Finding Brotherhood as a Ugandan-American Man: A Conversation with Ryan Mijumbi
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Ryan Mijumbi, a second-year doctoral student specializing in child psychology. As we delved into his cultural identity and personal growth, I discovered a shared connection with Ryan’s journey as a Ugandan-American navigating his place in American society. Being a first-generation Indian-American myself, I resonated with his experiences of grappling with cultural identities and finding common ground amidst diversity. Ryan’s insights shed light on the nuanced process of connecting with other black men, even in the absence of shared historical backgrounds, and his reflections offered profound insights on the complexities of forming one’s identity.
Additionally, Ryan’s passion for interfaith psychology in fostering holistic mental health care was inspiring. His advocacy for inclusivity through his doctoral work resonated deeply, emphasizing the need to integrate diverse cultural and spiritual perspectives into the fabric of our mental health systems. Please read the interview below.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Suraj: Hi Ryan! It is great to chat with you again. I started conducting interviews for The Multicultural Man to amplify culturally diverse stories of masculinity that promote health and peace. I’m looking forward to our conversation. Can you introduce yourself?
Ryan: Sure! My name is Ryan Mijumbi. I am a second-year clinical psychology doctoral student at Adelphi University. I come from the Catholic tradition and I identify as cis-male.
Suraj: I would love to hear more about your cultural or religious background, if you don’t mind sharing.
Ryan: Both of my parents come from Uganda. My dad grew up Anglican and became Episcopalian when he came to the United States. My mom grew up Roman Catholic. When it came to raising me and my brother, we were raised Roman Catholic. I was baptized, had my first Holy Communion, and was confirmed in the Catholic Church. I also went to a Protestant, private school for most of my elementary and pre-secondary schooling, so I have a bit of Protestant and Catholic understanding of my religion.
Suraj: What was it like growing up in a religious household?
Ryan: My parents were never dogmatic about religion. Sure, we would go to church every Sunday – very early in the morning. When I told some of my Protestant friends that I go to church at 7:30 am, they were shocked at how early it was! Anyway, it was the freedom that my parents gave me and my brother to understand Catholicism and Christianity widely that allowed me to affirm my belief in this religion. Despite my questions and doubts, I left that whole experience with this deep longing for curiosity. I was challenged on what I thought I believed and asked myself “what do I believe?”
Suraj: What did you learn about yourself?
Ryan: When I started to become aware of people who come from different religious traditions, gender expressions, and sexual orientation, I would say I’m grateful that I lead with love. I’m glad that the Spirit led me to have empathy and see the image of God rather than rely on misinterpretations and hate-filled speech against my queer brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings.
Suraj: I love how your faith taught you to embrace empathy towards all people.
Ryan: Definitely. When I got to college, I got my hands on the academic side of religion through religious studies. I explored my religion through the perspective of morality and intellect. What do we know from different cultures throughout history, literature, anthropology, and sociology? Being involved in interfaith work introduced me to this wider world.
Suraj: How so?
Ryan: When I joined my college interfaith group, I realized we can all sit together and have a wonderful meal. We can have discussions and dialogues around our traditions, what we value, and what we want to see in the world. Additionally, these experiences led me to contemplation, mysticism, and meditation. There is a possibility I could have gotten there if I went a purely Christian path, but I feel it wouldn’t have been as rich if I didn’t have a pluralistic understanding.
Suraj: Can you share one practice from another tradition that inspired you during this time?
Ryan: Metta meditation from Buddhism. I love it so much. Even if I consider this concept from a purely Christian stance, I can still see that idea of generating loving-kindness as merely me channeling the love of God and then spreading it out to the ends of the earth or the entire cosmos.
Suraj: That’s amazing. I love how religion has played a large role in shaping your world, and how it intersects with your cultural identity. I would love to hear more about your connection to your Ugandan-American identity.
Ryan: I grew up with a Ugandan heritage within the United States. Looking back, I realize that my parents didn’t grow up with the cultural or social understanding of what it means to be black in the United States.
Suraj: Can you say more?
Ryan: I went to a school where the majority of people were white. I only had a handful of people who shared my skin color. Even though we shared skin color, we didn’t share cultures. There was a disconnect. I can trace my lineage up to my grandfather in a specific country in Africa while other people said they couldn’t trace their lineage that far, even if to the transatlantic slave trade.
Suraj: How did that experience shape your worldview?
Ryan: It took me until college to realize the cultural privilege that I have in understanding where I come from and what heritage I hail from. This includes being able to interact with Ugandan culture throughout my life, whether it is through my mom and dad speaking Luganda, through enjoying cultural foods, or even thinking about my parents’ journey to the United States.
Suraj: Would you be open to sharing more about your parents’ journey to the US?
Ryan: It was my dad who came here first to get his doctorate. My mom followed after they got married. My mom decided to start her career here and my dad decided to stay with her. They became US citizens and they have spent basically 30 years raising two boys and growing their practice. My mom is a pediatrician and my dad ended up being the manager of her practice.
Suraj: That’s incredible. I would love to circle back to the cultural disconnect you mentioned. How did you navigate conversations with other black students around culture?
Ryan: I have a story from college actually. I was in an auditorium and we were meeting with the superintendent of the local school district. She made a comment, “I look around the room and all I see is one black male” and I’m thinking “where?” I realized halfway through my education in college that I never paid attention to the racial makeup of my classes. Whenever I was bored, I would look around the room and think, “Oh wait, I am the only black male in the classroom.”
