Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" - What Is 'Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo' And 'Wa-Su-Zo-Tean-O'?

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The central character in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," the beautiful Dee Johnson, breaks away from her Deep South United States' roots to become the heavily educated, urbanized, modernized young woman who despises her cultural setting. She later visits her bucolic dirty southern family of her mother Mama Johnson and unattractive scruffy and scarred sister Maggie. Dee signifies her transformation after stepping out of the car, by uttering to the two, "Wa-su-zo-Tean-o," and declaring that her new name is African: Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo.

Debate and dissection continues about the inspiration and significance behind these African terms in Walker's famous short story. "Wa-su-zo-Tean-o," is pre-noon daytime Luganda language greeting used by the Baganda of Uganda. It directly means, "How did you sleep?" but is a way of saying "Good morning" or "I hope you slept well." The correct wording is, "Wasuze otya nno?" But how would this greeting phrase that is so specific to a Ugandan ethnic group end up in one of Walker's most memorable works? It is worthy to note that Walker an excellent full-scholarship student at prestigious Spellman College in Atlanta (Georgia), transferred to distinguished Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville (New York) in 1963. Some of the reasons cited for her transferring are that Spellman was too conservative and puritanical for her liking. Walker's roommate and dear friend at Spellman College, which she left in 1963 for Sarah Lawrence, happened to be a Ugandan named Constance.

In 1964, after her junior year, Walker traveled to Uganda as a summer exchange student. Interviewed by Amy Goodman during the Organization of Women Writers of Africa conference at New York University in 2004, Alice Walker recounts about her Ugandan roommate as well as her painful journey to discovering her great-great-grandmother's grave: "So, I went back to pay my respects and to take flowers,...I was lucky enough to be able to get my Ugandan roommate--when I was at Spellman my roommate was this wonderful woman from Uganda who made me care deeply about Africans and African women. In fact I went to Uganda trying to understand how Constance had been created and produced by this country which before Idi Amin was very beautiful, very tranquil and green. So anyway Constance and I and my entire women's council--I belonged to a women's council--went to visit this grave. We sat there--my Constance from Uganda, my friend Belvee from--I mean, so many of us with so many histories that are so painful. Belvee's mother had been actually beaten to death. So, we had a long time of crying there. We watered those graves with our tears. We were happy to do it."

Further, there is a small place in Uganda that happens to be uniquely named Wangero. The root word "ngero' means "stories" or "proverbs." Wangero can hence mean, "the place of stories" or "the person of stories." Local Ugandan friends may have given Walker the nickname "Wangero" or alluded to it, or Walker may have picked it out from the people of the first area he visited in Africa. Alice Walker, from early in her life, has certainly been a person of "many stories." Some, like Helga Hoel (a Norwegian scholar on Kenya literature), have speculated that "Wangero" is a mispronunciation and misspelling of the common Kenyan Kikuyu name Wanjiru. That theory does not hold water---the two have distinctly different spellings, the Kikuyu live hundreds of miles away east of Buganda, and the "Wa-" prefix is quite common in many personal names of east and central Africa.

The "Leewanika" is apparently a misspelling or an Alice Walker variant of the name Lewanika who was a powerful king in a region (Barotse Land) of present day Zambia. Under Lewanika, the region became a British Protectorate after colonial enforcement negotiations with Cecil Rhodes. In African terms, the "Le" in Lewanika is pronounced "leh" rather than "liih."

The name Kemanjo is apparently of African structure, but it is hard to prove that it is an African name. Helga Hoel speculates that it is a misspelling of the Kenyan Kikuyu name "Kamenjo" (White: 2001).

References

Goodman, Amy. "Alice Walker on the 'Toxic Culture" of Globalization," in Democracy Now!---The War and Peace Report. 2004.

Hoel, Helga. "Personal Names and Heritage: Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use'." 2000. Trondheim Cathedral School, Trondheim, Norway. 30 Jan. 2000.

