Like Mr.Wamba, I spent roughly the first four years of my life in the United States, the next 14 in Nigeria & Cameroon and have lived here since 1984, when I moved back for architecture school.I initially heard of Phillippe Wamba when I listened to his interview with Terry Gross on public radio. It seems this book was written more from the African perspective than the African-American angle, so I find it interesting that Wamba thinks of himself as a "black-American", not an African. Otherwise, Wamba's memoir is very informative, especially when he writes extensively on African & African-American History.It also seems that the majority of people who've read this book are Africans, and I think that is a shame!

Philippe Wamba does a masterful job of using his own family's experiences to introduce and highlight broader trends and issues in the history of relations between Africans and African Americans. He manages to combine historical analysis and synthesis with very personal episodes, showing how long-standing issues continue to bear relevancy and immediacy. I found this book to be a thoughtful examination of how Africans and African Americans have made attempts to work together across the Atlantic, even as each group has labored under mistaken impressions of the other.

I would not limit the readership of this book to African Americans, or students at historically black colleges. I think it's possible for students (formal and informal) of all ethnicities to learn from this book, both about African/African American relations in specific and cultural issues in general. _Kinship_ provides a new angle on U.S. and world history. Its thoroughness and accessibility should make it a useful and welcome addition to any number of course reading lists.

Born in Ghana and having lived in the US for 18 years I share almost all of Wamba's sentiments. At my alma mater Morehouse college, the flagship Black institution, Africans were mostly looked upon with disdain. As a Practicing physician in rural Georgia now, I am exposed to very poor blacks who hail from generations of poverty and illiteracy. Almost all descend from the slave plantations that dotted this area. All of Wamba's experiences are drawn from African-Americans with education (Harvard students etc). Even among this educated group the knowlegde of Africa is minuscule. Imagine the level of knowlegde in this area in the deep south. It has never ceased to perplex me how a group of people will be so lost as to their origins. One might argue the point that; so what. What difference does it make if someone does not identify with his or her ancestral home. Wamba proudly tells of his father's strong cultural upbringing and how his family cherishes their Congolese roots. These features provided an anchor for a solid family unit. The very ambience of the culture was something to hold on to in times of despair. I can say the same for Ghanaian culture. So in essence, strong cultural values and a feeling of belonging is directly related to stability and direction. In this area of the country where descendants of slave and slaveowners are now living together in a poignantly bizarre relationship the lack of such a cultural belonging of blacks to their ancestral home, in my opinion, is in part responsible for the multiplicity of problems we see here; astonishing pregnancies rates in unwed mothers, illiteracy and ignorance, crime and poverty. One need not come to the deep south to learn of the demise of the black man and his perpetual struggle with the criminal justice system. As a physician in the ER at Grady hospital in Atlanta, I saw young black youth brought in dead on arrival, shot or stabbed on a daily basis. When Wamba writes, with pathos, of Tanzanian children playing barefooted and retiring to hear stories told by a lit fire by an elder; when he writes of his father's poor childhood and yet his undaunting desire to pursue a higher education and of his own humble beginnings, it is clear that the source of strength is a strong cultural belonging. The African-American youth of today lack this type of strength. Wamba has written a very controverssial book touching on a sensitive issue. The leitmotif is that a common African culture stills lives amongst the two groups. It is only dormant in this hemisphere and has to to be awakened. I believe this book should be required reading at all predominantly black colleges. Certainly anyone interested in African-African-American relationships should read it.