Religion and the New Immigrants. 10. See Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 11. Many of them were either born in Ghana or were sent there for a while to live with family members. 12. The youth of the church meet in a room in the basement of the church building, while the adults meet in the main sanctuary. While this arrangement reflects the unavailability of a suitable room to meet in, it creates a perception of relative power and weakness, whereby the adults (who are upstairs) are seen as powerful and strong while the youth (who have been relegated to the basement downstairs) are perceived as weak.

Chap ter 7 1.. See chapter 4, note 29, for an explanation of the Overseas Mission Field. 2. In my experience, this claim is not accurate. While most Presbyterian church congregations contribute toward the funeral of a deceased member, the family of the deceased are the ones who actually organize the funeral and pay for the expenses. 3. Peter J. Paris, The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995), 22. 4. Ibid. 5. Numerous scholars have pointed out the persistence, in various degrees, of African indigenous spirituality. Despite the fact that aspects of this spirituality have changed as a result of the influence of Christianity, Islam, and so-called Western civilization, it continues to be present in various forms among Africans and peoples of African descent. In fact, it has permeated Christianity and Islam in Africa and the diaspora and has considerably influenced other forms of worship, such as Voodoo. For a number of current articles on this subject, see Jacob K. Olupona, ed., African Spirituality: Forms, Meanings and Expressions (New York: Crossroad, 2000). 6. John S. Pobee, “Theological Education in Africa,” in John S. Pobee and J. N. Kudadjie, eds., Theological Education in Africa: Quo Vadimus? (Accra: Asempa Publishers, 1990), 193. 7. Ibid. 8. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Los Angeles: Roxbury, 1998). 9. See, in particular, Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, “The Ethical Demands of Integration,” delivered in Nashville in 1962, in Washington M. James, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr. (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991). 10. Timothy Smith, “Religion and Ethnicity in America,” in American Historical Review 83 (1978): 1155–1185. 11. The word asafo also translates as company, society, or association. 12. See Diogenes Allen, Philosophy for Understanding Theology (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985), 1. 13. I am indebted to J. B. Danquah for the English translations. See J. B. Danquah, Akan Doctrine of God (London and Redhill: Lutterworth Press, 1944), 55. 14. This is a reference to Psalm 17:8 and Zechariah 2:8. 15. See Adrian Hastings, “Salvation,” in Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason, and Hugh Pyper, eds., The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 639. 192

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16. David T. Adamo, in his small but very insightful book, has discussed the use of the Bible, particularly the Psalms, for healing in African Independent churches in Nigeria. See David T. Adamo, Reading and Interpreting the Bible in African Independent Churches (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001). 17. Sidney G. Williamson, Akan Religion and the Christian Faith (Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1965), 142. 18. See J. G. Christaller, Dictionary of Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Twi), (Basel: Basel Missionary Society, 1933), 2nd ed., 277. 19. Christian. R. Gaba, “Man’s Salvation: Its Nature and Meaning in African Traditional Religion,” in Edward Fashole-Luke et al., eds., Christianity in Independent Africa (Bloomigton: Indiana University Press, 1978), 389–401. 20. Gerrie ter Haar, African Christians in Europe (Nairobi: Acton Publishers, 2001), 78. 21. See Justin Ukpong, “Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Africa: Historical and Hermeneutical Directions,” in Gerald West and Musa Dube, eds., The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 11. 22. This is a translation of the Akan proverb, “ Nyansa dodow nti na okoto anya ti,” which warns people who claim to know much that they have forgotten the very foundations of their supposed knowledge and will end up losing their sense of what is real. The source of my translation and explanation is Kofi Asare Opoku, Hearing and Keeping, Hearing and Keeping: Akan Proverbs (Accra: Asempa Publishers, 1997), 70. 23. Memorizing passages from the Bible and catechisms is a common feature of Ghanaian churches. Many PCGNY congregants had benefited from Bible and catechism classes in Ghana, while others belonged to groups such as the Bible Study and Prayer Group and could recite Bible passages from memory. 24. Yaw Asiedu, “The Degree and Value of Relationships,” Sermon preached on October 5, 2003. 25. Ibid. 26. In Ghana, the practice of putting pepper or a piece of charcoal together with money to ward away evil spirits who could steal the money is widespread.