White, David. "'Everyday Use': Defining African-American Heritage," Portals--Purdue North Central Literary Journal, 2001.

Review of "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker: Coming to Terms With Constance Wangero and Dee Johnson

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Readers and writers have, for four decades, wondered and debated about the origin of the name "Wangero," which name is prominent in Alice Walker's renowned short story "Everyday Use" that bears a mid-20th Century flavor. Wangero is the African name that the youngster Dee Johnson adopts after she leaves USA's rural Deep South for college and urbanism where she becomes modernized and radicalized. When she pays her bucolic mother "Mama Johnson" and scruffy and disfigured uneducated sister Maggie a visit, she declares to them that she has foregone the name Dee Johnson for her new African name, "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo."

A lecture that Alice Walker delivered on September 13th 2010 at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, apparently puts a lot of questions regarding the name "Wangero" to rest. On this date, at the Eleventh Annual Steve Biko Lecture, in the lecture titled, "Coming to See You Since I was 5 Years Old: A Poets Connection to the South African Soul," Walker credits her college undergraduate Ugandan friend Constance Wangero for her inquisitiveness and fascination with Africa and her peoples:

"...the most important friendship I encountered during my student years...an African woman named Constance Wangero...from Uganda....Constance and I were sisters...developed my...interest...and concern for Africa and its peoples....I was still 19 or 20...made my way to the land of Constance Wangero...to discover...what made her...a wonderful person, wise and gentle beyond her years and...those of any of the other girls at our school. Uganda...people's gentle courtesy and kindness....a land of the greenest valleys and hills....a...feeling of peace and patience with a stranger. I was taken in...by a Ugandan family...sheltered and cared for...dispelling...any sense...that I would not be recognized as one of Africa's children."

Alice Walker transferred from Spelman College (Atlanta, Georgia) to Sarah Lawrence College (Bronxville, NY) in 1963. At Spelman, Constance Wangero became Walker's room-mate and closest friend. In 1964, after her junior tenure in college, Walker journeyed to Uganda as a summer exchange student. Amy Goodman interviewed Walker during the Organization of Women Writers of Africa conference at New York University in 2004. Walker says, without mentioning the name "Wangero":

"...at Spelman my roommate...wonderful woman from Uganda who made me care deeply about Africans and African women....I went to Uganda trying to understand how Constance had been created and produced by this country which...was very beautiful...tranquil...green."

It therefore turns out that Wangero is an African personal name. There is a place in Uganda named Wangero. In Luganda, one of the main languages of Uganda, the root '-ngero' means "stories" or "proverbs." Wangero can therefore mean, "place of stories" or "person of stories." The character Dee is re-named Wangero, in honor of Alice Walker's early African friend Constance Wangero.

Works Cited

Walker, Alice. "Coming to See You Since I was 5 Years Old: A Poets Connection to the South African Soul," 11th Annual Steve Biko Lecture, University of Cape Town, South Africa, September 13, 2010.

Walker, Alice. In an interview with Amy Goodman, Organization of Women Writers of Africa Conference, New York University, 2004.

Review - Broken by J Matthew Nespoli

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Imagine reading a book which doesn't tell you one story, but 14 different ones, a varied mosaic of multi colored, multi textured pieces. The thing you would want most definitely, when you plough through the winding curves that make up the complicated lives of each of the individuals, is a base that connects all of them and a roof that lends meaning to the stories. What we have then is a beautiful house, diverse inside with its many rooms, each with a different view of life, each with its own experiences, and each with a different scent that leads to different places. However, all these rooms would be connected with a perspective and a message that would be very much obvious when you finished the book.

In short, it is like 14 short stories with a theme and the theme is something we all know and have heard about again and again, love. Since it is indeed, such a common theme, it is all the more difficult to write about it, in a way that is not mundane, or stereotype or clich?d. The author should be commended for his effort to talk about our favorite theme in a different tone. In fact, a mixture of tones, with overtones and underlying notes blending into the theme nicely and lending a beauty that couldn't have been conjured otherwise.

