How a Tightknit Community of Ghanaians Has Spiced Up the Bronx

From fufu to omo tuo, Ghanaian immigrants are adding their own distinctive flavor to the
New York City borough

By Sue Halpern and Bill McKibben

You have to eat it with your handsit changes the taste if you use a spoon.

We were sitting in Papaye, the premier restaurant in the center of what may be the largest
enclave of the Ghanaian diaspora: a population of perhaps 20,000 thats one of the biggest
ethnic communities in the New York borough of the Bronx. And we were eating fufu.

Fufu is the pulp of cassava and plantain, traditionally pounded together with a giant mortar
and pestle into a doughy mash and then plopped in the middle of a thick soup, this one made
with spicy chicken. It wasnt the only thing on the menuaround us at the long table people
were eating spinach spiced with ground pumpkin seeds scooped up with hunks of boiled yam;
or omo tuomashed rice ballswith dried fish; or the fermented corn called banku alongside
an okra soup. But fufu is Ghanaian food, and everyone was watching carefully. Dip in your
hand, and tear off a little ball, says Felix Sarpong, who had arranged this gathering of local
community leaders. Now roll it around in the soup, and then swallowdont chew, just
swallow. It goes down easy, with a spicy lingering burn. Its utterly distinctive, with a texture
unlike anything youve ever tasted. And chances are awfully good youve never heard of it
either.

Were an invisible community, says Sarpong, a dean at a local high school whos also a
music promoterindeed, a promoter of anything that will bring attention to his fellow
Ghanaians. The American mainstream, they simply dont recognize this culture. This culture
needs more spotlight. Ghanaians are so loving, so helpful, so kind. Theyre just invisible, says
Sarpong, also known by the stage name Phil Black.

Indeed, the Bronx itself is New Yorks invisible boroughfew visitors venture much beyond
Yankee Stadium. And even if they did, they could drive the citys streets without realizing that
so much of the population hails from this one West African nation. But if they have a guide,
its pretty obvious. Eric Okyere Darko, who moved to the United States after finishing law
school and practicing law in Accra and who then passed the New York bar exam, piloted us
one afternoon in his big Volvo SUV. (His immigration practice has prospered so much that
hes made the move to New Jersey, but comes back across the George Washington Bridge
pretty much every day). So, look over there at the Agogo Movie House, he says. Agogo is a
town in the Ashanti region of Ghanayou know by the name that thats where theyre from.
Down the block is a bustling storefront filled with people sending money home; next door, the
Adum African Market, with piles of pungent smoked tilapia, jars of cured pork feet packed in
brine and stacks of giant Ghana yams. Later that same day, Sarpong takes us to another
Ghanaian enclave in the borough, a warren of streets around 167th Street that he calls Little
Accra. Two generations ago this was a Jewish neighborhood, just off the fashionable Grand
Concourse. Then African-Americans moved here, followed by Dominicans; now instead of
Spanish, its mostly Twi that comes wafting through the stereo speakers. This is all
Ghanaian, says Sarpong. Well, maybe a little Gambian. But you should have been here the
day Ghana beat the U.S. in World Cup soccer. I mean, the streets were just full. The police
wouldnt even maneuver.

Ghanaians have come in several waves to the United States, many arriving during the 1980s
and 90s when the country was ruled by a military regime led by an air force flight lieutenant,
Jerry Rawlings. Economic and political conditions were very harsh, says Darko. People
could not speak their mind. And because of the unstable political situation, no companies
were investing. When I was a student all we thought was, How soon can I go? Those early
arrivals were followed by othersfamily members, or other Ghanaians who signed up for the
countrys annual immigration lottery. Part of the reason that people kept coming is that
Ghanaians abroad portray a certain image to those back home, says Bronx resident Danso
Abebrese. When a request comes for money, we try to send iteven if you dont really have
any money to spare. And so people back home come to think, If you have enough money to
send some to us, you must really be rich.

Its a culture with deep religious rootsmost migrs, like most Ghanaians back home, are
Christian, but theres a substantial Muslim population as welland one that places a
premium on education. As a result, many have done well. The highest-status jobs in Ghana
are likely doctors and nurses; Darko estimates that two-thirds of Ghanaians in the Bronx are
working in the health care field, often beginning as home health aides and working to earn a
nursing license. For those whove made it, a career in the U.S. often concludes with a return
to the native country, there to live out the Ghanaian dream.

