Excerpt

          Before talking about the “who” of Ghanian-American Jocelyn Bioh’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (2023), it is more important to first talk about the “when.” The play takes place at a Harlem hair braiding shop on “a very hot day in July of 2019.” Where is the United States then, and where is the world? In the United States, Donald Trump is in the third year of his first term. On July 4th, he has had his sparsely attended “Salute to America” on the National Mall featuring military flyovers, tanks, and his speech praising America’s power. He is attempting to emulate France’s Bastille Day military parade, as well as trying to make it a Republican campaign rally for the upcoming 2020 presidential campaign, which he would end up losing to Joe Biden. And of course, Trump, in trying to pump up America’s military greatness, would demonstrate his complete ignorance of history. He noted that during the American Revolution, the Continental Army “took over the airports.” Of course, airplanes, and therefore airports, were yet to be invented. Later in 2019, Jeffrey Epstein would be arrested and mysteriously die in prison, Trump would be impeached, and there would be 394 mass shootings. Trump had already started a family separation policy for immigrants, and moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In Europe, Brexit continued to dominate the news. In April, there was a fire at Notre Dame. In March there was the shootings and deaths of 51 at two mosques in New Zealand, and pro-democracy protests began in Hong Kong. In Southwest Asia, Israeli forces entered the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in June and drove out Palestinian worshippers at gunpoint. The so-called Oslo Peace Accords had long proven a waste of time; and later in 2019, Bibi Netanyahu would be indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. 

          In this outer world of turmoil, Jaja’s Hair Braiding Salon is able to offer some inner peace despite the Black unemployment rate being double that of white workers. This Harlem spot, just off the main drag of 125th Street, is a Black oasis in the world of Trump, whose name, interestingly, is never mentioned. To continue on the topic of Trump’s immigration policies, it is clear that those policies were racist. Most notably, he announced that the United States was going to build a wall on the border with Mexico, and that Mexico would pay for it, Of course, neither of these happened, but it was part of a larger policy of limiting immigration into the United States primarily to people who were white. As one example, he would later give preferential immigrant status to white South Africans, under the false argument that they were being oppressed by the Black African National Congress government founded by Nelson Mandela. This background is important because the six women who work in Jaja’s African Hair Braiding Salon are all immigrants from African countries previously controlled by France and Britain, and all of whom have been in the United States prior to Trump’s taking office. Had they attempted to come later, Trump’s pro-white immigration policies might well have prevented them from entering. They have come from Ghana (liberated from Britain, March 1957), Senegal (France, June 1960), Nigeria (Britain, October 1960), and Sierra Leone (Britain, April 1961), and range in age from teens to forties. Let us also not forget that in 2018, the year before the play takes place, Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations in general as “shithole countries,” and wondered why we didn’t have more immigrants from Norway, making his racism plain as day. And even though the women are here, they are not immune from immigration arrests if they are not citizens. And despite Trump’s and the world’s negativity, people didn’t know how relatively well they had it. Six months after the play takes place, in January 2020, Covid-19 began spreading around the world; and by March, most of the world would be completely shut down. 

         The final preliminary topic to take note of is where the play takes place, a hair braiding salon, thus raising the topic of the importance of hair in Black culture. Hair functions as both a symbol of identity and dignity, a connection to the Motherland of Africa, and as a symbol of both power and resistance to white supremacy. In other words, Black hair, in and of itself, is a political statement. To take one of many examples, think of the dreadlocks of Bob Marley and other Rastafarians in Jamaica, and how Marley considered his dreads to be part of his religious identity, and thus he resisted music industry pressure to cut his hair in order to be more commercially viable, something he categorically refused to do. As he noted in “Redemption Song,” “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” And for Marley and Rastas in general, one way to do that is to keep combs away from heads. But this is not the only form of Black philosophy concerning hair. For Black women in particular, hair functions as a kind of artistic canvas for free expressions. In pre-colonial Africa, different hairstyles conveyed societal status. During US slavery, cornrows could function as maps for escape routes, causing slave owners to often cut off Black hair as a symbol of control. And of course, during the Black Power Movement, the afro was a symbol of identity, strength, power, and resistance. Think of the images of Angels Davis, Kathleen Cleaver, Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill, Abbey Lincoln, and Maya Angelou, to name a few. And before that, older Black women will remember the ritual of the hot comb; on the one hand a bonding moment between child and older adult (mother, grandmother, aunt), and at the same time a painful bowing to white European beauty standards. Straight hair, like what white women had, was the standard of beauty that had to be conformed to. Natural hair was considered not only ugly, but “too Black.” Back then, Black was not beautiful, and many Black people rejected any connection to Blackness or Africa. Now, things are totally different, and Black women are able to revel in the literally hundreds of options for how to proudly wear their hair, from braids, to extensions, to twists, to wigs, to edges, to crocheting, etc., etc. One last thing to take note of is the social nature of hair salons (and barbershops for men). They are not traditional businesses in which people tend to work individually in their offices or cubicles. This is a collective environment. Workers are constantly interacting with each other, especially when they are between clients, but there is also the unique relationship between worker and client. Clients literally let their hair down, talk about everything going on in their lives, and seek advice on life issues. The salon chair becomes a kind of therapist’s couch, but also a community one in which everyone gets involved in every conversation. One could even say that this is a Black version of the traditional New England town meeting in which everyone is involved with everything.