Chap ter 8 1. For more information on the okyeame and the linguist’s staff, see Kofi Asare Opoku, Hearing and Keeping: Akan Proverbs (Accra: Asempa Publishers, 1997), 122–130. 2. Nathan Glazer, We Are All Multiculturalists Now (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998). 3. Robert Wuthnow, Christianity and Civil Society: The Contemporary Debate (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1996), 76. 4. Ibid., 82. 5. The term “Anglo-conformity” was coined by Steward G. Cole and Mildred W. Cole in their book, Minorities and the American Promise: The Conflict of Principle and Practice (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954). As Milton Gordon explains, it refers to the promotion of the English language and of English-oriented cultural patterns as the standard in American life. This ideology often leads to racial discrimination, a superiority complex, and the like. See Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Religion, Race and National Origins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 85, 115.

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6. For instance, Tom Tancredo, congressman for the Sixth Congressional District of Colorado and then executive director of a conservative think tank, is quoted as saying, “Immigration and the multiculturalism it feeds are threatening to dissolve the bonds of common nationhood and the underlying sense of common destiny, bringing forward the danger of a balkanized America.” See “Letters to the Post,” Denver Post (May 9, 1995), B-6 and quoted in Robert Wuthnow, Christianity and Civil Society: The Contemporary Debate (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International), 81. 7. Joseph Raz, “Multiculturalism: A Liberal Perspective,” Dissent (Winter 1994): 69; quoted by Wuthnow, Christianity and Civil Society, 92. 8. Raz, “Multiculturalism,” 69. 9. Reginald Brown, “Identity,” in Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer, eds., Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (London: Routledge, 1996). 10. See, for instance, Bernard Peters, “Collective Identity, Cultural Difference and Developmental Trajectories of Immigrant Groups,” in Rosemarie Sackmann et al., eds., Identity and Integration: Migrants in Western Europe (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2003), 13–35. 11. These categorizations are by Hans Mol, who has made the relationship between identity and religion key to his research and writing. See Hans Mol, ed., Identity and Religion: International and Cross-Cultural Approaches (California: Sage Publications, 1978), 1–17. 12. See Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), especially chapter 3, for an interesting discussion of group identity. 13. Peter Kivisto, “Social Spaces, Transnational Immigrant Communities, and the Politics of Incorporation,” Ethnicities 2003:3 (1): 5–28. 14. For a theoretical discussion of the relationship between identity and integration, see Hans J. Mol, Identity and the Sacred: A Sketch for a New Social-Scientific Theory of Religion (New York: Free Press, 1977). Gayraud S. Wilmore has also observed this tension in black Presbyterian churches in the United States. See Gayraud S. Wilmore “Identity and Integration: Black Presbyterians and their Allies in the Twentieth Century,” in Milton J. Coalter et al., eds., The Presbyterian Predicament: Six Perspectives (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), 109–133. 15. Kwame Anthony Appiah has brilliantly analyzed the structure of social identity in his most recent book, The Ethics of Identity. 16. This is one of three definitions of “integration” provided by The Oxford Dictionary of American English and Language Guide. The different meanings, I believe, may be partly responsible for the different understanding of the social process by different groups of people. See The Oxford Dictionary of American English and Language Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 510. 17. The late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed this understanding of “integration” in his speech, “Ethical Demands for Integration.” See James M. Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), 117–125. Ironically, the Oxford Dictionary of American English lists desegregation as one of the meanings of integration. 18. Peter Skerry, “Do We Really Want Immigrants to Assimilate?” Society (March/April 2000): 57.

