by Tené Croom
For New Pittsburgh Courier
Pittsburgh remains a cultural melting pot, a distinction it’s held for over a century. According to 2010 Census figures, African Americans comprise 27 percent of the Steel City. But the bulk of the Pittsburgh ethnic mix, to no surprise, is White ethnic groups, nearly 68 percent of the population.
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| COMMUNITY STORE—Kenyan businessman Jacob Owade in his Garfield store. (Photo by Tene Croom)
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But, Africans, Kenyans among them, are finding Pittsburgh very much to their liking. Some 300 Kenyans are living here. Jacob Owade is one of them.
He became a business owner after being laid off as an accountant. Owade couldn’t find work for two years, so he decided to be his own boss. A convenience store, named JP&S International Food Store, is what he opened a year ago in Garfield. While being the proprietor of a store has been hard work for him, he also found it to be, to borrow a word from his native Kenyan language, kizuri. Kizuri is a Swahili word meaning good.
When asked how he has been received by African- Americans in the neighborhood, he was candid.
“It’s been mixed. Initially I noticed a lot of hesitation in people just coming in, just frequenting the establishment. But lately it’s been a little bit more improved. I see a lot more people, regulars. Sometimes I get encouraging words from the African-American community about the business, keep doing it. But, occasionally somebody comes in who is pretty hostile to the idea that, you know, a foreigner having a business in their neighborhood. So, believe it or not, I get that, within the people, say my own people,” he said.
He takes the critical words all in stride likening it to that person in your family you might not get along with. But, it’s a family member you still take in your house and just handle with kid gloves. So, Owade tries to disarm his detractors with his words.
“It’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it,” he tells the naysayers. “But, we’ll be here to serve you as best we can. I just hope you come back one day and find our services useful.”
What does he hope to provide to Pittsburgh? “Pittsburgh’s community is diverse. From being in this location, I see the diversity getting bigger and bigger every day. I’m trying to tap into that. Not only from a selfish point. I would like to be able to get all the money. But, also just to expose the Pittsburgh community, people who live in the area, to different things. Cause, it’s amazing when people come and they walk around and they see the various items on the shelves and their curiosity. How do you make this? How do you cook this? I never saw this,” Owade said.
He’s also thinking about his homeland when he walks around in his store. There is something that he believes is important that he wants to point out. “Kenyan community in the area, they get a chance to get Kenyan food that they don’t normally find. Whenever you find an African store, quote, unquote, it’s usually mostly geared toward West Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, mostly West African products. My slogan is, ‘We bring the taste of home to you.’ We bring the taste of Kenya to the Kenyans and some other Africans and also hope in the process the local population will get to experience that too,” he said.
The topic of that African country was the subject of national discussion at the US-Kenya Diaspora Conference on Vision 2030 in Washington, DC last year. H.E. Elkanah Odembo, the Kenya Ambassador to the United States, revealed they’ve developed a strategy to make Kenya a middle to high income country by the year 2030. “It’s Kenya’s blueprint towards becoming a middle income country and moving out of the category of poor or less developed country,” he said, adding, it’s something under implementation for the last three years.
Pittsburgh will have more Kenyan owned businesses like Owade’s if Niecy Dennis gets her way. The founder and president of Workforce Global Alliance, a humanitarian non-profit organization, organized a meeting in September of last year on “Leveraging your Business Global to Global” that focused on Kenya business development. She said that the goal of the meeting was to put business leaders and organizers from southwestern Pennsylvania and elsewhere in touch with opportunities for profitable partnerships in Kenya and East Africa.
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