MOTHER TONGUE | Felema Yemaneberhan | Architectural Designer

‘Mother Tongue’. What does it mean?

Is it the spoken language of home, the language of parents, ancestors, and country of origin?  Is the language of place, a rooted connection to heritage, tradition, people, music, rituals, religion? The DNA of a particular ethnic experience?  ‘Mother Tongue’ merges the past and present, a sometimes invisible gift of identity, particularly when displaced in another land.

Felema Yemaneberhan grew up in Los Angeles, but throughout her childhood she was brought back to another home, in Eritrea, north of Ethiopia, a country traumatized by Italian colonization and Civil War.  In the US, before the age of 5, she only spoke Tigrinya, the language of her ancestral home, a place where her parents still anticipate returning.

Transcript

MOTHER TONGUE

FELEMA YEMANEBERHAN| ፈለማ የማነበርሃን 

Architectural Designer

S1 EPISODE 13: TRANSCRIPT June 13, 2021

Felema

“I don't feel fully relaxed in my own neighborhood anymore.  Let me give you an example. I used to play drums on the weekends, in the garage in my house. This is where my grandfather who lived down the hill would come every day. The  family, friends, we would have our coffee ceremony. It would last for four hours after church.  Our cousins would come over and play. We'd go over to the neighbor across the street, play basketball, and then we'd go to the next neighbor's house across the other street. And, we would feel safe, and we would leave our garage door open the whole day, play drums. There's a house that's getting sold right up the hill. This realtor came up to me one day, and said hi, we're trying to get this house sold. Would you mind playing your drum a little lower, because we don't want to intimidate the neighbors, to think that this is a noisy neighborhood.  I said, no. I played louder.  But, it's really more about resistance.  It's been on the market for months now, and I don't know why  nobody's purchasing it.”

Nina

It's your drums, Felema!

I'm Nina Freedman. And this is WHEREING. WHEREING explores where we are. It is dedicated to those who believe in the inherent right of belonging, and all the ways we feel we belong, and connect to ourselves, to each other, and the spaces that hold the stories, where all of this comes alive. Where each experience of belonging is a work of art, created by chance or by design. Dare I ask? Is belonging where you are, not what matters most? WHEREING is the spatial story. Welcome.

When we say 'mother tongue', what does it mean? Is it the spoken language of home? The language of parents, ancestors and country of origin? Is it the language of place, the root that is carried, a connection to heritage, traditions, people, music, rituals, religion, and the DNA of a particular ethnic experience. 'Mother tongue' merges, the past and present, a sometimes invisible gift of identity, particularly when displaced in another land. 

Felema Yemaneberhan grew up in Los Angeles, but throughout her childhood, she was brought back to another home  in Eritrea, north of Ethiopia, a country traumatized by Italian colonization and civil war. In the United States, before the age of five, she only spoke Tigrinya, the language of her ancestral home, a place where her parents still anticipate returning.   Now, as an architectural designer based in Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles and Harlem, New York City, her work is committed to gifting back to that land, a new soulful, African design sensibility. Her thesis at Cornell University, sited in Eritrea, was named Natomi Medri, meaning, ‘Their Land'.   Following work in various national and international firms, she has founded her own practice, Felemaye, and is collaborating and teaching with CPDI Africa, a new concept for a design school, in Africa, and integrated into western universities.  I have watched her grow as a former student,  unwavering,  in service to the place of her 'mother tongue'. 

 Felema. So nice to have you. 

Felema

Thank you for having me, Nina. 

Nina

My pleasure. Can you tell us about some of the places that you call home?