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19. Robert N. Bellah, “Is There a Common American Culture?” Journal for the American Academy of Religion 66(3) (Fall 1998): 613–625. 20. See Byran Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 27–52. 21. Ibid., 27. 22. Ibid., 34. 23. See, among others, Will Herberg, Protestant—Catholic—Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (New York: Doubleday, 1960); Raymond B. Williams, Religions of Immigrants from India and Pakistan: New Threads in the American Tapestry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Stephen R. Warner and Judith G.Witner, eds., Gatherings in the Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998); Helen Ebaugh and Janet Chafetz, eds., Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations (New York: Altamira Press, 2000); and Kenneth Guest, God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving Immigrant Community (New York: NYU Press, 2003). 24. Based on the works of Stephen Warner, James Hopewell, Michael Ducey, H. Paul Douglass, Nancy Ammerman, Melvin Williams,and others, Barbara Wheeler presents three different perspectives about the way congregational identity is created. The first perspective, which she calls the “wineskin theory,” suggests that congregational identity is created not by what the congregation does but rather by “what is done to it.” The second perspective, which is essentially the opposite of the first, posits that congregations derive their identities from their inherent culture rather than from outside religious and social forces. The third perspective says that congregations intentionally create the richness and depth of their identity. See Barbara G. Wheeler, “Uncharted Territory: Congregational Identity and Mainline Protestantism,” in Milton J. Coalter, John M. Mulder, and Louis B. Weeks, eds., The Presbyterian Predicament: Six Perspectives (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), 67–89. 25. Nancy Ammerman, “Culture and Identity in the Congregation,” in Nancy Ammerman, Jackson W. Carroll, Carl S. Dudley, and William McKinney, eds., Studying Congregations: A New Handbook (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), 79. 26. Bylaws of the Ghana Presbyterian Church of USA, Inc., New York, N.Y., Article II, Section 1. 27. During their meetings, congregants use mainly English, yet they sing Twi songs. I found out that many of them understood at least one Ghanaian language, even though they could not speak it fluently. 28. Max Weber’s central thesis in his Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism (Los Angeles: Roxbury, 1998) is a case in point. Also, Troeltsch argued that Protestantism influenced the modern world through various realms of life—family, law, states, society, the arts, and so on. See Ernst Troeltsch, Protestantism and Progress: A Historical Study of the Relation of Protestantism to the Modern World (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 1999), 128–170. More recently, David Martin has also pointed out that religious belief and practice create a culture of participation, voluntarism, self-government, and personal initiative among the evangelical Christians he studied. These are values necessary for self-development and the advancement of society. See David Martin, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).

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29. Wilson states, among other things, that, “Contemporary society operates as if affective-neutrality were sufficient value-orientation for things to work; it may yet discover that there are other necessities, the virtues essentially nurtured in local communities, in religious contexts, which in the long run will be shown to be as indispensable to the society of the future as they were of the communities of the past.” Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective, 52. 30. Among the indigenous Akan, storytelling is an important pastime that involves a whole group of people or a community. After a story is told, the storyteller always invites another person to follow up with another story. This practice teaches the important lesson that no one single research or publication teaches everything.

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Index

Abusharaf, Rogaia Mustafa, 3 Adaptation, 3; religion and, 166; strategies, 42–45; among women, 130 Adogame, Afe, 3, 179n3 African, 1, 3; cosmology, 2; migration to America, 1; understanding of community and individuality, 106 African immigrants, 2; congregations, 2–3, 4, 79–50; post–1965, 10 Akan: of Ghana, 69, 164; kingdom of Bono, 47; proverbs; ix, 60, 62, 63, 159; storyteller, 178, 196n30 Alba, Richard, 21 Ammerman, Nancy, on congregational culture, 167–168 Anarfi, Joseph, on phases of Ghanaian migration, 13 Ancestors, 56, 57, 59 Anglo-conformity, 161, 193n5; Anglosaxon, 161, 164 Ansah Kwaw, 56 Asare, Dr., 42–45 Assimilation, 19–21 Basel missionaries, 157 Bediako, Kwame, 147 Beeko, Very Rev., 82 Bellah, Robert, on “utilitarian individualism,” 165 Bible, 147, 150, 152, 152, 153 Birthday celebrations, 102–105 Black: Americans, 27; as racial category, 27, 165 Bronx, NY, 138, 165 Burgess, Ernest, 19

Canoe, 159, 175 Community: “compound house,” and “self contained,” 107; extending and expanding, 116–118 Congregationalism, 81–82 Coozen, Kathleen, on immigrants’ cultural beliefs, 23 Creation stories, 147–148 Culture, reproduction and subversion, 130–131 D’Alisera, JoAnn, 3 Deliverance services, 96–99 Diego d’Azambuja, Don, 52 Diversity Visa Program, 12, 144 Divine command, 153 Divinities, 56, 57 Divorce, 154 Dzobo, N. K, on community, 106 Ebaugh, Helen, and Janet Chafetz, 4, 81; and Jacqueline Hagan, 17; on role of women in immigrant congregations, 122 Elmina, 48 Enlightenment, 143 Erickson, Erik, on identity, 162 Ethical values, 152–156 Evangelical Mission Society of Basel (Basel Mission), 53 Foreign-born in U.S., 11, 12 Funerals, 111–116, 190n11 Gaba, Christian R., on the worship of God, 57 Gans, Herbert, 21