Im grateful for the well-paid job Ive had here, says Abebrese, who gave up his career as a
broadcaster on Ghanas national radio to come to New York and now works as an emergency
room technician at a Manhattan hospital. It is lunchtime and he brings us to one of his favorite
haunts, a sliver of a restaurant called Accra in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx, where
plantains and chicken gizzards and turkey tail with yams and cowhoof soup and suya (deep-
fried meat) are laid out on a steam table and doled out in big scoops, mostly to men getting
off work. They eat silently, with focused determination.

Back in Accra, then, I just lived in a rented room, he tells us, dipping pieces of kenkey
fermented cornmeal wrapped in a corn huskinto a spicy chicken stew. Now I own three
houses in Ghana. In three years, when Im 62 and have my pension, Ill go home. I came
here to work, and when the work is over Ill go. Felix Sarpongs parents, who spent four
decades in the U.S., have returned as well; Darko says he is considering moving back, to use
his legal expertise to help his native country. (It takes him just seconds to rummage through
his iPhone and find a picture of himself sporting the powdered wig of a Ghanaian barrister.)

But not everyone who comes does so well. Darko says he knows former law school
classmates who are driving cabs or working in hotels. Some, I feel, should go back home,
but you come here, you have children, a wife. You feel youre forced to battle it out.

With Sarpong we wander the streets around 167th Street, where barbershops and hair salons
seem to be the center of community life. But almost any business will do: We crowd into Joe
Boye Place, a narrow cellphone and convenience store filled with men sitting and eating the
$5 plates of jollof rice and red beans prepared by the proprietors wife. Ghanaian high-life
music booms from the speakers and a Ghanaian news channel is on the TV. But the mood
isnt entirely festive. Back home we could relax, says Samuel Asamoah, who is hunched
over the counter. Hed once made it as far as Rochester, New York, where he went to college,
but the pull of his countrymen eventually brought him back to the Bronx. Here we have to
take overtime to send money back home. It affects the kidstheir parents take out their
stress on them. There are no activities for the older people. Lots of people back home, they
have this idea of the American dream, and they sell everything to come. When they get here,
its heartbreaking for them.

Standing out front, Sarpong points across the street to a barbershop. That used to be a bar;
it was called the Chiefs Spot, and it was one of the first Ghanaian hangouts in the city, he
says. Id come here, and especially on the weekends, Id see more and more of the
Ghanaian kids standing outside, drinking liquor, talking crap. This was like 2002. When the
Bloods and the Crips were really inducting people. And it was getting heavy. They werent
sure, these young people who had just arrived, how to conduct themselves. So they tended
to emulate what they saw.

Sarpong, though, was old-school Bronx. Hed been here for the birth of hip-hop in the early
1980s. KRS-One, Doug E. Fresh, these people performed at block parties in my
neighborhood, he says. So I saw what hip-hop did for the communityyour stars came from
right here. It was the voice of the people. He began recruiting kids out of the street life and
into the music studio, finding them gigs around the Bronx. We met several of his protgs:
K5!, a dance troupe he billed as the all-city kings of azonto, a breakdance-inflected step
born in Ghana; Francis Akrofi, a trumpeter borrowing equally from Louis Armstrong and the
African great Hugh Masekela; and Young Ice, a rapper turned entrepreneur who managed to
sell some of his Ashanti beads to the movie director and style maven Spike Lee. (Hes also
studying to be a pharmacy technician.) They were hanging out in the studios of Voltapower
FM on the northern fringe of the Bronx, an Internet-based radio station that plays music from
around the Ghanaian diaspora, interspersed with news of the funerals and outdoorings
birth celebrationsthat are the biggest occasions on the migr social calendar. (You come,
eat a lot and make a donation to the family, Danso Abebrese told us.)

The point of the radio is to give these kids an opportunity to play their music, says Solomon
Mensah, the evenings disc jockey, who goes by the stage name TBK (and who just finished
his biomedical engineering degree at City College). At some momentsgiven the four-hour
time differenceeven more people are tuned in from Accra than from the Bronx.

***

The beat on those Accra streets used to be something a little different. In the early evening
before dinner, says Darko, youd hear the same thing from this side and from that side.
Youd be hearing boom, boom, boom. That was the sound of people pounding out the fufu
for their supper. Its heavy work with a mortar and pestle. By the time youre done pounding,
youre sweating.

