‘Unity Is What It’s All About’

Willia Edmonds gazed at the crowd overflowing the Bowers Museum for Kwanzaa festivities last year and knew the holiday that celebrates African American culture had taken root in Orange County. And it wasn’t about to let go.

“As I stood on the stage and looked at the people cramming into that room and thought, ‘Oh, my God, someone’s going to call the Fire Department,’ the realization struck me,” said Edmonds, president of the museum’s African Cultural Arts Council.

Kwanzaa, which means “first fruits of the harvest” in Swahili, begins today and continues through Jan. 1.

Last year, 350 people squeezed into the museum conference room to mark the holiday, and 175 more were turned away at the door. This year, Edmonds’ group will host its celebration Saturday at a high school auditorium that holds 1,500.

In South County, two organizations of African American families are putting on their first Kwanzaa event Sunday and expect 100 participants.

And African American families across the county will celebrate Kwanzaa at home, arranging symbolic fruit and ears of corn around ceremonial straw mats, and lighting a candle daily to mark the Nguzo Saba, the seven principles by which people should strive to live.

Founded 31 years ago by Maulana Karenga, chairman of the black studies department at Cal State Long Beach, Kwanzaa is nonreligious and nonpolitical, celebrating African heritage, family, faith, community, self-determination and self-respect.

In Orange County, where African Americans make up just 2% of the population and are spread from Fullerton to Trabuco Canyon, Kwanzaa is coming to symbolize even more. Residents say it is a way to come together and teach children to honor their heritage and love themselves in a place where they often feel an oddity.

“The community is hungry for some way to become more unified,” Edmonds said. “The community is hungry for some way to become more accessible.”

Stephanie Rose Stone collects Kwanzaa books and has introduced friends to the holiday. Her daughter, Michele, was born on Dec. 30 and proudly tells people she’s a “Kwanzaa baby.”

“Kwanzaa is about the children,” said Stone, who is helping with the South County event. “It’s about the community, and it’s about making sure that your children have really good self-esteem and that they understand that it’s OK to be African American.”

To Stone, a Lake Forest management consultant who grew up with a knowledge of Kwanzaa, it is no surprise that the holiday is growing in popularity here.

“The time is right,” she said. “In this community, we need to make sure that our children don’t feel isolated, because a lot of them are the only African American in their class. We need to make sure our children have access to other African American children and other African American parents, to information, to creativity.”

Each day of Kwanzaa corresponds to a different principle. They are umoja (unity); kujichagulia (self-determination); ujima (collective work and responsibility); ujamaa (cooperative economics); nia (purpose); kuumba (creativity); and imani (faith).

The Kwanzaa ceremony draws from several African harvest celebrations. An altar, adorned with cloth and a straw mat, holds the kinara, Swahili for candleholder, with three red candles, three green and one black. Each candle represents a different principle. Each day, a candle is lit and the corresponding principle discussed.

The colors also are symbolic: red for struggle and blood spilled by ancestors; green for the future; and black for unity and the African continent. Also used in the ceremony are fruits, which represent the rewards of harvest, and dried corn, for children and the future. Ceremonies conclude with a drink of water from the kombe, or unity cup.

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Despite its timing, adherents emphasize that Kwanzaa has nothing to do with Christmas and can be observed by people of any faith. Gifts are exchanged, but they are generally simple, handmade and educational.

Sheila Salih of Dove Canyon will give her children--Kyle, 6, and Nicole, 4--Mancala, an ancient game of strategy from Africa that is played with small stones.

Salih first celebrated Kwanzaa three years ago at Stone’s home and was moved by Stone’s Kwanzaa coloring books and adult books on African culture. When she was growing up, Salih recalled, she was not exposed to such things. She wanted something different for her children.

“It’s like a support,” said Salih, an organizer for the South County event. “It affirms the family. It teaches us to respect one another and to trust.”

Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966, the year after the Watts riots, to unify the black community by honoring ancestors and looking to the future. The holiday’s birth came at the height of the 1960s’ black power movement. But today, Kwanzaa is going mainstream.

An estimated 13 million people worldwide celebrate the holiday. This year, the U.S. Postal Service released a Kwanzaa stamp, designed by Los Angeles artist Synthia Saint James. The stamp made its Orange County debut at Cal State Fullerton in late October before a campus-sponsored town hall meeting on issues affecting the African American community.

For many African American families, the holiday’s apolitical nature is appealing. From its early association with the civil rights movement of the 1960s, it has become broader, an occasion to celebrate family, culture and community.

“It isn’t perceived as something threatening anymore,” Stone said. “It’s OK to wear African attire. It’s OK to gather. When you see a gathering of African Americans, people get very uncomfortable. That has been around for so long that it’s refreshing finally to see, ‘Hey, we can do this, and everyone will be OK with it.’ ”

Kwanzaa also has moved beyond the African American community. Edmonds said she began getting calls in September from many non-African Americans asking about this year’s event. And she recently presented the holiday to a group of elderly Jews at Leisure World in Seal Beach.

“Unity is what it’s all about,” said Helen Shipp, president of the Orange County Black Historical Commission. “Once we all begin to get into the community thing, whether it’s Chicanos, blacks, Vietnamese or whatever, this will be a much better county.”

Saturday’s event, sponsored by the African Cultural Arts Council of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, is open to the public. It will be from 1:30 to 5 p.m. at Valley High School, 1801 S. Greenville St., Santa Ana. A storyteller, African dance and drumming, and refreshments will be included. The cost is $5 a person or $15 for a family of five or more. For more information, call (714) 543-7379.

Sunday’s event is for members of African American Parents and Concerned Citizens of South Orange County and the Just Like Me Play Group, formed two years ago by African American parents seeking dialogue and playmates for their kids.