By: Mars Johnson, Reporter
OMAHA, Neb. – A local immigrant woman’s story along with a comprehensive explanation from a sociology lecturer dive into two unique perspectives.
Chef and owner of Okra African Grill, Nina Sodji, describes her journey from closing her business two days after opening due to COVID-19 to now as a rollercoaster ride–scary and fun like the Mamba at Worlds of Fun.
Sodji is a multi-lingual single mother who left her hometown, Togo, Africa, during a time of war.
“It wasn’t really that much future for anybody, let alone a woman–a young teenager at that time. But I came here, and I made something out of myself,” said Sodji
As someone who has been a chef for about 30 years, she stays resilient. Sodji loves to feed people, often working to keep her restaurant alive for 18 hours a day. She has been doing so for the past two years and has seen life become more unpredictable than usual. Her faith tells her that there is a time for everything, and there are constant changes.
“If you know that changes is coming, nothing is fixed, then there’s nothing to fear. There’s nothing to worry about,” said Sodji.
When people randomly showed up to her restaurant to look around on more than one occasion, she called her management to find out what was going on. She realized the situation she was in and was not given the opportunity to stay. She is moving her restaurant to a new location.
“I found out the hard way that my sublessees–they weren’t paying the rent to the owners of the building, so far that they become delinquent. If they became delinquent, it makes me delinquent, so the landlord decided to rent the space without letting me know…I understood in my Blackness that I was not wanted here. You do not stay where you are not wanted, so you graciously move,” said Sodji.
Sodji has big plans for Okra African Grill such as selling other products like sauces and spices along with opening many more locations. Chipotle, Amazon, Nestle, and Goya are a few brands she lists to help illustrate her long term goals for her restaurant. Sodji is open to whatever life brings her.
“If Okra is standing on God and faith, doesn’t matter where I go. I’ll make it through. It’s just another storm,” said Sodji.
One key word that Nina Sodji has for women out in the world is perseverance.
“You have to persevere, and you have to know that not everything lasts forever, nothing. The rain, the sun…Can you imagine the sun being out every day without going away? We’ll fry,” said Sodji.
At the same time, she shows gratitude for the work women do and said that being a woman in her position is hard.
“For all the women out there, I love you guys. I thank you for all that you do. If nobody say ‘thank you’–if nobody say ‘we love you’–from a woman to a woman, I love you all because it takes a heart to be a woman,” said Sodji.
A lecturer of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Omaha with a Ph.D. in Sociology, Jenny Heineman, said she can’t imagine not celebrating women.
“As a queer woman raising a nonbinary child, celebrating all genders that aren’t explicitly cis, male, white–I think is important. We are seeing the devastating impact of what bell hooks and others have called a white supremacist hetero-patriarchy, so carving out space for folks to be celebrated as women or as people who are not cis men is important in the sense that we’ve got to have forms of celebration in order to dismantle this shit,” said Heineman.
Heineman sees the importance of holidays that celebrate women, but draws attention to certain dynamics present in women’s history.
“White cis women really need to be holding ourselves accountable and really looking at our own history, the history of our movement, and the ways that we have upheld systems of oppression. We’ve been the foot soldiers of white supremacist hetero-patriarchy,” said Heineman.
Heineman would like to see professors and teachers “bringing in more marginalized voices.” She has seen young people “demanding accountability” from “historically problematic” structures and describes mainstream feminism as “based on the ideas of white cis women.”
“Different identities do place us differently in society, and I’m not quite sure why so many folks are reluctant to see that,” said Heineman.
On her worst days, she worries that humans have a “fetish for authoritarianism.” She said, “a lack in unapologetic support for sex workers and for trans folks is stunting the movement.”
Heineman’s optimism often lies in her students and Hegel’s dialectics. She said Hegel’s dialectics describe the way all societies move as a pendulum moving back and forth. When she hears about neo-nazis, she hopes it’s just a reaction to the dismantling of structures of oppression.
