Umoja Unity Gardens

Stories

Becoming fully Americanized over three or four generations means forgetting our ancestral stories by degrees. It entails jettisoning ways of being that remind us of the old countries. It requires foregoing mother tongues and tales amidst the homogenizing influence of the suburbs. And why so much forgetting, especially of the shameful treatment gotten and given along history’s byways? It is all to support an illusion of unity.

But a unity built on keeping family secrets and forgetting one’s origins is not a settled unity. It is a seedbed of restless weeds that, given access to the slightest cultural cracks, threatens to resurface in violence, hatred, and divorce.

Umoja Unity Gardens are meant for exchanging stories in the hope that they can help us remember our roots. Not our individual roots, as if they are separate, unrelated strands. But our communal roots because the stories tangled there– some bloody, painful, shame-filled, others sweet, hopeful, beautiful – will not only help us reconnect with ourselves but also with each other.

The topics at right are a few of the story themes you might enjoy exploring around your own Umoja Unity Garden. Each one is (or will be) linked to a post with suggested activities meant to spur the sharing of stories, particularly the types of anecdotes that will help us see the surprising commonalities buried in our half-forgotten pasts.

If you have other memories/thoughts/tales you would like to see added to one of these theme collections, please send them to us via our contact page. We will post the best of them with a credit to the sender.

Thank you in advance for helping us spread these stories and the connection they give us to each other.

Photo by Anastasia Belousova on Pexels.com