Felema

Sure. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. But, I definitely consider Eritrea and Ethiopia my home. It was really an interesting situation growing up in America. When people first meet me with my super long and exotic name, they say, where did you come from? Home for me is physically  Los Angeles, but home  is wherever  family is. Primarily speaking, Los Angeles is home, and more specifically Baldwin Hills, which is a section in Southern Los Angeles. I've lived in one house my entire life before going to college and it has, and keeps all my most treasured memories. Everything in that vicinity, really, whether it's  the supermarket down the hill is very special in my heart.  Currently I'm living in Harlem, in New York City. I've been here for about 10 years. When I was selecting this area as an adult, I had to figure out what reminds me closest to Baldwin Hills, and that's how I selected, where I currently live. Every summer when my sister and I would get out of school, we would spend three months out of the year between Ethiopia and Eritrea. My parents thought it was really important for us to know our culture.  We didn't speak English until we went to primary school. And, I think that's  interesting because  my parents, knowing that we come from a very small place, language is the key to knowing  culture. So, I'm very thankful for that. 

Nina

Can you say something in Tigrinya?

Felema

Yeah. Eshi. Eshi means, okay. I hope one day that our people get to see the light. But we do require work, and that's the reality. 

Nina

I love that. Eshi.

To make the distinction about some of these places in Africa, so that the listeners understand the geography.  You have Eritrea, Ethiopia, and you lived in a particular place which you haven't mentioned yet, right? Is it Asmara? 

Felema

Yeah. Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. So, we'll give geography 101. Even up until this day, most people don't know where Eritrea is located. It used to be a part of Ethiopia. It was one nation for the longest, and there's a lot of different stories of how things came to be. But, the long story short, it was a strip of Northern Ethiopia that was colonized by the Italians. They had it for around 50 years, then around WW II it was given back to Ethiopia. And, after a certain amount of time, the sense of identity diminished. Lots of tensions. It's a political border. So, ethnically the group of people who reside in Northern Ethiopia got their independence in '91, which actually happens to conveniently be the year that I was born. And, it's on the Horn of Africa, right along the Red Sea. Some of our neighbors include Yemen, Saudi Arabia. But yeah, it's a very fertile area, very beautiful landscape. A very interesting place. 

Nina

Your parents lived there first, before they came to Los Angeles?

Felema

Yes, so my father's ethnically Northern Ethiopian. Just to give you some background. Right now, there's  a legit civil war going on. But they're ethnically the same people as the Eritrean people. So, there's a political line that divides that region. It's like north and South Korea, literally the same people, cut up. The government banished 6 million folks to Sudan, and they're in refugee camps. They're trying to eliminate the Tigrayans.  

Nina

So, your father is Tigrayan.

Felema

Yes. He was born and raised in Asmara. His father was a businessman, a very holy man. The Ethiopian Orthodox system, it has the same formalism. as  the Catholic church, for example, where the bishops stay, where they are buried, where the monks live and where they're buried. So, though his father was not  a formal priest, he lived his life so holy, he was able to be buried a top of this beautiful mountain in Eritrea. I never got to meet him. He was the first Eritrean to have a car. He believed in the revolution and building the prosperous nation for his people. So, he looked at commerce as a way to build up his people during a time where there were curfews, you couldn't read above the third grade reading level.  Everybody speaks about my grandfather. He's a tall tale. 

Nina

How did your parents end up in America? 

Felema

My parents were living in Ethiopia. My parents met in Asmara. They actually came here out of war. My father was the head of the Chamber of Commerce in Eritrea, essentially creating his father's dream to be a self-sufficient nation, to create goods and services in house. I will say colonization was terrible, but out of all of the colonizers, Italians taught the Eritreans craftsmanship. They set up a lot of really wonderful factories and they were able to use that infrastructure to  develop the nation.  At a certain point, the Chamber of Commerce was able to create a World Expo. They were planning for the whole of Africa, but then there was a communist regime that came in, that publicized you cannot have X amount of money, you can't privatize X, Y, and Z. So, my parents moved to Ethiopia. A lot of their properties were seized, and they knew that they couldn't stay there for much longer. So, then they went on a world tour. They lived in London, they lived in Italy, they took a  tour of America, went to Canada, and my parents wanted to find a place in a landscape that most resembled their home country.  I think most immigrants come here out of need, an opportunity they may not have at home. My parents came here to America, as a way to pass the time. So, they've been here for 35 years, but they're very proud of where they come from, and thirty-five years later saying I'm going to go back home.

