Improvised adolescence : Somali Bantu teenage refugees in America / Sandra Grady.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grady, Sandra, author.

Series:

Folklore studies in a multicultural world.

Folklore Studies in a Multicultural World

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Somalis--Cultural assimilation--United States.

Somalis.

Somalis--United States--Social life and customs.

Bantu-speaking peoples--Cultural assimilation--United States.

Bantu-speaking peoples.

Somali American teenagers.

Refugees--Somalia.

Refugees.

Teenage refugees--United States.

Teenage refugees.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (174 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wisconsin ; London, England : The University of Wisconsin Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Changing from child to young adult is difficult everywhere. But to experience childhood in continuous flight from conflict, then move into adolescence as a refugee in a radically different culture, is a more than usually complicated transition for teens and for their parents, communities, teachers, and social workers. Improvised Adolescence explores how teenagers from southern Somalia, who spent much of their childhood in East African refugee camps, are adapting to resettlement in the American Midwest. The collapse of the Somali state in 1991, and subsequent chaos in the Horn of Africa, disrupted the lives of these young people educationally, culturally, and developmentally. Folklorist Sandra Grady has intermittently observed the lifeworld of these teens-their homes, their entertainment choices, their interaction with classmates and teachers at school, and their plans for the future-for more than seven years to understand the cultural tools they've used in their journey from this disrupted childhood. They negotiate two sets of cultural expectations: in the resettled Somali Bantu community, traditional rites of passage continue to mark the change from child to adult; in the surrounding U.S. culture, an unfamiliar in-between category-"adolescent"-delays adulthood. Offering analysis that is both engaging and theoretically grounded, Grady tracks the emergence in this immigrant community of an improvised adolescence.Best books for public & secondary school libraries from university presses, American Library Association

Contents:

Contents; List of Illustrations; Preface; Introduction: The Somali Bantu; 1. The New Village: The Construction of Somali Bantu Identity in Everyday Life; 2. Attaining Adulthood 1: Rites of Passage in Traditional African Contexts; 3. Feminine and Masculine on Display: Media Consumption and Gender Models; 4. Attaining Adulthood 2: Adolescence, Identity, and FGC in Diaspora; 5. No Ritual Left Behind: Schools and American Rites of Passage; 6. Celebrating Adulthood: Wedding Ritual and the Celebration of Identity; 7. Identities in Development: Culture, Gender, and Life Cycle in Diaspora

Afterword: From Adolescence into AdulthoodWorks Cited; Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780299303235

0299303233

OCLC:

908625704