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Gender relations, 120, 125–130 Ghana, the people of, 50; 2000 census, 47; businesses and entrepreneurship in New York City, 38–40; and Christianity, 52–53; cultural associations, 41; deaths in New York City, 68; ethnicity, 51; ethos and world views, 50–57; Ghanaian, 13; immigrants in New York, 32–33; languages, 51; migration, 12–17; religion and religious imagination, 52, 60, 63; social life in New York City, 42 Giddens, Anthony, on globalization in cities, 35 Glazer, Nathan: and Patrick Moynihan on melting pot, 22; on multiculturalism, 160 God, 56, 57, 58; as creator, 142–148 Gold Coast, 12, 54 Gordon, Milton, on assimilation, 20–21 Gyekye, Kwame, 69 Hancilles, Jehu, on types of African immigrant congregations, 78–79 Handlin, Oscar, 10 Hastings, Adrian, on salvation, 149 Herberg, Will, 4, 11 Hogg, Michael, on social identity, 49 Human person, 60–63 Hume, David, 142 Huntington, Samuel, 28 Identity: American, 28, 29; collective, 162; Ghanaian, 49–62; social, 2 Immigration and Nationality Act, 10 Institutional isomorphism, 81 Kant, Immanuel, 142 King, Martin Luther Jr., 140; on integration, 163, 194n14 Libation, 112 Marriage, 117–118, 154 Mbiti, John, 2, 106, 147; on the Bible in Africa, 150

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Moravian Church in Jamaica, 53; missionaries, 157 Murphy, Eddie, 9 Naming ceremonies, 109–110 Nee, Victor, 21 New York City, 9; diversity, 36–37; economy and businesses 31; as a global city, 35 Nigeria, 13, 14 Non-avoidance, 107 Okyeame (linguist), 159 Olupona, Jacob, 3 Organizational hybridity, 80–81 Overseas Mission Field (Presbyterian Church of Ghana), 85, 188n29, 137 Pan African Conference of Third World Theologians (1977), 150 Paris, Peter, 106: on spirituality, 139 Park, Robert, on assimilation, 19 Pietism, pietistic, 156 Pobee, John S., on theology, 140 Portes, Alejandro, on “segmented assimilation,” 24–25 Presbyterian Church of Ghana, 53; affiliated congregations in New York City, 86; aspects of constitution, 83; directive from Synod, 85l Ga Presbytery, 85 Presbyterian Church of Ghana in New York (PCGNY): conflicts, 82; congregational type, 78–80; cultural and sociological significance, 172; economic and political significance, 173; ecumenism, 174; formation, 68–72; intergenerational issues, 174; members’ views, 75–78; membership, 73–75; mission statement, 170; religious significance, 172; second generation, 132–136; worship services, 89–96; welfare services, 109 Presbyterian Church of USA (PCUSA), 137–138 Prosperity gospel, 18, 181n23

Race, 25; racism, 10 Raz, Joseph, on value pluralism, 161 Republic of Ghana, 13; agriculture, 47; geography and demographics, 46–47, 50; history, 48–50 Richardson, E. Allen, on diversity and homogeneity in America, 19 Riis, Andreas, 54 Rumbaut, Ruben C., 24–25 Salvation, 148–150 Sanneh, Lamin, 147 Sassen, Saskia, on New York’s economy, 35–36 Satayana, George, on religion, 169 Smith, Timothy, 141 Spirituality, 139, 156, 157 Stoller, Paul, on West African Muslims in New York, 38 Ter Haar, Gerrie, on use of Bible among African immigrants in Europe, 151 Theology, 140; pulpit and pew, 141 Theories of immigrant incorporation in America: assimilation, 19–21; multiculturalism, 22, 23, 161; “segmented assimilation,” 24

United Free Church of Scotland, 53; Scottish missionaries, 54, 157 Virtues, 105 Wake-keeping, 114 Walls, Andrew, 55 Warner, Stephen, 4, 80, 117 Watch night service, 152 Weber, Max, 140a Wilson, Bryan, 166, 172 Wilson Major Morris Community Center, 102 Witchcraft, belief in, 58–60 Women: adaptation, 130; roles, 177 Wurttemberg, 53 Wuthnow, Robert, on multiculturalism in America, 160 Yeboah, Ian, on Ghanaian businesses in the Cincinnati Ohio area, 40 Youth, meetings, 133 Zhou, Min, 23, 27, 33

Index

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About the Author

Mose s O. B in ey is Associate Pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Irvington, New Jersey and an adjunct assistant professor at the New York Theological Seminary.

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