Kwanzaa may be a festival celebrated by millions of African Americans and pan-Africans, but it has only been around for a few decades (十年). Introduced to the United States in 1966 as a ceremony to welcome the first harvest to the home, the festival, which takes place from December 26 to January 1, is a celebration of life, unity, family, and culture.
Featuring feasts, music and dance, and a devotion and recommitment to different principles (信条), the festival was created in the middle of the Black Freedom Movement, at a time when it was felt that cultural grounding was needed.
Dr. Maulana Karenga, professor and chairman of Black Studies at California State University in Long Beach, is responsible for bringing the festival to life. After the Watts violence in L.A., Dr. Karenga searched for ways to strengthen the African-American community. He paired the practices with traditions of several different harvest celebrations on the African continent, and although it is celebrated around the Christmas period, it perhaps has more similarities to Thanksgiving or the Yam Festival in Ghana and Nigeria.
There are five common sets of values that are central to the week-long activities: ingathering, reverence, commemoration, recommitment, and celebration. There are seven principles of Kwanzaa, meaning first fruits in Kiswahili, a language spoken in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The first fruit celebrations appear in ancient and modern times in classical African civilizations.
These seven principles are known as Umoja, meaning unity; kujichagulia, self-determination; ujima, collective work, and responsibility; ujamaa, cooperative economics; nia, purpose; kuumba, creativity; and Imani, faith. There are seven candles used during the festival, and like, the Jewish Hanukkah, these candles are used to represent the principles.
On December 31, participants celebrate with a plentiful meal, often featuring good meals from various African countries.
The number of Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa has changed greatly over the years, and with as many as six million getting involved in the 1980s, Kwanzaa became a mainstream holiday. Now, however, numbers have paled, but it still remains an important cultural touchstone (试金石) for many African American communities.