          The central character of the play, at least theoretically, is Jaja, from Senegal, who has run the hair salon for ten years. She doesn’t, however, make an appearance until late in the play because the day the play takes place also happens to be her wedding day; and so her 18 year-old daughter, Marie, is running the shop in her absence, while Jaja is off, deep in preparations for her big day. Marie and Jaja are involved in an ongoing conflict. Marie wants to be a writer, while Jaja has been pressuring her to choose a “safer” occupation such as being a doctor and making money. Writers of short stories don’t, of course, make money, and so this is one of the sources of tension between mother and daughter. Another source is the fact that Marie thinks her mother is marrying a man without there being sufficient romantic interest, which raises the question of if Marie is correct, why is the marriage taking place. We later learn that one of the workers, Bea, has suspicions about the intended groom, Steven, both because he’s white, and because she has reason to believe that he has another woman on the side. Bea also wonders if the real reason for the wedding is for Jaja to get a green card. She not only thinks Jaja wants too much too soon, but she also thinks that Jaja thinks that she is better than everyone. And the icing on the cake is that Bea thinks that Jaja’s wedding dress is ugly. She also describes it as looking as though it is covered in marshmallows (16).  Before the play actually begins, there is significant background tension. This is the political, social, and cultural history to understand before entering Jaja’s African Hair Braiding Salon on a day that fits the title of Stevie Wonder’s 1980 album Hotter Than July.

          The play essentially functions as “a day in the life” of the salon. The play begins at 9am and ends at closing time at 9pm. I between, all the different kinds of issues one would expect do arise. There are relatively trivial/normal ones: it’s too hot, the ac isn’t functioning properly, there are customer complaints about who is going to do their hair and what products are going to be used and how much. There are squabbles among and between workers about everything from food, to the choice of romantic partners, to wanting their own shops, oversleeping and being late, competition over customers, wanting something different in life, desires to go back home, competition among workers as to who is better and faster, African Americans’ relationship to Africa, Africans’ relationship to America, being a refugee and being separated from family. Most of these topics are a source of comedy, and keep the rhythm of the play flowing naturally and rather quickly. But this is all, ultimately, surface for the real issue the play raises, which is immigration. For beneath the bantering, the laughter, the Afro-beat music listened to, the dancing, and the Nollywood film they watch and imitate between customers, this play is profoundly, and primarily, political. Once Jaja’s story becomes front and center, some of it before she actually arrives, we learn of her and Marie’s backstory, and the politics of the play comes to the fore. Upon first coming to the United States, Jaja worked for white people, cleaning their house. Because this couple was on the board of a prestigious private school, Marie was able to get in, and has just graduated as the class valedictorian. To get the chronology correct, Marie is 18, and says she came to the United States from Senegal when she was four. Jaja has operated the shop for ten years. So Jaja worked for the white couple for 4 years, and saved enough money to rent the salon. Bea, who claims that the idea for the shop was hers, complains that Jaja should have used the money instead to pay an immigration lawyer to help her get a green card, something she herself did; and when Jaja appealed to her white folks for help, they refused. One result of this is that throughout her schooling, Marie has been using the identity of her cousin Kelly, someone she has never actually met. There is an awkward scene in the play when a former classmate arrives at the salon on her way to her summer job in Italy and calls Marie “Kelly.” Marie lies about taking a gap year before going to college because she is both still in a dispute with her mother, and because of using a fake identity. Jaja wants her to go to The Borough of Manhattan Community College to gain a “practical” degree on the way to a profession, while Marie is waiting and hoping to gain acceptance to an Ivy League school where she can pursue a writing career. The problem is that she has been using fake identification in high school, and these would not work in getting into college, so her Ivy League dreams are most likely doomed.

