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ABC News
19 hours ago
- Sport
- ABC News
Walker, Amartey, Quaynor, Idun — the rise of Ghanaian-Australian players in the AFL
When Collingwood's Isaac Quaynor went to his father's hometown in Ghana for the first time as a 10-year-old, he was welcomed with love and warmth by his extended family, instantly connecting to his cultural roots. He was also greeted with something he wasn't expecting, being called 'obrouni'. Obrouni is a term in Ghanaian language Twi that directly translates to those who come from over the horizon. But colloquially, it refers to a white person. It isn't intended as a derogatory remark, simply a way to signify difference. But for a Melbourne-born kid who considered himself Ghanaian-Australian, it was a jarring experience. "Growing up I didn't really know that I was different, but I kind of did at the same time. It was an awkward one," he told ABC Sport. "I was like, maybe this will be the place I feel like I really fit in ... I was so naive to what was going on. "When I was over there all the village kids were coming past and standing at the gates (looking at me) like I was a zoo animal." While his trip overall was a great experience, it's representative of a lifelong journey Quaynor has dealt with. The 25-year-old grew up with a Ghanaian born dad, and white mum, in a household surrounded by Ghanaian culture. He went to church on Sundays like many kids growing up in Ghana would. His family was a regular to Ghanaian community events. His story is familiar to many people who grow up biracial, not knowing exactly where they fit. In Australia — seen as not 'Australian enough', in Ghana perceived as an outsider. But Quaynor has embraced the positives in his story, helping him form connections throughout his life. "I can relate with lots of different types of people as a result," he said. It was a life changing experience for Quaynor to spend time with his grandma before she died, gaining perspective that he has grown to appreciate the older he has gotten. In recent years, Quaynor has found a place where he feels he fits perfectly, the AFL. It's the same for Joel Amartey of the Sydney Swans, Connor Idun of GWS and Brandon Walker of Fremantle. Four players with different stories but with shared heritage rooted in Ghana. Walker spent the early part of his life in Ghana raised by a white-Australian dad and a Ghanaian mum. Quaynor, Amartey and Idun all grew up in Victoria with Ghanaian fathers, and white mothers. For Idun, discovering his cultural heritage has been an ongoing process, but one that has progressed more in recent years. His dad Zac was born in the UK, to Ghanaian parents who had immigrated to the country before his birth. The 24-year-old was also born in the UK and moved to Australia with his mum at a young age, growing up in Geelong, a city with a very small African population. "At times it was embarrassing, I didn't know my heritage and I wasn't able to be proud of where I come from, but that's what makes this journey so special," Idun told ABC Sport. "I have a Ghanaian middle name Kwamena which I never really said, I just said Connor Joshua Idun. But (now) I'm very proud to be Connor Joshua Kwamena Idun." The rekindling of his relationship to his culture came when he saw his UK-based dad and brother for the first time in 10 years, when they came to watch him play last year. The weight of the moment was clear to see with both men describing the emotional toll heading into the game. The reconnection with his dad has opened Idun's eyes to another "realm of family" he never knew before. "I'm in a WhatsApp with the Iduns, there's 30 or 40 in a group chat that does not stop," he said. "(It means a lot) knowing I'm playing for something bigger than myself, and it's going to be Ghanaians in West Sydney that are watching me. "Giving them someone to look up to and be proud of and hopefully I can help them discover their passions early and be proud of their heritage earlier than I was. "Meeting other Ghanaians, they're all pretty similar to me. I always wondered why I'm so bubbly and loud." For Fremantle's Brandon Walker, his early childhood memories are filled with the noise of the busy streets of Kumasi, Ghana, after spending the first five years of his life in the country's Ashanti region. Walker and his twin brother Chris would make their way to school in the early morning enjoying a Ghanaian doughnut called a puff puff. The family eventually relocated to Perth, where Walker was surrounded by a wide range of different cultures. "When you go to school you lean to different cultures, you've got your mates that are from the same place ... I've had a lot of mates (who are) mixed-race people as well." With a mum that is "very protective, very strict, with very good