Rosemary
"I like to be that red tomato that keeps all it’s [flavors] in a salad bowl. I don’t want to melt in a melting pot. I think culture is very, very important. I love just seeing people from different communities.""When I was in Uganda, I never used to wear African clothing that much – on special occasions: funerals, church, I’d wear those African dresses… but it was not a big thing. When I came here, that’s when I realized you know what, I better do some things to tell everybody. To talk through my language and through …my dressing, through the things that I have and the things that I wear. Mostly just to accept myself." "My kids on the other hand, they adapt more to the new culture, so they are more Americanized. They speak American language the way Americans speak and dress up the way… Seeing them in the streets, you won’t say it’s an African. Uh huh, they’ve melted here. Whereas I’m a tomato in a salad bowl." |
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Rosemary was born in Uganda in the early 1960s, the 7th child in a family of 19 siblings and step-siblings. She studied and worked as a teacher in Uganda before being forced to escape to Kenya in the 1980s. She spent five years in Kenya before coming to Pennsylvania. She has two children and is teaching in a local university.
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