Nina

It's like, they've always been waiting to go back. 

Felema

Yes. Once things are better, and don't get me wrong. I mean, it's still very safe in Eritrea. We're very humble and quiet people. We just let things happen to us, and I'm not sure exactly what it is. I think it has a lot to do with our faith, Coptic or Orthodox. There's something called Kibret. It's one of those words where you can't really fully translate in English.  It's  like protecting honor. So, if I were to say something to you, Nina, and it made me look a certain way, I would avoid saying it to you, because I don't want to be perceived X, Y, and Z. It's strange. I think that our nation, our people, we're so worried about what other people are saying, that we self-sabotaged ourselves, and repressed ourselves from saying the truth. 

Nina

I understand. There are a few cultures that do that, that sort of mixture of humility and respect, with passivity.

Felema

To our own detriment. We used to go back for 17, 18 years. I spent three months out of the year there. When I think about it, in retrospect, it was a very expensive investment. It was a very long journey, but once we got there we were so happy to be there. We were so aligned with the children there. And, the one thing I would say that  humbled me, cause I had an alternative reality in Los Angeles. I came up very privileged. I was very lucky to have the schooling that I did.  We went to the number one ethnically diverse school in California.  When we went to Eritrea, it was a way to  open our eyes and see the reality of other peoples being. And I think  that juxtaposition was absolutely necessary, and the foundation of who I've become.  It's very emotional because  if we were born to another place that could easily have been us, someone who doesn't have more than two pieces of bread, but we're very fortunate.

Nina

Yeah. Those things exist here in America, as well. 

Felema

For sure. 

Nina

But, you lived in a different way. So, this was before you were born, they left Eritrea to go to Ethiopia. 

Felema

Then at a certain point, they came here in America. They settled in California. In Los Angeles, if you look at the climate, the biodiversity, it resembles most to Eritrea. It makes sense, in retrospect, how they selected their site where they're habitating.

Nina

So, the roots are now in two places.

Felema

Yeah.  It's sad because we have a home in Ethiopia, a family home there, but we haven't been able to see it. I went in 2017. My mother went for the first time in 20 years, last year, before the pandemic, and my father has yet to see his house, that's been like 20 years. Home is very  important for them.

Nina

So, you ended up studying architecture.

Felema

Yes, I did. That was very interesting. 

Nina

Yeah. I'm curious, because of this background, the different homes that your family has lived in, the homes that they've built, how considered all the decisions have been, did this contribute to your decision to be an architect?

Felema

Absolutely. I mean, I've wanted to be an architect since the seventh grade. The neighborhood that I live in, in Los Angeles is an architecturally significant neighborhood. I remember when I was with my dad, on the weekends, we would go and ask the neighbors to see the interiors or their homes, how things were furnished.  Each homeowner took so much pride in the care-taking of their property. So, the same thing goes for our homes. Every square foot of that house was made with love.  I was very ambitious. I sought out  internships wherever I could find them, in Los Angeles, ended up going to Cornell. I grew up a lot in Ithaca, very isolated place. But a lot of wonderful experiences, and just trying to integrate my interests of always wanting to be a designer and how to have that longterm goal of, I'm going to go back home to where my family is from. How do I formalize my education and my skillset to get as much as possible from it, to ultimately go back. 

Nina

To work there.

Felema

Yes. 

Nina

To help build the country back up. 

Felema

Yes. 

Nina

So, interestingly, you've grown up in Baldwin Hills. I want you to explain this. Okay. Let's have another geographic. 

Felema

Okay. 

Nina

Where you've grown up, there is also this sense of, let's call it gentrification, colonization, quote, unquote, that you've met up with again, and this is something that you've become very interested in, right?

Felema

Yes. 

Nina

So, tell us a little bit about this intersection, in this area, relative to Los Angeles, as well, and what you're currently engaged in. 

