Somali Bantu

Who are the Somali Bantu?

The Somali Bantu are an ethnic group distinct from ethnic Somalis. Not only is Somalia in general a country of heterogeneous ethnic groups, but the group currently labeled “Somali Bantu” is more diverse than the name would imply. For the most part, the Somali Bantu are descendants of slaves brought to Somalia from East Africa in the 19th century (1800s), but there are other groups of Bantu who are indigenous to Somalia. Historically, the majority of Somali Bantu were concentrated geographically in the south of the country, along the Jubba and Shabelle rivers, but pockets of groups existed in other parts of the country. Since the 1970s, Bantu have been migrating in increasing numbers to urban areas of Somalia. During the war in the 1990s, many escaped to Kenya and spent a decade or more in refugee camps before being accepted for resettlement to the United States.

Learn more about the Somali Bantu

The label “Somali Bantu” was first used by the international aid community to identify especially vulnerable groups of refugees needing additional assistance in the aftermath of the Somali Civil War and continuing political instability. Although the group is not homogeneous in linguistic or ethnic make-up, this review will treat the Somali Bantu as a group for the purposes of examining the general characteristics of the people who have come to the United States since 2003 as refugees. Prior to the creation of the term “Somali Bantu” and its adoption by the international media, the Bantu in Somalia were called by a variety of names, many of them applied by the majority ethnic group. One of the main labels was jareer, meaning “hard” — this referred to the tightly curled “hard hair” that is the primary physical characteristic that distinguishes the Bantu from “soft-haired” ethnic Somalis. Some Somali Bantu now affiliate with the label Jareer with a sense of pride. Many sources point to the darker skin and broader noses of the Somali Bantu, in comparison to ethnic Somalis, as an additional defining trait, but Menkhaus insists that hair is the key trait “differentiating Somali Bantu from their ethnic Somali countrymen.”

Somali Bantu had lived for almost two centuries as slaves, and then forced agricultural workers, first under the Somali sultanate, then under colonial Italian rule, in Somalia. They were discriminated against by ethnic Somalis, and afforded little chance at education or economic mobility.

According to the Center for Applied Linguistics 2003 report, at that time there were approximately 150,000 Somalis living in the United States, with 40,000 of these immigrants being refugees from dominant Somali clans.

Although in Africa there has been historical animosity between ethnic Somalis and the Somali Bantu, in the United States there have been reports of the two groups working together. Nevertheless, professionals in the U.S. working with people from Somalia should be cautious about making assumptions regarding ethnic identity and using ethnic Somalis as interpreters for the Bantu. If you're not sure, it's always a good idea to ask.

History

Most of the Somali Bantu are descendants of Bantu peoples from East Africa (to the south of Somalia). They were brought to Somalia in the 19th century (1800s) from Mozambique, Tanzania, and Malawi as part of the Arab slave trade.

Somalia is located on the Eastern-most projection of the African continent, in an area known as the Horn of Africa. Somalia is about the size of Texas in land area, but only about 10% of its land is arable. Most of the land cultivated for farming and agricultural purposes lies in the south of the country, around the Juba and Shabelle rivers. The Bantu in Somalia were first slaves forced to work in agriculture, and after Italian colonization of Somalia in the early 1900s and the official abolition of slavery, the Bantus continued to be exploited and worked as sharecroppers.

When the Somali Civil War broke out in 1991, the Bantu who resided in the south around the Juba River, the main arable part of the country, and were responsible for most of the country's agricultural production, were targets of violence and began to flee to neighboring Kenya.

Demographics

The Somali Bantu vary as to how much different kinship groups have preserved their East African tribal heritage (Bantu languages) or tried to assimilate (with varying levels of success) into Somali ethnic clans.

Culture 

Some Somali Bantu have retained animist religious practices and beliefs from their ancestral southeast African homelands, and may incorporate these practices of magic, curses, and possession dances into their community lives, in addition to their practice of Islam.

Music, especially drumming and dance, plays an important role in the cultural life of the Somali Bantu, and they value storytelling, singing, and oral recounting of their history.

The traditional Somali Bantu diet centers on maize (corn), locally known as soor. They also eat halaal meat (from animals slaughtered in accordance with Muslim beliefs) but do not eat pork or lard.

Bantu families are typically large, with women retaining their father's names when they marry. The Somali Bantu practice polygamy, with a man allowed to take up to four wives, if he feels that he can provide for all of them. Somali Bantu typically marry between the ages of 16 and 18. Most marriages are arranged. The women are typically responsible for the management of the household.