As Ghana has gotten richer in recent years, though, the sound has dimmed. People are
building nicer homes, and theyre refusing to let their tenants pound fufu because it breaks up
the concrete blocks and tiles, Darko says. Ground, prepackaged fufu has begun to take its
place, sparking a debate about which tastes better.
Most Ghanaian food takes a long time to prepare, says Samuel Obeng, who presides over
lunch at his restaurant, at 183rd and Grand Concourse. Its 2 p.m. and hes just arrived from
church, in a natty suit with orange tie and pocket square. He opened Papaye a couple of
years ago, with a partner who ran a lunch counter six blocks to the south. I told him, your
food is good, but the presentation lacks professionalism. I wanted a restaurant for business
clients, a place where you could talk business. Indeed, the menu describes the fare as
authentic and upscale African cuisine, but upscale doesnt mean expensivethe most
expensive entree (fried yam with turkey tail) runs $12, and the signature appetizer, a
kyinkyinga (goat) kebab, will set you back $2. The approach seems to be working: Kofi
Koranteng, an investment banker at one end of the table, keeps count of the customer traffic
during our two-hour lunch. One hundred seventy-three people have come in, he tells
Obeng. If I know you, youre planning a second location.

The crowd around the long table exemplifies the intertwined community. Darko, the lawyer, is
counsel not only to the restaurant but to Voltapower radio; Koranteng founded the radio
station. Samuel SupaSam Boateng is one of Felix Sarpongs cousins and a music promoter
in his own right, who says he has worked with hip-hop legend Puff Daddy. But the most
iconically Ghanaian of all may be the Boakye siblings, brothers Kwaku and Kwabena and
sister Maame. They arrived in New York 17 years ago, joining their parentstheir father is a
radiologistwho had gone ahead. It was November, says Maame, and our parents had
jackets for us. But it was warm in the terminal, so we didnt know to put them on. The minute
we walked out the door we were fighting for them.

They acclimated quickly, attending DeWitt Clinton High in the Bronx, a storied public school
that has turned many a child into an American success story (think Robert Altman, Lionel
Trilling, Richard Avedon, James Baldwin, Paddy Chayefsky, Judd Hirsch, Irving Howe.
Spider-Man creator Stan Lee, Tracy Morgan, Bud Powell, Richard Rodgers, Abe Rosenthal.
At any other school the guy who created both Gilligans Island and The Brady Bunch,
Sherwood Schwartz, would be a star; at DeWitt Clinton, hes a few names down the honor roll
from Neil Simon and Daniel Schorr. Not to mention Sugar Ray Robinson). To this list, add the
Boakyes: The brothers both went the traditional route, studying medicine and becoming
doctors; theyve gone on to found the Gold Coast Medical Foundation, which finds equipment
and supplies for hospitals around the developing world and sponsors trips to areas hard hit by
natural disaster. Kwabena was in Indonesia after the tsunami and in Haiti two days after the
earthquake; his brother has built an education network through Bronx churches that helps
immigrants with basic health information.

Its their sister, however, who may end up spreading Ghanaian honor farthest and widest. She
started out training to be a psychologist, but decided she wanted something more hands-on
and took up cooking, earning a degree at the culinary school of the Art Institute of New York
City. She was overseeing nutrition at an HIV/AIDS center when she met the celebrity chef
Marcus Samuelsson a few months after he opened his Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem.
Shes been working by his side for the last three years as the Rooster has become world
famous: The New York Times called it among the most important restaurants to open in the
city in recent times, partly for its food and partly for its diversity. Boakyes been a key part of
that diversity, reminding people of the Ghanaian connection to foods weve come to think of
as American, like black-eyed peas. Its an unsurprising connection, considering that Ghana
was one of the biggest sources of slaves for the Americas. Boakye makes dirty rice with the
stinky fish thats one hallmark of her native countrys cuisine, as well as a New Orleans
staple. And weve had peanut butter soup on the menu as a seasonal entree for a long time.
It started off as part of the Kwanzaa menu, and people loved it so much that it stayed.
My aspiration is to have Ghanaian food known worldwide, she says. I want you to look at it
and think its something out of the food magazines. Ghanaian food is ready to break out. If
there were investors interested, she says shed try to bring the cuisine downtownmaybe
thered even be a sink to the side of the dining room, just like there is at Papaye, so you can
wash your hands before and after the fufu.