BLACK RED N GREEN
Watch BLACK RED N GREEN trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiTK-LRDf3A
“Analyzing togetherness among Kenyans living in Massachusetts”
One day I went to a store with my mom, I had won a marvin hat that had colors of the Kenyan flag. Before we got off the car, she told me to take it off. I asked her why, she said, “people will see you in that marvin and they will know you just came from Kenya,” and I said, well what’s wrong with that? She said, just take it off. So I took it off. I kept thinking about her statement since she could not really explain to me what she meant by that. I just couldn’t understand why people knowing I had just immigrated from Kenya was such a big deal.
At my first job, I had to remove my Kenyan wrist band as well. My mom said that people would know that I am a Kenyan. At this point I was intrigued.
A few weeks later, I just couldn’t stay without my Kenyan wrist band, so I put it back on. I made a small mission, to look for any Kenyans who had a similar wrist band, since its very common in Kenya. I came across a few young people who have the wrist band. That made me think the idea of not wearing anything with colors of the Kenyan flag was something the older generation was cautious about.
In five months, the few Kenyans I had interacted with would tell me they don’t like associating with fellow Kenyans. Others would tell me they had one or no Kenyan friend at all. I started connecting the dots to what I called “the Kenyan code” (if Kenyans don’t like associating with fellow Kenyans, then they wouldn’t wear anything Kenyan)
But I could not understand how people of the same country could have gotten to such a point. So, I decided to do some research and find out what exactly was going on.
Being a journalism student from the university of Nairobi, Kenya, I started thinking of how I could develop this into a story. While doing my research, I realized a short news story wouldn’t just be enough to tell the whole story. So I decided to make a documentary.
When I got enrolled in college, I decided to study communication with a concentration in film, video and media studies. I knew this would help me learn the craft of documentary filmmaking, especially the technical side of it, which was quite a challenge.
As I continued to meet more Kenyans, my research kept growing and I continued to discover more.
Although most of my discoveries were really good, some of them were just very disappointing. I met Kenyans who would tell me they weren’t Kenyan, but Kikuyu. Some have mastered the American accent so well that I would mistake them for being African Americans. Others are really involved with the Kenyan community and they only have Kenyans friends. Others would tell me they only have white friends and maybe one or two Kenyan friends.
My filmmaking skills improved. So I decided to rent out a camera from school and do a few interviews, just to get the feel of it. I interviewed about seven or eight people. The topic was whether they thought there was togetherness among Kenyans and the reasons why they thought there was or there wasn’t. I then decided to edit a pilot and post it on my youtube channel. The product looked a bit armature, but what I cared about the most was the content.
The video reached several Kenyans who called me to interview them. This is when I realized that so many Kenyans wanted to discuss this topic but probably didn’t know how to start the conversation.
I gave this project some serious thought and I decided to fully focus on it after graduating.
three and a half years later, the documentary is complete. BLACK RED N GREEN. A feature-length documentary analyzing togetherness among Kenyans living in Massachusetts
My aim for this feature-length documentary is to initiate conversations/discussions about encouraging togetherness among Kenyans living in Massachusetts.
What I hope to achieve with this documentary is to see united Kenyans in Massachusetts who are proud of being Kenyan, and happy to meet fellow Kenyans living in the diaspora.
Watch BLACK RED N GREEN trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiTK-LRDf3A