Life in the Refugee Camps in Kenya

Many of the Somali Bantu people had escaped west to Kenya and had been living in refugee camps in Kenya for the better part of a decade. Previous attempts by the international community to resettle them in Somalia or other African countries had failed. The United Nations Refugee Agency initially attempted to work with the governments of Tanzania and Mozambique to resettle the Somali Bantu there, in their ancestral homelands. Because of political turmoil in Africa, the number of other African refugees seeking asylum in both countries, and the effects of the Sudanese war, and a lack of resources, both countries ultimately declined to accept the Somali Bantu for resettlement. (A smaller group of Somali Bantu had escaped the Somali Civil War by sea, and has been resettled in Tanzania.)

At the refugee camps in Dadaab (approximately 40 miles west of the Kenya-Somalia border) the Bantu were exposed to some forms of urban infrastructure, such as buses, schooling, and police, but living in the Dadaab refugee camps also imposed incredible hardships on the camp residents.

In the refugee camps made up of displaced African peoples, security was a problem. Some Bantu were attacked by others, women were raped, and food had to be hidden so that it would not be stolen.

Resettlement in the United States

In 1999, after failed attempts to resettle the Somali Bantu in Mozambique and Tanzania, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United States agreed to resettle the remaining 12,000 Somali Bantu from the Kenyan refugee camps in the United States. In 2002, the Somali Bantu who were in the refugee camps in Dadaab had to be relocated to the more secure Kakuma refugee camp, in northwest Kenya, to be processed and interviewed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.  Starting in 2003, groups of Somali Bantu were placed in 50 cities in 38 states.

Adjusting to Life in the U.S.

Moving to the United States entails a major lifestyle change for the Somali Bantu. In Somalia, they were primarily farmers, living an agricultural life in relatively small villages. Life in the refugee camps in Kenya did expose Bantu to some forms of urban infrastructure, but they were still unfamiliar with life in an industrialized country and the many electric appliances and technological devices that we in the U.S. take for granted.

In the new living conditions of the U.S., the Bantu had to learn the concept that having a locked door to close and secure one's home would keep their family safe. This was a change from life in the refugee camps, where they were often robbed of food or other possessions. Bantu also needed instruction in using flush toilets, electricity, electric stoves and other cooking appliances, clothes washers and dryers, etc. By all accounts from refugee resettlement agencies, the Bantu have learned quickly and are adjusting well to the initially foreign American daily routine. Resettlement agencies and organizations also needed to teach about concepts such as paying rent, opening and using a checking account, and whom to trust.

Clinical Implications for Speech-language Pathologists and Other Professionals Working with Somali Bantu

Speech-language pathologists should familiarize themselves as much as possible with the Somali Bantu culture when working with a client from this ethnic group. Here are a few important things to keep in mind:

• Students may not have a literate parent or other adult at home to help them with their schoolwork.

• Be aware when administering standardized tests, that although many Somali Bantu children have lived for many years in the United States and have no discernible accent, they are still English Language Learners (ELL). The vast majority of testing instruments used in speech-language pathology have been normed on middle-class, white children in this country, so standardized scores may not be reported when a test has been given to a Somali Bantu client, as the standardization norms do not apply. Instead, test results may be reported in terms of which items the client completed correctly.

• Many Somali Bantu children in the United States will be living in families headed by single mothers; because polygamy, which was practiced in Africa, is illegal in the United States, families have had to be creative in presenting themselves to U.S. immigration authorities.

• Most Somali Bantu have experienced severe hardships and trauma on their journey from Somalia to Kenya and the U.S. Most, if not all, will have lost members of their family due to violence, disease, malnutrition, or accident. Please be sensitive when a Somali Bantu client mentions the death of a family member.

• In Africa, Somali Bantu were parts of large family units including extended family. Most Somali Bantu in the United States will have relocated with only some of their family members, so they will be experiencing continued effects of loss of family, either through death or circumstances beyond their control that prevented all of their family from entering the U.S. Somali Bantu may have family members back in the refugee camps in Kenya or in Somalia itself.

• Students born after 1992 probably have never been to Somalia; instead, they were born in refugee camps in Kenya. This means that their experiences prior to immigration to the U.S. are solely of life in the Kenyan refugee camps, and they will not be familiar with life in Somalia.

• The Somali Bantu are Muslim, for the most part, so SLPs should be sensitive to their clients’ religious beliefs. Link to Wikipedia entry on Islam This may include being cautious in using lessons around American cultural themes such as Halloween, as well as not assuming that Somali Bantu students will be celebrating other American/Christian holidays such as Christmas.

• Because of cultural norms for modesty, Somali girls may wear headscarves. If you are performing hearing screenings on Somali girls, it is best to ask them if it’s okay to for them to move their headscarf so that the audiometer earphones can be positioned directly over their ears.