Americanah (2013) is the thorn that punctures deeper into an immigrant's skin because it reminds us of all the little observations we made unconsciously when coming to the States even though we failed to grasp their meaning at the time. Reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel is noticing the hard-perceivable from the lens of a Nigerian immigrant, a woman called Ifemelu.
Thought-provoking through its pages, Adichie's narrative is always on point, dynamic and interesting, with the real-life recurring musings of characters that try to free themselves from destiny's puppet show. The story revolves around Ifemelu and Obinze, a young couple trying to make their dreams work out in countries that are not their own as the world enters the new millennium.
There is a treatment throughout the novel of Nigerian culture and African American culture, their boundaries and expressions. But some elements could refer not just to Nigeria but any “developing” country, in lack of a better term.
Coming from one of these countries , I can vouch for the fact that we treat people who have lived abroad with certain privileges / admiration. We carry a lot of cash when travelling and are thrilled by consumerism while at the same time we get lost in the cereal aisle.
Even the way we view education and the use of language has a heavy connotation. The British versus the American way of schooling, the words adopted by "linguistically colonized" societies following the first or the latter.
The word chosen for the title of the novel is a Nigerian word that refers to people who have lived in America and return with certain affectations such as rejecting their birth country's food, culture, and language. This perception is so interesting because in a bigger or smaller way it does not happen only in Nigeria but all around the world. The author has said that because you cannot find the word “Americanah” in dictionaries it would not be able to be translated and that gives a uniqueness to the story and makes it identity bound to Nigeria. Chimamanda emphasizes that America is an idea and that Ifemelu becomes in some degree an Americanah but no quite. Because there is always something intrinsic lurking inside that bounds a person to the place where they have lived most of their lives.
It leaves scars difficult to erase if not impossible and every story is personal, each immigrant lives the process in a singular way.
Linked to this word “Americanah” and to this idea of something foreign changing your identity, how we define a home in this novel cannot be measured precisely. It may be evolving in the exterior but from an interior perspective, it always touches upon our deepest roots, the place where we were born.
What does home mean and can you go back once you leave? Home is personal to each one of us and many times it is a blurred space between here and there. For some people, especially of young generations such as the author's, home can mean many places and for others home is where the foundations lie.
So this is not a story about one-way migration only, the author taps into the idea of return migration as a transformational journey and how that produces shocking statements from people around.
“… when she finally accepted that Ifemelu was serious about moving back – Will you be able to cope? – and the suggestion, that she was somehow irrevocably altered by America, has grown thorns on her skin. Her parents, too, seemed to think that she might not be able to “cope” with Nigeria”.
The construction of Nigeria in the imaginations of the readers who have not been there is fascinating. I thought a lot about my own country when reflecting on some of the phrases used to transmit its essence, a place where “no one knows tomorrow”, where you grow up to be ready to leave at any moment with what you have, to try luck and hope for the best.
I believe there are many places like this today and that doesn't make them less intriguing or interesting. There is a sadness in the voice who narrates which is also connected to missing the people, the customs and the opportunities.
Like Obinze's mother, we did not understand what had happened to our countries, but we went along until we reached the end of our lives and it is too late to escape. It is choicelessness that drives us mad.
Adichie tries to make a point when she insists upon not viewing Africa with the spectacles of a single narrative. She has put into the spotlight a different kind of African immigration, not driven by poverty, or disease or politics but by choicelessness.
“They would not understand why people like him, who were raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty”.
Reading this book as an immigrant myself, I realize it touches on unsaid thoughts that we carry within ourselves and that are hard to leave behind. There is always a sense of loss for things that happened when you were not there.
On the other hand, Nigeria's patriarchal society, as depicted by the author in this novel and other stories she wrote, is truly shocking. How the woman comes to depend on a man and how the most coveted finish line is getting to live in America or England, acquire the local lifestyle and language and the proper papers. That does not mean however that the immigrants will find fulfillment in their lives.
“Nigerians in bleak houses in America, their lives deadened by work, nursing their careful savings throughout the year so that they could visit home in December for a week, when they would arrive bearing suitcases of shoes and clothes and cheap watches, and see, in the eyes of their relatives, brightly burnished images of themselves”.
The fact that the main character develops a blogging career to deal with her feelings and experiences and that flourishes into something she never saw coming, proves a trajectory of self-discovery and learning and a constant reinvention of her personality.
Through her blog, she is not afraid to analyze race in American society and this is one of the pillars of the novel. The learning of Adichie the author turns into the learning of Ifemelu the character. Entering America means to realize her identity as a black woman and that opens her eyes to how the country's perceptions play a part in her life.
One of the things that stuck with me was the conversation around black Americans and non-black American's hair for example and how they choose to embrace or not their natural hair complexion.
“Hispanic means the frequent companions of American blacks in poverty rankings, Hispanic means a slight step above American blacks in the American race ladder, (…) All you need to be is Spanish-speaking but not from Spain and voila, you’re a race called Hispanic”.
Another observation present in the novel is the ranking of Hispanics in American society and how other immigrant groups view us. Despite our many cultural differences, it is also an example of a single narrative in place. As someone coming from Argentina but with a mixed heritage, I know many Hispanics that are sometimes confused about questions dealing with race and ethnicity because many of us belong to more than one. This uncovers how each country works with different basis of identification, religion, ethnicity and race. Trying to make sense of that, is the reason behind why Ifemelu writes the blog.
Telling these stories matter. Adichie is not afraid of making readers uncomfortable, she seeks the social utility that comes from storytelling and that will perhaps make people see things in a different light someday. I have already been convinced that it works.
Comentários