Thursday, January 21st, 2010
by Liya Endale
EA4C Guest Blogger

Every once in a while, I come across a submission that raises the bumps on my arms as my mind wraps around the message of its writer. A young Ethiopian writer who grew up in the United States or Canada like I did. A writer whose calling is so loud it screams from the words on my screen, illuminated from behind by the bright, eternal white that seems to stretch into the computer and into another parallel universe; one where we never left home and we learned to cook doro wut and drive a stick shift at a young age. What gave this person the courage to follow their fingers on a keyboard instead of the warnings of a community who believes success is measured by the number of letters that come after your name, M.d, PhD, M.Ed.

For those who do not know, my sister and I are publishing a book together about perspectives on identity by the young Ethiopian/Eritrean Diaspora. We have been collecting submissions from Ethiopians and Eritreans in the United States and Canada for a little over six months now. You have sent us your poetry, photographs, and essays based the joys, pains and comic relief that come with being this special generation of young East Africans in the United States. As we assemble our review team, I have the pleasure of organizing all of our submissions, which entails reading them over and over. Each time I do, I get it. All over again. I get why we started this project in the first place.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about all of us who are in medical school, engineers, and small business owners. Certainly, to accomplish such challenging tasks such as these deserves accolades.  Beyond these kudos, I wonder how many of us have missed another calling because of the pressure we put on ourselves to conform to the definition of success composed by our community. The social sciences are a nonentity in our society but they play such a large part of the American life; perhaps because devoting one’s life’s studies to psychology, sociology, religion, writing or philosophy is a privilege reserved for those who live in the most advantaged sectors of the human population. But that is exactly what we are doing here in this country.

Life can be hard anywhere, but here we see commercials for air filters for clean air and motion sensors for electronic air fresheners. While this kind of environment has its pros and cons, I think our responsibility as citizens born out of the sacrifices of our parents is to take advantage of the pros and change this world for the better using the gifts we were carried into this world. Writing can change hearts and lives; especially in a place where people with all the food they can eat, a house with rooms they don’t even venture into anymore, and more cars than they have asses to put in the drivers’ seats are depressed. They are reaching out for substance that is not tangible. And when I read these submissions, I see that some of us have it.

In one of my favorite movies, The Golden Child, Eddie Murphy is given the task of retrieving a magic dagger which is needed to defeat the devil and is located at the end of a treacherous obstacle course which no one has survived. His instructions are to stay on ‘the path’. However, when the path leads him to a bridge which explodes before him, he yells out, “I thought I was supposed to stay on the path!” And a voice responds by saying, “But you must also know when to break the rules.” We are a generation which is very good at following rules. I wonder what would happen if we all followed our gifts as diligently.

This blog submission was written by Liya Endale.  The views of guest bloggers are not the views of Ethiopian-Americans for Change.  Guest bloggers represent the broad dissection of views and outlooks within our community.