An excerpt from the story written by Douglas McGill at the Twin Cities Daily Planet.
Joe Riemann bestowed one simple name, and in return received overflowing blessings and a beautiful name for himself.
The name he received from members of a grateful immigrant community in the Twin Cities is “Jalata,” meaning “One who loves.”
As for the simple and single name that he bestowed, bear with me, this will sound implausible but it is absolutely true.
Riemann distributes Ethiopian coffee to food cooperatives in Minnesota, and he recently changed the label on vacuum-packed bags of the coffee beans he sells from “Organic Ethiopian” to “Organic Oromian.”
The Oromo have immigrated to Minnesota over the past 15 years, fleeing what they say is brutal repression and ethnic cleansing of their group by the present Ethiopian regime – claims that are fully backed up by human rights groups. A Human Rights Watch Report in 2005 reported “pervasive human rights violations” and documented hundreds of cases of torture, arbitrary detention, surveillance, and harassment of Oromo citizens.
The systematic suppression of political influence and cultural expression — Oromo history is not taught in Ethiopian schools, for example — is what makes the appearance of the Oromo name on bags of coffee grown in Oromia so genuinely and deeply moving, Oromo Minnesotans say.
“It touches your heart, it’s so powerful,” said Lense Solomon, an Oromo native and the president of the Oromo Student Union. “The Oromo have been repressed for so long, their labor unrewarded, their history wiped out, that to have the Oromo name on their own coffee, that’s huge.”
“It’s like the difference between being called ‘you,’ and being called by your real name,” she added. “It makes you feel proud to be acknowledged.”
The change has been good for business too, according to Barth Anderson, a spokeman for the Wedge food cooperative in Minneapolis. Sales of the coffee have increased about 30 percent since the label change, he says, and some Oromo have brought their families and children into the store to pose in front of the “Oromia Organic” coffee bags on the shelves.
“It’s almost embarrassing how gushing they are in their gratitude,” Anderson said. “They tell me, ‘Thank you for being so brave, to acknowledge what we are going through and to stand with us.’”
Riemann says the idea to change the name began at a showing of the documentary film, “Black Gold,” about Oromia coffee farmers in Ethiopia, that he organized as “a bit of Equal Exchange outreach” to potential Ethiopian customers from the area, especially Oromo.
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