morals", Walker credits her for ensuring that he was raised to be a good person. Even though his mum didn't know much about Aussie Rules when arriving in Perth, she's now a vocal supporter on game day. "She tries to stay home to watch most of the games because she's very extroverted. She'll be yelling at the screen and stuff like that, she's funny, she enjoys it," he said. In Ghana, soccer is a way of life and is a great connection between dads and sons, something which Sydney's Joel Amartey relates to. Amartey and his dad Clemente shared in the 'traumatic experience' watching Ghana lose to Uruguay in the 2010 World Cup quarter-finals. Amartey's dad may have wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become the next Asamoah Gyan, but those dreams were dashed when Amartey traded one football game for another. "I don't think he talked to me for about two months when I outgrew soccer," Amartey joked. "He played for the professional league in Ghana growing up, so he was very adamant I played soccer." Amartey also absorbed valuable insights from his dad by osmosis. "I don't speak the language but hearing my dad on the phone growing up shouting from the other room. I don't know how a man can call so many people during the day," he laughed. The youngest of three siblings, his sisters helped teach him what it is to be Ghanaian. "I've only really started to learn these little things (about the culture) the last few years. It's tough to learn but that's the beauty in it." Although the Ghanaian community is small in the AFL, the support and guidance of other African players like Port Adelaide's Aliir Aliir, who has South Sudanese heritage, have been influential in Amartey's journey. "He's so expressive in himself about where he's from and I think I looked up to that and tried to take a few things he did and move on forward with it," Amartey said. "What all the Indigenous boys do with their culture and their heritage and the way they grow up and how they've come together there is so many of them, I think as African players we look to those guys and see what they have done for their people and I think we can do the same for us." A game so easily identified with Australian culture found its way into the home of first-generation Australians finding a love and skill for the game. That eventually extended to their parents, who found new ways to bond with their sons. "(Dad's) the biggest fan ever, loves watching football ... comes to all the games,' Quaynor said. "Someone was telling me he had his phone out recording for like half the game the other week and I was like what are you doing? "He's so proud, definitely come a long way." They're not just passing the game onto their parents, with these players' representation also ensuring the game's growth in other communities. "My extended family now start watching," Amartey said. "They still don't really know what's going on, but they know what a goal is and the team wins and that's how it starts." In recent years, the AFL has put a greater emphasis on promoting the game in multicultural communities. Amartey, Quaynor and Walker have been a testament to this, coming through the AFL Next Generation Academy – an initiative between the AFL and clubs to create more opportunities for boys in multicultural and Indigenous communities. "When we do camps with NGA kids seeing how happy they are to be there and the opportunity they get to be involved it's a great opportunity for them and they grab it with two hands," Walker said. The work has extended to clubs working to foster more inclusive environments that celebrate the individual cultures of their players. "The Swans here are awesome. They're very open minded and help put things in place that help you discover your heritage, or don't try and squash it down or put it to the side," Amartey said. "Toby Greene's always wearing the Ghanaian soccer jersey from the World Cup. I got some Ghanaian budgies made-up and things like that for the boys." GWS vice-captain Stephen Coniglio has also played a role in Idun's journey, the club leader who has proud Italian heritage encouraged his teammate to learn more about his culture and be proud of where he comes from. He may have been first in the competition, but that is not where Quaynor wants his legacy to end. "I have this dream ... to organise something through the AFL (with other African players)," he said. "I'd love to be able to take some footies over to some African countries and Ghana being one of them." The return to Ghana could signify an opportunity for Quaynor to introduce a sport that has changed his life, to a community his shared heritage connects him to, potentially changing the life of another.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
My dad's death led me to China. Living in Shanghai helped me heal.
