On Oct. 20 Hamline’s African Student Association (HASA) celebrated their 21st annual Pamoja Night. Pamoja means to “come together” in the Swahili language, Associate Dean of Students Carlos Sneed explained at the opening ceremony of the evening.
“We are just here to represent togetherness and calmness and gathering,” HASA board member Elijah Baidoo said. The event featured food and desserts, poetry, comedy, fashion and lots of music and dance.
“This night brings many [different] African sounds, tastes, and looks [together],” Baidoo said.
The itinerary for the evening started out with some history of HASA given by Sneed. Despite this being the 21st Pamoja Night celebration here at Hamline, HASA has only been an official organization since 2003.
“A lot of times people just look at Africa as one thing, one entity, but there’s so much diversity and there’s so much rich culture in every single [country]. So to see every country be represented, or most countries at least be represented was super amazing,” third year attendee Joe Mason III said.
After introductions, the night kicked off with both poetry readings and a stand-up comedy set, both ways to bring out emotions from two different roads. Then began the Titambe West African Dance Ensemble, all three performers being from Ghana. The trio played djembes which are traditional West African rope-tuned drums.
They asked the room to clap along together to the beat and dedicated a segment of their performance to teaching the audience a dance that went along with the piece. This included everyone in the room to the performance, uniting the performers and the onlookers as one.
HASA then welcomed one of the other performers of the night, Mack OC. Mack OC, a local musician and member of the Afrocentric media collective, Ozone Creations, created a buzz of excitement the moment he stepped foot on stage. Phone flashlights came on as the audience pulled closer to the front, stepping away from their seats. People jumped and danced to the music, enjoying a moment of flow.
Mack OC then fired up the area by leading a lengthy conga line all around the room, showing a strong sense of unity between both friends and newcomers.
“These are musicians who are doing great things that are of our age, doing prominent stuff now in the Twin Cities,” fellow musician Mason III said.
The final big section of the night was the fashion show. The space featured a long red carpet down the middle, where participants proudly walked, posed and got their pictures taken wearing cultural clothes. They had either walked individually or with friends, making fun poses as everyone clapped and cheered them on. This event was an exciting way to showcase student’s connection to their culture through clothing. It exemplified the many different cultures that belong to Hamline students.
The night was filled to the brim with fun, exemplifying just what the word Pamoja means. “[HASA] does an amazing job with all the different events that they host whether it be social, [or] the academic and educational events that they host as well,” Mason III said. “It’s been a hub for me, you know, being able to be around people like me, that look like me [and] share the same experiences [as] me, but are also different and unique in their own way.”
The longevity and survival of these organizations are crucial in the sense that they can provide a sense of community and belonging within the student body, and they must be supported in every way possible. HASA’s Pamoja Night embodied this importance, showing what togetherness looks like through food, dance, song and more.