Aching in America: West African men yearn for wives
by Lindsey Whitton and Mira Jang
All nine computers lined up against the wall in BHS Money Express in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, were occupied by 10 a.m. on a recent Thursday morning. Eight men and one woman carefully pecked out e-mails and clicked through Web sites offering news about Africa. In the back of the storefront, three men lined up behind a dirty, bullet-proof partition to buy calling cards with names like Africa on Demand, Yellow Banana and African King. A poster taped on the wall showed a pair of hands passing money in front of a map of Africa: “Your best choice for sending money to Africa.”
The small store, tucked up against the mosque Masjid at-Taqwa at the corner of Fulton Street and Bedford Avenue, provides a lifeline between the predominantly male West African immigrants who live and work on this block and their families in their homeland. Many of the men share a problem that transcends the diverse range of Islamic cultures that they represent. In their community, marriage – a critical social and religious institution for West African Muslims – often becomes complicated by immigration.
The most common marital issue, the men say, is separation; they move to the U.S. to work but are unable to bring their wives and children because of immigration restrictions or cost. But even in the rare situations when wives are able to join their husbands, many African immigrants report that the challenge of adjusting to American life tests their relationships. And while unmarried men who arrive in the United States find it difficult to find potential wives among the mostly-male immigrant community, they say that transcending their cultural and religious background to date women who are not originally from West Africa is equally complicated.
Mohamed Ould-Ahmed, 45, who is here legally from Mauritania, remembers the first time he tried to speak to an American woman. He was a busboy at a restaurant, and she was a waitress. Because he didn’t think it was appropriate for him to take money from a woman, the restaurant had devised a system where she would pass his portion of her tips to a male employee who would pass it to Ould-Ahmed.
One night, after he had been working at the restaurant for several weeks, he decided to wish the waitress goodnight. She mistook his greeting to mean that he hadn’t received his money. In the ensuing confusion, Ould-Ahmed ran out the door. He was too embarrassed to ever return to his job.
“How am I going to come back to a place where a woman thinks I am asking her for money?” he asked. “I have now lived here for 10 years, and I still don’t think it is right [to take money from a woman]. It [U.S. gender relations] is too different.”
Iba Srra, 28, has been in the United States for two years, but since he is not a legal resident he does not know when he will see his wife and 7–year-old son, who are in Senegal.
Even with a green card, Kouma Djime, 35, has not seen his family in five years. Because he sends as much money as he can to his wife and three children in Mali each month, he is unable to save enough money to fly back to Africa to visit or bring them to New York.
Bedford-Stuyvesant is a popular destination for West African immigrants because of the existing African community, although their population size is unknown due to the large number of undocumented immigrants. Some Africans move to New York from other states, such as Florida or Ohio, because undocumented immigrants can live undetected here, the immigrants say.
Suzanna Galli, spokesperson for the International Immigrants Foundation, said that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 immigrants have generally faced more trouble getting permission to live and work in the United States.
“I think it has been more difficult for everybody,” she said. “That is not only for a Muslim person, but now African immigrants are now having trouble going to Europe too, so there is more of a demand for them to come here.”
Some West African men consider marrying additional wives, since polygamy is culturally and religiously acceptable. But while several men said they have considered marrying another woman while in the United States, the expense of supporting more than one family and the lack of willing prospects are prohibitive.
Idrissa Traore, 41, who came from Mali, estimates that less than 1 percent of the men in the community marry additional wives while in Brooklyn. Instead, many of the men share apartments to save money on rent and keep each other company.
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