Maria Hsin grew up in Los Angeles with a Chinese dad and a Mexican mom. At home, she learned how to speak English and Spanish, but no Mandarin. After her dad died, she spent two years living in Shanghai, and wants to return. I went to Shanghai for the first time in 1987. My grandma had died, and the family plan was to spend a month in China. It was my Chinese father's first trip back since he'd immigrated to the US in the late 1960s. Sleeping in my father's family's home, meeting relatives for the first time, sharing meals, hearing Mandarin all around me, and navigating the maze of their neighborhood marked the beginning of my connection to Shanghai. My Shanghainese father met my Mexican mother near Los Angeles in the 1970s, and I grew up speaking English and Spanish. I even chose Spanish as my minor in college. But I didn't speak Mandarin. Growing up, my father didn't talk about his past or his Chinese roots. Instead, it was through food that I learned about my dad. Our trips to Chinatown provided me with a peek into his world. Before the days of international food aisles in grocery stores, trips to LA's Chinatown were necessary for Chinese ingredients — my dad did a lot of cooking. Chinatown was also where we went to celebrate special occasions. As a kid, I remember the excitement of catching glimpses of the Lunar New Year dragon parade from a restaurant. For birthdays, we would stop by Phoenix Bakery to pick up a strawberry whipped cream cake with sliced almonds. My parents divorced when I was in college, and it put a real strain on my relationship with my dad. But in my late 20s, we slowly began to reconnect. I remember him hosting a Chinese Thanksgiving. One of my cousins cooked crab with green onion, egg, and ginger. After my dad had a stroke that left him paralysed on the left side of his body, he was unable to speak. I helped as a caretaker during the last two years of his life. I scheduled appointments, managed transportation, went with him to doctor's appointments, prodded medical staff to do as much as possible, and cheered on his physical therapy progress. My dad died in 2017. Two years later, I traveled back to China. I walked the streets of Shanghai, after what would've been his 83rd birthday, and I felt that at any moment, I would turn a corner and bump into him. I'd think about him — almost as if I could hear his voice — whenever I smelled dumplings frying and tried to decide which variety to choose. I reveled in the hum of people walking, cycling, or rushing to their destinations. I loved watching early morning deliveries — boxes of fresh vegetables dropped off at restaurant doors. Struggling to pronounce words in Mandarin added to the vibrancy. Shanghai felt electric, and as the city revealed itself to me, I knew my father was watching over me, welcoming me back to his hometown or laughing at my attempts to speak Mandarin. The majority of that trip was spent in Shanghai, but I also visited Hong Kong to see my grandfather's grave and spent three days in Beijing. I was drawn to Shanghai and wanted to move there. At the time, I was in graduate school, switching careers from journalism to urban planning. I came across an English teaching position in Shanghai. I had yet to make peace with my father's passing, and in addition to the high cost of living in LA, I felt I needed a change. I arrived in Shanghai with two suitcases and from January 2023 to earlier this year, I called China home. I worked as an English teacher and corporate language instructor. In Shanghai, the ease and options for getting around, the low cost of living, incredible food, and widespread use of digital wallets made life feel incredibly convenient. I also loved exploring the city. Across from the hotel we stayed at in 1987 — which is walking distance from where my dad's family home once stood — I often found comfort. When the weather was good, I'd sit on a bench, munching on a shao bing, a Chinese flatbread a little larger than a corn tortilla, which became one of my favorite snacks. And I fell in love with walking — to get a latte, pick up steamed pork buns, to meet friends, or just take in the city. Something I had rarely done in LA. I wandered Shanghai's wide streets and its small, tucked-away alleys lined with old homes. In those quiet lanes, far from the boulevards and busy pedestrian promenades, Old Shanghai still lingers — patiently waiting to tell its stories. I was happy about the life I was creating. The old parts of the city made me think back to that treasured first visit with my father. In many ways, Shanghai will always feel like home. When my employment contract ended and the job offers I received were insufficient to keep me in Shanghai, I moved back to the US. But I didn't feel ready to leave. Read the original article on Business Insider
The National
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Palestinian poster exhibition in London communicates 'urgency' of the moment
Malu Halasa emphasises how the artworks deliver direct, meaningful messages, making them a vital form of cultural expression for Palestine today
Al Jazeera
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Jazeera
The evolution of language through social media
From Shakespeare's eloquent soliloquies to Gen Z's rapid-fire abbreviations, language is evolving as quickly as the world itself. Driven by social media, globalisation, and shifting cultural norms, the way we speak is constantly being rewritten. We explore how emerging linguistic trends reflect how younger generations connect with their world, and whether these changes threaten native languages and cultural identities. Presenter: Stefanie Dekker Guests: Hayat al-Khatib – Professor of applied linguistics, Arab Open University – Lebanon Jonas Fine Tan – Linguistics student, Oxford University Oliver Carter – Linguistics content creator