Suraj: Was it important for you to find black peers on campus?
Ryan: You know, what motivated me to join and fully participate in our university’s Black Student Union (BSU) was this one situation on campus. Someone wrote something really bad on a projector. Everyone talked about it. We met together in a lobby and had a discussion with student leaders across campus. One of the presidents of BSU at the time made a poignant observation by saying, “Hey, I really do appreciate you all coming here and I cannot thank you enough for supporting our black and brown students. However, I can’t help but notice that the only time we come together is when something bad happens or when we’re all hurt rather than moments when we have fun.”
Suraj: I love how that was framed.
Ryan: Yeah, it helped me realize that BSU isn’t just an organization to advocate for black and brown students on campus to have a decent experience. It’s supposed to be fun, an affinity group for people to come together and share their culture and heritage.
Suraj: For sure! Was BSU your main connection to black students?
Ryan: I actually was also inducted into a leadership organization known as the Institute for Responsible Citizenship. It is a program for African-American men in college. They meet the summers after their sophomore year and junior year. In the second year when we went to Washington DC, I had a reckoning.
Suraj: What happened?
Ryan: I had such a reckoning with my identity as a black male. I never really thought of my identity. I thought, “I’m brown and I’m a male”, essentially facts of my being. However, being in this cohort of black men coming from different stripes, passions, fields, personalities – I truly came to understand my own male blackness. I also saw how I fit into the African American experience. Every day that I breathe is a testament to the work, sacrifices, and even, unfortunately, the deaths of African American individuals in America’s past. The fact that I benefit from their hard fought labor binds me to them.
Suraj: I love that. It truly is a brotherhood.
Ryan: When we weren’t in our internships or classes, we would be playing basketball, watching movies, eating food, or just having these philosophical dialogues about politics and religion. Our ideas would go back and forth.
Suraj: Beautiful. It’s important to have other people who you can trust to share experiences and perspectives on life with.
Ryan: Definitely.
Suraj: I would love to pivot slightly and discuss your work now. Can you share what you do?
Ryan: As a doctoral student, I’m currently researching the intersectionality of Christianity and asexuality. In terms of literature on LGBTQ+ people of faith, there isn’t much research on the religious and spiritual lives of asexual individuals.
Suraj: Why did you choose this intersection to study?
Ryan: Most people can understand why being gay or trans and religious has discourse around it because there are many religions that say it’s bad. But, for asexuality, why would anyone be mad at someone who doesn’t desire sex at the same rate as people who identify as straight, gay, bisexual, lesbian, etc.?
Suraj: Yeah, this is not a topic I have thought about before.
Ryan: We have one side of this discourse that is purity culture, the idea of valuing virginity or valuing procreative sex. These are ideals that everyone should aspire to in some religious and cultural traditions. Then, we have the other side where you have allonormativity. This is the idea that every person desires and has sexual attraction. This doesn’t count as a true statement when you consider asexual individuals.
Sexuality has a place and purpose, but we need to recognize the ways we have tied sexuality to humanity or the cultural values or virtues that we have assigned to sexuality. People who are asexual aren’t always able to fulfil these roles. People who are asexual can have sex and be in committed relationships, but they may not feel sexual attraction or enjoy sexual intercourse. So, how do those individuals function in a world that has all this value and cultural baggage around sex and sexuality?
In the context of the divine and spirituality, procreative sex is seen as the consummation of marriage in Catholicism. With this pinnacle of two fleshes becoming one, how do you have a fulfilling spiritual life in this context if you are not willing or have no desire to go that far?
Suraj: Your research will definitely fill a gap and provide more information and guidance for asexual people navigating spirituality and religion. As a public health professional, I also see a health lens to your work. I imagine finding answers to these questions may likely have a positive mental health impact for these individuals as well. Have you looked at this work through a health lens?
Ryan: It’s not an official project that I’m doing, but I have a passion for interfaith psychology. I’m essentially adopting the paradigm that a lot of chaplains use when it comes to interacting with people from different religions and spiritualities and trying to form it in a way that is applicable to mental health contexts.
Suraj: How so?
Ryan: The landscape of religion in mental health, at least in terms of psychotherapy is either secular therapy that doesn’t pay heed to religion or religious therapy such as a Jewish counselor or Christian counselor. I see a more intersectional understanding of how people interact across racial, gender, and sexual lines as something that needs to be adopted in psychotherapy when it comes to religion.
Suraj: When mental health counselors have a level of interfaith literacy, I imagine it is beyond helpful for the patients to feel seen and heard.
Ryan: Yes. As a mental health professional, I want to partner with your spiritual resources and religious community so that we can better cultivate your mental health care. Let’s say it was Ramadan and one of my clients came in and was feeling terrible. I would have the realization that they haven’t eaten all day. Of course there will be some emotions with that which I can understand. Or, with scheduling, we wouldn’t schedule our sessions during holy days. We would choose other days. I see interfaith psychology as a skillset that any therapist can adopt.
Suraj: Interfaith psychology will make mental health care more inclusive and I’m thrilled to see how you evolve this idea. Ryan, thank you for sharing your experiences with me today. It was fascinating to learn about your background and thoughts on culture and masculinity. I’m looking forward to our next conversation.
Ryan: I would love to continue these conversations too. Thank you for having me.