Call Me American

Cultural differences across generational, tribal, and national lines can lead to misunderstandings and violence.

The first big difference is between generations. Abdi’s parents, Madinah and Nur, were nomadic farmers, people who depended on the land to survive and who never stepped foot in the city until they had to. For Abdi and his siblings, such a lifestyle is unimaginable, creating a fundamental difference between the generations. Only when the family flees across the bush, does Abdi learn just how incredibly tough his mother is.

In Mogadishu, a cultural difference that creates tensions, often causing violence, is tribal or clan identity. In Somalia, this identity is a combination of religion, class, or ethnicity. Long-standing feuds between the country’s most powerful tribes erupt into civil war. Meanwhile, Abdi’s own tribe, the Rahanweyn, is considered so powerless that it is cast aside. At times, this works to the family’s advantage: When they flee Mogadishu, no one cares about the Rahanweyn enough to execute them. On the other hand, at one point Rahanweyn beggars are used as target practice by the militia snipers.

In America, Abdi notices new kinds of cultural differences. American men at his first job bully him. The first news report he sees on American television is about an African-American man killed by the police.