So, on the outset, there are three good things about Broken which good books usually must possess. The first is distinct characters. It is true, that most stories have one or two protagonists. It is very difficult from a reader's perspective to absolutely and equally focus on more than a couple of characters in a book. So how is this book different? In the words of the author himself, in one of the interviews, most of the readers will identify themselves with at least one character in the book, as there has been such generosity in his style in creating so many vignettes from the perspective of the present generation. The beauty of the book hence, is that the protagonist of one reader might be totally different from the other. This is healthy, both for the interest that the author generates in the minds of the readers and the thought process that starts while the readers try to make their own inferences from the story. The characters are not perfect. They are nowhere close to it. In fact, some of them would be labeled failures in the present society. The tone that describes them is dark and grave, with the backdrop of drug abuse, sexual abuse, turmoil, pain and scarred memories. But if love can come out clean in such a situation, and mend to some extent, if not fully, the broken pieces of what was once a good heart, there is definitely hope for most of us, who fortunately don't possess such a scarred and scary past.

The second good thing about the book is its theme. Over the years, when I have tried to analyze books and stories to find out why some have been successful with the readers by touching a chord and some haven't been, I observed that books that remind readers of themselves or someone they know very closely have been far more successful. Books that have gone one step ahead are those which make one identify about the many problems that exist in the present world and have given a ray of hope and highlighted a silver lining to the cloud. 'Broken', falls in the latter category. This might come as a surprise for those who tried to guess about the book from its name. The title doesn't intend to highlight the all-drowning pessimism around us.

It would be gloomy, dark and depressing if it tried to do so. The title only intends to give a theme that connects the mosaic, the fabric on which each of them fit, adding their own tint or hue, making the fabric ever so beautiful. It talks about how love is the greatest healer and how human beings differ from the rest of the species in their ability to understand, share and balm each other's pain. In the words of one of the characters, "We were two broken people who needed each other." Without a unifying theme, that lets the reader gain something, that enriches a reader's thought process and emotions that extra bit, a book would merely remain as a story that could be read to while away time. A good theme makes all the difference by creating memories, impressions and reminders. Broken does that with its simple, yet, beautiful message.

Last, but not the least important ingredient that makes this book a good read in my opinion, is the narrative. How, the characters talk to the readers makes a big difference. Is it through events, is it through a story someone else wrote about them or is it directly, as their own account, lending it a totally personal touch? The narrative of Broken is mostly in first person. Most characters speak to the reader directly. It feels almost as authentic as listening to it from a friend across a coffee table. The melee of voices, considering there are so many characters, each with their own failures, ambitions, dreams, nightmares, could sometimes be confusing. However, it was the only way the story could have been told. The honesty in the voice and the truth in the pain could come only if the characters speak to you. Examples of that could be seen in one of the characters, escaping with a child from a dangerous man, even as her feet were bleeding; and a guy accidentally bumping into his idol at a bar, yet not being able to say anything smart to hold on to his attention. But all is not about deprecating or gloom. The story has many humorous sequences that would make the reader sit back and smile, may be even laugh at one point. The description of two friends, one talking on the phone while the other increasing the volume of a song, finally tempting the friend on the phone to sing along too, was a creative and sweet moment. It ends with the whole crowd in the traffic jam joining the party. It was a beautiful ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, a sequence that could keep you upbeat and on a high on even the most difficult days.

All in all, Broken doesn't drain you of all the energy you have, like some books with heavy themes do. It doesn't make you shake your head at the stupidity of the characters or the plot, like stories about troubled teenagers and young people sometimes do. It has a beautiful concept. The author hasn't created the characters, rather based them on various interesting people he met during his journey. This makes the characters real. This makes the tone authentic. I believe this is enough to make readers get hooked to it and finish it without much ado. I am sure, at the end of it, their thoughts and appreciation would be coherent and not broken.