"Amerika Ho Joang?"
By Matlhabeli Molaoli
What are people asking with the question, “Amerika ho joang?” When you bump into an old classmate in town, kapa ha u lumelisa mohaisane u ea stopong, ebe ba re “Ho joang mesing koa?” u oo reng?
I have a hard time answering that question; yet, it is one I get consistently every time I’m home. For a few years after I left home, I’d fumble through a series of quiet chuckles and uhms, hoping that the conversation moved to something else before people realized I had said nothing. Then I resorted to my go-to: “mhk, ho bata hampe hle! Ke mahloa feela”. Still, it didn’t feel like a satisfying answer. What do people really want to know when they ask that?
I asked a few friends who are or have been students in the US how they responded to this question. They also had a similar reaction, sometimes hesitating to weigh their responses:
“Ho ntse ho ea hantle teng. Naha e ‘ngoe le e ‘ngoe e na le taba tsa eona.”
“Hoa isa isa hle.”
“Ho nahanoa ka chelete ho feta ka tsela eo u ka kholoang.”
“Ha ke so bone Beyoncé kapa Obama.”
“Ho na le batho ba futsanehileng hampe mona, le matlo a mobu a teng.”
“No dollars falling from trees.”
The tension with how to answer this question is that I want to be honest, and really, at least as I experience it, America is not all that it is promised to be. The milk is sour and the honey has flies. So, I tend to overcorrect the decades of propaganda (covert and otherwise) that have sold us sparkling visions of the American dream. Advertising, global health funding, academic grants, disaster relief, pop culture -- what corners of our collective imagination has US imperialism not touched? Here’s a small example: what does it say to us that the American Corner is one of a handful of Third Places in Maseru? Where else on Kingsway can you sit and catch your breath in between errands in town? Or browse the internet, or host a workshop, without any expectations that you will buy anything?
It isn’t difficult to see how the US has painted itself as paradise. So of course people are curious about what it’s like. This question, and the frequency with which it is asked, betrays something about how we, Basotho, imagine the US. “Ho joang koa?” is also about dreams. It asks, tell me what it could be if it all worked out. Who could I be if I got to live in the richest country in the world? The home of the brave and the land of the free, and you, a little Mosotho girl just like me, get to live there. Tell me it’s everything I imagine it could be. How we (hesitate to) answer “ho joang mesing?” also says plenty about the frictions Basotho migrants live with in the US. How do I tell you that the America of rows of neat little lawns around a cul-de-sac is a fiction? That the romcoms on TV are, for most people, only ever romantical?
We fumble with how we respond to “Ho joang ka koa?” because we struggle to explain that our lives in the US are anything but glamorous. I want to be known because to be loved is to be known (shout out to bell hooks), so I want to tell the truth. Even when it is bittersweet and full of contradictions. What is more true is that I am much luckier than most because I have no debt, I have a roof over my head, and clean water to drink. A lot of people in America don’t. The truth is that most of us who are immigrants in the US are much closer to being homeless than we are to becoming millionaires. Yes, many of us live frugally, often paycheck to paycheck; we cook at home and scour TJ Maxx for deals, use public buses, and do our own hair (or wait until we come home). What might be more shocking is that this is true for most American citizens, too. The social safety net has gaping holes. It doesn’t take much to find yourself buried by a mountain of (student loan, medical, and other) debt, or choosing between paying rent or sending your children to daycare. So, Hollywood is only that, even for people in California.
There are many memes about immigrants who become “Big Madame” when they go home when in reality, they have far less glamorous lives abroad. I don’t appreciate how their underlying tones devalue people’s work, but they show that immigrants jump up class positions when they move from the US, not least because the Dollar is much stronger than the Loti.
This is true in Lesotho, too, where we have our versions of classism and elitism. Basotho are constantly trying to read one other for markers of class positions and most people have class expectations about what immigrants should be or look like because of “mesing”. Ba tla re, “jo, u ‘mone? Amerika e mo hlatsoitse!” le “Mhk, feela o ntse a le moputsoanyana a itšoanela le rona tjena, ekare ha a tsoe ka koa.” So sometimes, “Ho joang Amerika” is code for “Are you rich?”. But, I’m not interested in cosplaying a class position I’m not (also because I want class solidarity) so my answer could be disappointing. So when I think about what my life in the US is like, I hope it reflects the truth of my everyday experience and sets realistic expectations with the people I love about what I can and can’t afford.
And yet, the question of “Amerika ho joang” is also one of whimsy and curiosity. Yes, everywhere has its problems but most days I am grateful that it had afforded me more opportunity than I even knew to pray for. Not just the gift of higher education, but also the joys of knowing friends from different places, trying new foods, and seeing that there are many ways to be a person. But (always undermine US exceptionalism) that could’ve happened had I lived in Kenya or Vietnam or Chile. Some of it is the joy of trying a new place, any new place. It’s not about America itself. None of these are easy conversations to have. How much more when we’re squeezing them into small talk ha re fetana tseleng?
I want to believe that most times, “Ho joang koa?” is also about kinship and continuing relationships. It’s about family. It asks, how are you? Tell me about your life, what are your days like? I miss you and I wish I knew more about how you live. Tell me you’re okay, over there so far from the places you call home. Who makes you soup when you catch a cold? Who do you talk to when all you want to hear phutsalatso ea Molimo le ea Basotho and that constant, constant sound of someone’s 4+1 hunting for its next passenger? I can hardly imagine what your ordinary life looks like, but I’d like to. Tell me.