| Due to the global nature of capital flows and advances in communication and transportation technologies, a growing number of immigrants live transnational lives. The ability to maintain a connection to the homeland informs how people construct institutions and identities in the host country. This dissertation is a historically informed ethnographic account that explores the development, transnational character, and tensions associated with ethnic institution building and discourse production among self-identified Oromos in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Oromo, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group, were conquered and incorporated into the nation at the end of the 19th century. In order to manage the conquered areas, Ethiopia established an ethnically based hierarchical system of administration. Further, the state, through its bureaucrats, settlers, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the school system, disparaged the culture of conquered groups like the Oromo and spread Ethiopian national culture which was, according to my participants, a variant of Abyssinian culture writ large. However, starting in 1963, the public expression of Oromo resistance emerged as educated members of the Oromo population began to challenge the ethnic discrimination they experienced with the establishment of the Macha Tulema Self Help Association. Starting in the same year, peasants in Bale and the surrounding areas waged a nearly 7 year rebellion against the state to end economic exploitation and land alienation. By the end of the 1960s, the Ethiopian government responded to these movements with persecution which led to the flight of many Oromos into neighboring countries. However, by the early 1970s, a small number of Oromo student and activists, with the means to travel further afield, took up residence in Washington D.C. and it is out of this small group of ethnically conscious Oromos that some of the earliest Oromo diaspora institutions were formed. Due to the freedom of expression and association immigration to United States guaranteed, members of the Oromo diaspora in Washington, D.C. were able to articulate Oromo concerns in ways impossible for Oromos residing within Ethiopia. The Oromo diaspora in Washington, D.C., working through ethnic institutions like the Union of Oromos of North America, the Oromo Studies Association, and the Oromo Center, helped to insert the Oromo into the history of the Horn of Africa, developed solutions for how past grievances were to be reconciled, and attempted to chart the political future of the Oromo people. Diaspora institutions like the Oromo Church function as sites where Oromo culture is enacted, contested, reformulated and passed on from one generation to the next. Though Oromo ethnic institutions in Washington, D.C. have had some success in establishing an institutional footing in the in the city, they have experienced challenges. The city of settlement shapes and constrains immigrant institutional and individual practice. Washington, D.C. has a diverse ethno-racial terrain that has been challenging for the Oromo to navigate. The city has long been a historic site of African American settlement; further, as a new immigrant gateway city, it is dominated by large numbers of Ethiopian immigrants that organize their institutions using Ethiopian nationalism. Oromo institutions have had to craft an identity for themselves taking into account the city's preexisting ethnic and racial order. This dissertation highlights the complex and novel ways in which the Oromo of Washington, D.C., through the establishment of transnational institutions, helped to create important discursive and institutional spaces of representation in both the homeland and the host country. |