Felema

Okay. So, we'll speak about Baldwin Hills first. So Baldwin Hills is an enclave that is located in Southwest Los Angeles. It consists of about a thousand  single family homes. It has become a beacon of what black success looks like in America.  I think Baldwin Hills is very interesting to a lot of folks because you had  mostly African-American folks who went against the odds, and were an array of entrepreneurs, medical doctors, lawyers, entertainers and also choosing to live amongst each other, even though they could and have the means to live elsewhere in more prominent areas in the city, such as Hancock park, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, and so on. It was a form of, I'd say, subtle protest, just showing the rest of the city that I can exist here. I can exist in this locality and be happy and be safe and have joy in my heart. Whereas living in fear, no matter, even me to a certain extent, no matter how educated  or how successful or how much money you might have in your bank account, to another person who might not feel the same way, they can see you as a threat. They can see you as a problem. So, that notion of fear goes away when you're amongst your community. In the mid two thousands, there was a reality TV show that was based on the neighborhood. They casted a bunch of kids. It was really interesting, because we were growing up at the same time. We had a few friends on the show, but they were  from different parts of the city, kind of trying to create this narrative of what a child of a successful black family should look like. But, it does not represent the full demographic. In reality, you have folks who are complex, who are nuanced, who are weird, strange, but the fact that we, as black people are always put as a monolith, like there's a very singular means of how and where and when we can exist, as our full selves. So, I'd say Baldwin Hills represents to me, and I think to a lot of people who live in California, as a place of hope, as a place to look up to and to emulate, and we have other neighborhoods nearby, but nothing as distinct as 90008 Baldwin Hills. I think the one thing that homeowners did as a way to almost protect themselves and protect their status, was to create a distinction. And this actually happened right after the reality show. Property values were going down because they were associating an adjacent sub neighborhood, literally down the hill, which is called the jungles. In the nineties there was very high levels of crime, a lot of gang activity, and it's right there, similar to New York, things can be on a block to block basis. And, the fact that this creative producer decided to essentially merge the two, the neighbors made the effort to protect those thousand homes, and create the sub neighborhood called the Baldwin Hills Estates. 

Nina

So, you've become interested in a particular project for the 90008.

Felema

It's the 90008  index. I have indirectly, subconsciously, always wanted to work on something like this. It was the pandemic that  jolted me into taking this a little bit more seriously. I didn't want to take this on as the typical gentrification project. I've lived in the same house my entire life. I know my neighbors.  These are all family members to me. So, when I see the landscape going, the realtor cards being slipped under the door, there's a little bit of sadness that creeps into me. Something that I have noticed every year, living between Los Angeles and New York, every time I leave and come back, I see a new neighbor down the hill, up the hill. We live on a cul-de-sac, my family home. And, as some of the neighbors are getting older, getting sick, passing away, selling their home for a condo, I feel  a rush to preserve a moment in time where the rest of America may have been burning, but this little enclave is where we felt safe and where we thrived. So, 90008 which is the zip code of technically three major black neighborhoods, was to be a documentation project, and an index of a specific point in history of residents that lived in the neighborhood between 1950 and 2000.  I've been going door to door each home . Some of the people that I meet may have moved in two years ago, others have been there for 50 years. I ask to take photos of their home. I write little poems about them. I conduct interviews. If  they've been around for a long time or built their home from scratch, I asked for their floor plans.   It's more of  an idea of preservation, a form of remembrance, because as the inevitable is happening, the change is coming. I've started the thousand homes. There's a certain implication as a local of Los Angeles, to not separate yourself, and that is almost what a black capitalist look like, trying to assimilate into society? Why do you think this money will save you when the system's broken? And there are people like that, right? There are folks who say, you sold out to have your material things. So, are you good for our community? Just because you have more melanin in your skin?  There are certain things that you have to look and think about.  90008, to me represents Crenshaw Boulevard, as much as it represents Norman Houston park, which is the park right on the outskirts, which used to also have gang activity in the nineties. Now it's been cleaned up.  There's still remnants of what it used to be, and what the cleaning up process looks like. But again,  I think even walking in Harlem here, people make comments of, I'm in this new, beautiful building. But there is gang activity downstairs. Well, you're  foreshadowing the future. Your occupancy of the space is coming at the cost of somebody else having to relocate and be displaced. I think it's important to understand,  if everybody had a choice, they would live in peace, I think.