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
A brief history of black names, from Perlie to Latasha
Most people recognize that there are first names given almost exclusively by black Americans to their children, such as Jamal and Latasha. While fodder for comedians and social commentary, many have assumed that these distinctively black names are a modern phenomenon. My research shows that's not true. Long before there was Jamal and Latasha, there was Booker and Perlie. The names have changed, but my colleagues and I traced the use of distinctive black names to the earliest history of the United States. As scholars of history, demographics and economics, we found that there is nothing new about black names. Many scholars believe that distinctively black names emerged from the civil rights movement, perhaps attributable to the Black Power movement and the later black cultural movement of the 1990s as a way to affirm and embrace black culture. Before this time, the argument goes, blacks and whites had similar naming patterns. Historical evidence does not support this belief. Until a few years ago, the story of black names depended almost exclusively on data from the 1960s onward. New data, such as the digitization of census and newly available birth and death records from historical periods, allows us to analyze the history of black names in more detail. We used federal census records and death certificates from the late 1800s in Illinois, Alabama and North Carolina to see if there were names that were held almost exclusively by blacks and not whites in the past. We found that there were indeed. For example, in the 1920 census, 99% of all men with the first name of Booker were black, as were 80% of all men named Perlie or its variations. We found that the fraction of blacks holding a distinctively black name in the early 1900s is comparable to the fraction holding a distinctively black name at the end of the 20th century, around 3%. We were interested to learn that the black names of the late 1800s and early 1900s are not the same black names that we recognize today. The historical names that stand out are largely biblical such as Elijah, Isaac, Isaiah, Moses and Abraham, and names that seem to designate empowerment such as Prince, King and Freeman. These names are quite different from black names today such as Tyrone, Darnell and Kareem, which grew in popularity during the civil rights movement. Once we knew black names were used long before the civil rights era, we wondered how black names emerged and what they represented. To find out, we turned to the antebellum era – the time before the Civil War – to see if the historical black names existed before the emancipation of slaves. Since the census didn't record the names of enslaved Africans, this led to a search of records of names from slave markets and ship manifests. Using these new data sources, we found that names like Alonzo, Israel, Presley and Titus were popular both before and after emancipation among blacks. We also learned found that roughly 3% of black Americans had black names in the antebellum period – about the same percentage as did in the period after the Civil War. But what was most striking is the trend over time during enslavement. We found that the share of black Americans with black names increased over the antebellum era while the share of white Americans with these same names declined, from more than 3% at the time of the American Revolution to less than 1% by 1860. By the eve of the Civil War, the racial naming pattern we found for the late 1800s was an entrenched feature in the U.S. Black names tell us something about the development of black culture, and the steps whites were taking to distance themselves from it. Scholars of African American cultural history, such as Lawrence W. Levine, Herbert Gutman and Ralph Ellison, have long held that the development of African American culture involves both family and social ties among people from various ethnic groups in the African diaspora. In other words, people from various parts of Africa came together to form black culture as we recognize it today. One way of passing that culture on is through given names, since surnames were stolen during enslavement. How this culture developed and persisted in a chattel slavery system is a unique historical development. As enslavement continued through the 1800s, African American culture included naming practices that were national in scope by the time of emancipation, and intimately related to the slave trade. Since none of these black names are of African origin, they are a distinct African American cultural practice which began during enslavement in the U.S. As the country continues to grapple with the wide-ranging effects of enslavement in the nation's history, we cannot – and should not – forget that enslavement played a critical role in the development of black culture as we understand it today. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Trevon Logan, The Ohio State University Read more: How a heritage of Black preaching shaped MLK's voice in calling for justice What everyone should know about Reconstruction 150 years after the 15th Amendment's ratification Black kids and suicide: Why are rates so high, and so ignored? Trevon Logan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