          Jaja’s entrance, when 80% of the play is over, completely changes the dynamic of what’s going on in the play. After the initial joy expressed by the women and seeing Jaja in her wedding dress, the tone quickly changes. Jaja laments, “If we are paying taxes, then we should become citizens” (57). She also notes that the government is always looking for the “perfect immigrant.” And she truly gets to the heart of the political matter when she asserts, “This country is fine with TAKING. They are even fine with us GIVING, but the moment we ASK for something? Hey! That’s it. Who are you? Dirty Africans! Get out of our country! Go back to your… ‘shat holes’” (58). This comment goes to the heart of the immigrant experience, especially those immigrants of color. There are at least two ways to respond to this. On the one hand, Jaja is totally correct. America is happy to take, but reluctant to give. This is, unfortunately, a political reality. But there is also another side. Jaja naively believes that getting married to a citizen, especially one who is white, will solve all her problems. She will have to be addressed as “Mrs. Jacobson,” and this new citizenship status will automatically allow Marie to attend the college of her choice, “And buy me a four-story brownstone on Lenox Ave, yeah!” (58). We already know that because of using a false identity, Marie will most likely never be able to go to college, even a community one, and Bea has already hinted that Steven, Jaja’s intended, already has another woman on the side.

          The play takes its final and inevitable turn when it is announced that Jaja has been arrested by ICE agents at the moment of her wedding and taken to an undisclosed detention center on the charge of engaging in a “sham marriage” (63). The “proof is that Steven “is already married in another state” (64). While this might lead us to the play’s having a tragic ending; in fact, the exact opposite happens. The women of the salon immediately bond and figure out a strategy. Marie, interestingly, is the most negative. She assumes that nothing substantial can be done, that she herself might be detained and sent back to Senegal, which she has no real connection to. Surprisingly, Bea proves to be the voice of reason. She assures Marie that “Your mother cannot do anything with your tears” (65.) She takes charge and says, “Here’s what we’re going to do,” she offers to let Marie stay with her in case ICE come looking for her, she directs Aminata and Ndidi what to do next, and announces, “And we will figure this all out. Together. You are not alone in this. Jaja is your mother, but she could be any of us. And we will fight for her, okay?” (66). These are the most significant lines in the play. Despite hardship, despite various forms of bickering over the course of the day, now, at 9pm, as the shop is ready to close, the women manage to come together over the most important issue they have collectively faced. The play concludes with the women closing up the shop, determined to come back tomorrow and begin their quest for justice, to find and free Jaja, and they go out together for Chinese food. As Bea says in the closing line, “We have work to do” (68).

          In thinking about the ending of the play, it is useful to go back a little. While it is true that the play turns from comedy to political commentary with the appearance of Jaja; and after all, the play is named after her, it is also interesting to return again to Bea. She is Jaja’s oldest friend, she points out the hypocrisy of stealing customers, she talks about how the salon was her original idea and should be named after her; she also notes that if Jaja had taken her advice and spent her money on an immigration lawyer rather than opening the shop that Jaja and Marie’s status would be better, perhaps Marie would be able to go to college, and Jaja wouldn’t nave found herself in a flim-flam marriage, not to mention under arrest. For all these reasons, in addition to what she does at the end of the play, it is at least possible to see Bea as truly the main character. Either way, at the end of the play, two other texts come to mind. The first is Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have committed suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (1975), in which the various women in various colors are able to come together in solidarity after their painful solos about the events of their lives. The other text is “Sisters Are Doin It For Themselves” (1985), sung by Annie Lennox and Aretha, and featured on Aretha’s album Who’s Zoomin’ Who? This says all there is about the meaning and importance of this play.