First Gen

I could talk about many things

But it don’t mean a thing

If it ain’t got that swing

Du wop, du wop, du wop, du wop,

Du wop, du wop, du wop, du wop

I claim to be from many places

Make myself comfortable in many spaces

Sentiment claims me as drive

Through the South and West Sides of Chicago

Midwest all on my tongue and in my mind

Blackness all encompassing

Melanin layered on me the color and texture of chocolate

Thanks to Daddy’s darkness

But I have the privilege of pointing

To a spot on the globe

Where The Ancestors belonged

Where my ancestors belonged

I love my culture

Being Ugandan is my inheritance

Passed down from generation to generation

Even though the gift was given to me in a small Chicago hospital

With a proud new dad calling home to the elders to ask for a name for his baby girl

Being Muganda is my inheritance

No matter how bad my Luganda is

My parents are who they are

It amazes me

How my last name is a magnet

Strangers will ask about my name and my family

Then share memories of time past

Being Ugandan is my heritage

No matter how much I don’t understand or advocate tradition

Tradition is not so kind to smart, assertive and ambitious women

Patriarchy is so pronounced

That wives and ex-wives totally dependent on husbands and indifferent men

Has become the rule instead of the exception

Girls too poor to go school and learn independence

Become wives with children and tear-stained faces

After their husband finds a younger woman

I criticize out of love

My people have potential

But they don’t realize it

They refuse it

Iron grips on tradition

While the world moves on around them

Leaving them behind

But it is my inheritance

To greet everyone in the room when coming to the function

Saying hello with hugs and respectful kneels as a sign of respect

Busuutis, kanzus, kwanjulas, kasikis and Kiganda dances

Consonant-vowel symmetry in every word

Kawunga or posho, sambusas, matooke, rice pilau, and muchomo

As I can remember

Doing the Tootsie Roll with friends

Riding crosstown on the school bus

The first time Mom let take the ‘L’

I remember the first time I tried the Kiganda dance

And decided I was good at it

I remember Kasisinkanos, our own family reunions

I remember dinners and road trips

To Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and the suburbs

I remember my first flight on KLM to Uganda

I remember seeing my uncle and auntie at Entebbe when Dad died

I remember playing with my little cousins who called me Jaja (Grandma)

Simply because their grandparents were of my generation

I remember traffic jams and knowing we were in Bwaise, without looking up

Chicago is home

America is home

Uganda is my birthright