Nina

With this 90008 index project, that you're working on, what are your intentions for it?  You're compiling, documenting, photographing, maybe you're drawing floor plans. What are you going to be doing with this? 

Felema

So, I hope to one day compile it into a formal book. I want to shop this around to a few entities, like LA Conservatory or LA Preservation Society. There's different elements to it, right? There's the actual architectural piece where there are architecturally significant homes that need to be put on the landmark register, right. One, to  have a benchmark of a time and place that's not necessarily written about. But, more and more, it's to say that we were here. I'd have to say it does not necessarily make me feel good that I have to put  a smile on with a neighbor because they don't know that I grew up here, but they might feel threatened by my walking next to them, which has happened, on my morning walks.

Nina

Why in your neighborhood?

Felema

It's happening in my neighborhood, because there are people who feel hypersensitive. 

Nina

When you say people, I’m going to be blunt, are these white people that have moved in? 

Felema

It's non-black people. So it could be an Asian person. It could be a white person. It could be a Latino person. There's almost this pocket that I've been very protective of, because it's very predictable. I know that if I take a walk here, I can see so-and-so neighbor sitting at their balcony or  fixing the car in their garage every weekend. There's routes that I'm taking that I feel safe. But sometimes, I have to be super formal. There's almost this game that you have to play to make the people who've come in the last five years comfortable, almost like you're welcoming them to the neighborhood, and you want to give them the history of how things came to be, why there are so many people here. They came here out of survival. Actually, they came here so they wouldn't get arrested in front of their house. There are folks who had the money, but they don't feel safe in other parts of the city. So, it's better that we sit together, because we know what to expect from the people who live next door to us. 

Nina

It just sounds interesting to me, because I would imagine it's predominantly, still a black neighborhood.

Felema

It is predominantly black. Yes.  I'll give you the number of once I finish doing the log.   

Nina

Anyone that has bought a house in this neighborhood, one would assume you knew where you were going, right? Yeah. So why are you afraid? 

Felema

It's the air of formalism that's killing me. I don't feel fully relaxed in my own neighborhood anymore. Let me give you an example. I used to play drums on the weekends, in the garage in my house. We have this perched roof. This is where my grandfather who lived down the hill would come every day. The different family, friends, we would have our coffee ceremony. It would last for four hours after church, our cousins would come over and play. We'd go over to the neighbor across the street, play basketball, and then we'd go to the next neighbor's house across the other street. And we would feel safe, and we would leave our garage door open the whole day, play drums. There's a house that's getting sold right up the hill. This realtor came up to me one day, and said hi, we're trying to get this house sold. Would you mind playing your drum a little lower, because we don't want to intimidate the neighbors to think that this is a noisy neighborhood.  I said, no. I played louder.  But, it's really more about resistance. It's been on the market for months now, and I don't know why  nobody's purchasing it. 

Nina

It's your drums, Felema!

Felema

I don't know. I don't know. I have other places to go play it, but I don't want to be told. It's strange. 

Nina

Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about the school that you're involved in. The CPDI Africa.

Felema

Yeah, sure. 

Nina

It's super interesting.

