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The Indiana Daily Student

arts

In U.S. or Ghana, student keeps music with her

Nana Amoah is graduating from IU after receiving her doctorate African American and African Diaspora Studies.

When Nana Amoah was young, her father would sit at the piano in their living room and play. Every day at dawn, he’d go back to the same hymns and traditionals, and she would sit beside him and follow the lyrics.

“Growing up, any time I listened to music, I listened so deep and tried to get a meaning to every word in the song,” she said. “It helps me concentrate on the song and learn from it.”

Amoah moved to the United States from Ghana six years ago. She’s graduating from IU this year after receiving her doctorate. At the end of the summer, she’ll go back home.

Her father played piano at their church, where Amoah sang in the choir. She said he influenced her interest in music. She danced, and she played the drums, the piano and the violin.

When she was 6, Amoah won an adowa dance competition and moved on to represent her region of eastern Ghana in a competition in the city . When her time came to dance, her father hid her in a room and told the organizers he couldn’t find her.

“He said that if I get into the cultural life in Ghana, I will not be serious with my education,” she said.

Ghana hadn’t been an independent country for long, and Amoah said there was a colonialist residue in the society, which relegated women to the home.

“The assumption is that women should not even go to school at all,” she said. “My dad was coming from the background that if I involved myself too much with cultural things, then I’m saying I’m part of the culture, and this is what I have to do as a woman.”

He wanted her to dissociate from the culture so she could pursue an education, she said.

Amoah said she told African American Dance Company Director Iris Rosa this story, and Rosa let her dance adowa in the AADC’s spring performance this year.

“I felt so good, now I can go on stage and do what I wanted to do,” she said. “I felt so liberated.”

She’s never asked about the choice he made 40 years ago at the dance competition.

Maybe, she said, she’ll ask him when she goes home. Maybe he’ll tell her, “If I hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t have gotten your Ph.D.”

Amoah moved to the United States right before she turned 40, with three daughters and no U.S. citizenship.

Amoah sings in church as part of the Second Baptist Church’s choir. When she’s singing, she said she feels she’s talking to God and God is listening. When she misses church, she feels sick.

“When I sing songs to glorify God, I’m in a different world altogether,” she said.

She’s been with the African American Choral Ensemble for six years, and Saturday was her final performance. One of the songs in the choir’s spring concert was “You’re the One to Make the Difference,” which Amoah played every day while preparing for her dissertation.

The song is about how you can always give something to someone, she said.

“You will definitely have an impact on somebody, so don’t look away,” she said. “Someone needs something from you.”

That’s how she sees herself, she said — always wondering how she could be helping someone else.

When Amoah goes back to Ghana, she’ll work as an assistant professor at the University of Ghana in Accra. She wants to be the person to give students the extra push they need, she said.

“I’ve gained a lot from IU,” she said. “We need help down there. If I stayed here, I’d be selfish.”

Her eldest daughter, Daisy Lamptey, said Amoah stressed to her the irreplaceability of education.

“She told us that they can take everything and anything away from you, but they can never take your brain,” Lamptey said.

Amoah’s husband died after a brief illness when she was 31. Her youngest daughter was about 1 year old.

On his deathbed, he told Amoah, “Nana, I know you can do this. I know you can do this.”

In Ghana, she said it’s believed even after someone dies, the spirit lives on. Amoah said she found courage knowing her husband was still with her spiritually, helping her.

She said she decided to get her Ph.D. so she could get a job with a good salary and build a life for her family.

Lamptey described her mother as her “superwoman.” She was always present at home while teaching and preparing for her 
dissertation, Lamptey said. She told her daughters to always keep praying and keep pushing — that was the secret to it all.

“It’s not been an easy 
journey at all,” Amoah said. “But with all that, I 
persevered.”

Amoah said when she was introduced as “doctor” at a banquet, she still couldn’t believe it.

“Should I walk differently?” she asked. “Should I talk differently? Take different steps? To show that I’m a new Nana now?”

Amoah’s the first in her family to receive a Ph.D. Everyone around her is happy for her, she said — her family, her friends, her Facebook friends.

Now, she said her eyes have been opened and there’s a new brightness, like the clouds have been pushed away.

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