"As descendants of enslaved Africans then, coming (home) to reconnect with their lost ancestors, many members of the African Diaspora claim a privileged status. Moreover, some reason that if they are making such a homecoming, why should they have to pay anything whatsoever to enter?"

The Door of (No) Return
Cheryl Finley

Part I | II | III | IV | V | VI

The Price of the Ticket
Upon entering the monuments of Cape Coast or Elmina, visitors first become aware of themselves as a particular type of tourist--Ghanaian national or non-Ghanaian national--based on the price of the admission ticket. Non-Ghanaian nationals pay ten times more than Ghanaian nationals: ten thousand cedis (approximately four dollars) instead of one thousand cedis (approximately forty cents). Officials of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) defend this pricing structure, which discriminates based on class and national belonging, as necessary to support the maintenance and upkeep of the monuments, a strategy not uncommon to nascent tourist economies in other developing countries. At one thousand cedis, a visit to Cape Coast or Elmina is within reach of many Ghanaians, enabling them to participate in the development of the tourist economy, while lending support to the monuments' national importance. The GMMB spokesmen assert that tourists coming from as far away as New York City or Auckland can afford to pay ten times more than the admission price paid by Ghanaians.

Many non-Ghanaian nationals, especially those from the African Diaspora, expressed great dissatisfaction with the admissions fees at Cape Coast and Elmina. Simply put, they felt that it was unfair that they should have to pay more. Indeed, many African Americans and blacks from the diaspora assert that their historical relationship to the monuments in Ghana is the overriding difference. For them, the monuments are distinctive sites that they journey to in search of some aspect of their identity, a clue that will unlock the mystery of their past, something that will connect them to their ancestors. Many African Americans claim that it is hard enough for them make the pilgrimage to redeem this part of their history, to "come home" and to pay homage to their ancestors, without feeling doubly wounded by the unequal admission prices. During her visit to Cape Coast Castle in 1998, Farah Jasmine Griffin, who teaches English at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, asked, "Why do Africans in the diaspora have to pay so much more when our ancestors were held captive here?" As descendants of enslaved Africans then, coming (home) to reconnect with their lost ancestors, many members of the African Diaspora claim a privileged status. Moreover, some reason that if they are making such a homecoming, why should they have to pay anything whatsoever to enter? Why aren't they welcomed home with open arms and regarded, as Richard Wright wondered, as "lost brother[s] who had returned?" (4).

This question illuminates the very problem. African Americans have certain expectations when they go "back" to visit a place that has come to stand for the homeland of their ancestors. In Ghana, they feel a definite connection not only to the people and the land, but to the dungeons, those bold, physical markers of the past. Ghanaians, on the other hand, do not necessarily appreciate African Americans' symbolic relationship to the castle/dungeons, their need to cling to something there that may explain their African heritage and anchor their sense of belonging in the world. Some Ghanaians point to a certain lack of specificity when blacks from the diaspora claim Ghana as their ancestral home. They wonder, why Ghana, and not another West African country? Why not Nigeria, Gambia, Angola, or Senegal, for example?

As such questions remind us, Ghanaians and African Americans have understood the histories of slavery and the slave trade in very distinct ways, from opposite sides of the Atlantic. And, perhaps, from opposite sides of the coin of memory. If African Americans long to remember, many Ghanians need to forget. Perhaps one of the few ways that the people who remained in present-day Ghana managed to survive the trauma of the slave trade was to suppress the memory of how it forever transformed their culture, society, land, and people. They had to forget in order to survive, to move on, and to build a new identity. They had to forget the wrongs that were perpetrated against them by white Europeans and Americans, as well as their own forefathers. Many Ghanaians I asked about this responded, "Four hundred years is enough"--enough talking about it, enough shame, enough painful memories. In contrast, most African American visitors to Ghana believe that the very act of visiting the castle/dungeons demonstrates a certain responsibility for their history, a reclaiming of the past. While many remain perplexed by the cost of admission at Cape Coast and Elmina, others see this relatively nominal fee as the small price they have to pay in order to help preserve the monuments for generations to come. Seen as a charitable donation, their contributions play the double role of honoring the memory of their ancestors while supporting the livelihood of their Ghanaian brothers and sisters. This ongoing debate is an example of how symbolic possession of the past shapes the present with such a seemingly petty thing as the price of a ticket, even when the top price is only four dollars.

What's in a Name, I
African Americans and black people from the diaspora often have great expectations for their first visit to Africa. Whether the destination is Ghana, Kenya, or Nigeria, visitors' hopes are connected to their desire to answer questions about their ancestry. Wright, when reflecting upon the prospect of going to Africa for the first time, gave the question of homecoming serious thought: "Africa! Being of African descent, would I be able to feel and know something about Africa on the basis of a common 'racial' heritage? . . . Or had three hundred years imposed a psychological distance between me and the 'racial stock' from which I had sprung? . . . Was there something in Africa that my feelings could latch onto to make all of this dark past clear and meaningful? Would the Africans regard me as a lost brother who had returned?" (4). Unfortunately for Wright, the answer to his last question would be no. Dressed neatly in a khaki safari outfit, sun hat, sunglasses, and camera, Wright was regarded as Western and wholly foreign by most of the people that he met in the Gold Coast.

Today, the same holds true for many African Americans and black people from the diaspora who travel to Ghana in search of their roots. What these twenty-first century pilgrims believe to be a return "home" is exposed as a mere tourist excursion upon their arrival. Regardless of skin color or manner of dress, black people from the diaspora are considered just as foreign as the average tourist from Asia, Europe, or the Americas. To Ghanaians, the tourists--black and white alike--are obruni, a term that carries the double-edged meaning of both "white man" and "foreigner." Whether they hear the term when they go to purchase a bottle of water from a street vendor, or as they are confronted by the sea of small children who huddle outside of the monuments at Cape Coast and Elmina asking for American money and addresses, diaspora blacks can't help being unnerved by the irony of this innocent name.

All photographs the copyright of Cheryl Finley.