Felema

It was a school that was founded by Nmadili Okwumabua eight years ago. I met her back in 2016 at a NOMA conference. At that time it wasn't a formal African design school. It was more about celebration of competition, and what built design work in an African aesthetic can and should look like.   I interviewed her for an essay that I wrote last year. And, at that point I said, really think what you're doing is amazing. I think that you should really take this idea of what a global studio could look like, do a log  first of all, the outgoing students of African descent in design schools, what does that look like? Where are they working? Do they ever return back home, their various homes amongst the 54 nations, on the continent. And, instead of trying to figure out whether, to  go the GSD or Cornell or wherever the school might be, taking the best and the brightest scholars and creating this formal school where they have the actual skill sets to go build back home. That's the biggest issue with Western education. You find out that your fancy degree doesn't really mean anything because you don't know how to move within the informal economy. So, this woman started CPDI Africa. I thought her training's very rich, but I also realized that, to be in this, we also have to have different types of folks. I proposed to her, let's work on a design school together.    I'm working on building strategy and strategic partnerships with the school to create three different tracks of learning. The first one is for students who are in western institutions who are currently studying design who are either of African descent or not, who are just interested in African architecture and design aesthetics. The second one is for design enthusiasts. So the person who's on Pinterest and wants to beautify their space. And then the third is for actual students from the continent. So, we've been working  tirelessly about how to create the perfect model to make sure that the school is accessible no matter what the cost, to make sure that the students back  home, and when I say home, I mean, everybody from the continent, has access to this. 

Nina

Is this online?

Felema

For now? Yes, but we're planning to create a bunch of micro centers across the continent. The first micro studio will be located in Nigeria, and based on the interest that we are receiving, we'll create these 2- 5,000 square foot locations for people to come and study. The idea is really to demystify what a design education should look like. Because, I think especially in the times that we're living in now, we need to have employable skill sets. There’s different things that we're working with right now, different folks that we're talking to, and how to formalize this and getting it into schools. Because of the changing landscape of what a student body looks like, there's different needs for different types of students, hopefully using this as a precedent, what to bring to existing institutions. 

Nina

Existing institutions here in the west, right?

Felema

Yes. I don't want it to feel like we're trying to shove anything down anybody's throat, but it's more about understanding. This is the landscape. Are you interested in creating some form of change?  It's okay, if you don't. If this is your ethos, completely fine. Are you trying to make some dent in what is perpetuating the problems and the lack of retention in students who are not quote unquote in the majority? My time at Cornell - my thesis, for example, I had a critic who didn't know where the nation was. And I understand you can look at the form, but you can't look at the context, if you don't know where this place is.

Nina

This was not your advisor. That was your critic, right? 

Felema

Yes. 

Nina

So, you've cut your hands in a lot of pots.

Felema

I am trying to figure out  if I can make some form of a dent into the world that I fought to exist in, and I don't want to fight anymore. I want to do work peacefully. I just want to make sure that I do thoughtful work, that doesn't hurt people because everybody wants to live in beautiful and  magnificent, and fabulous things, but it always comes at a cost. I'm just really trying to find the middle ground, of what that looks like, with minimal damage, for the people that I'm trying to work for. It's beyond a paycheck. It's more about who am I serving? Why am I serving them? And, what is the work that I'm doing and how that can impact them. I just hope that this time that we're currently living in, has given us designers pause to think about the work that we're doing, to actually change people's lives for the better.  I want us to be proud, 20 years from now.

Nina

Beautiful. Felema. Thank you so much.  

Felema

Thank you for having me. 

Nina

Wonderful discussion. 

Felema

Eshi. Thank you for asking the right and the beautiful questions. Super introspective. 

Nina

Eshi, and I hope one day, your people, that you love, get to see the light.

“Dear listeners. Thank you for being here. I invite you to reflect on what you've heard today and send your thoughts or stories we would love to hear from you. Stay in touch on Facebook, Instagram, or on our website, thewhereing.com. Subscribe free to WHEREING wherever you get your podcasts, so that you are alerted when the next episode airs. WHEREING is a pro bono initiative of Dreamland Creative Projects, which provides architectural and interior design services, for the places where we live, heal, age and inspire. If you wish to have a design consultation, visit dreamlandcreativeprojects.com or email me nina@dreamlandcreativeprojects.com. Until we meet again, goodbye from WHEREING.”