In reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s "Americanah" for the second time, I am struck by how much most of what I read two years ago still resonates with me. The protagonist, Ifemelu, learns that her Aunty Uju, settling into her American life, wants to take out her braids to seem acceptable at an interview. She asks then, “So there are no doctors with braided hair in America?” Ifemelu’s rather innocent question is also provocative, emphasizing the ridiculousness of the notion. But Aunty Uju gives a gutted answer, an honest account of my own condition, that until now, I hadn’t realized: I was choking. “You are in a country that is not your own. You do what you have to do if you want to succeed.” It is the quintessential immigrant parent wisdom imparted to immigrant child: don’t bank on your future. If the reason you are immigrating to America is because you want to change your socioeconomic lifestyle, then you must, as Obinze explains to Ifemelu, indulge the “exaggerated gratitude that comes with immigrant insecurity”. You must not mess with the order of things but you must also not think this your permanent home. You must not lay claims to any rights. You must leave behind your rebellious ways. Because, because, because you can finally support your three children.
There’s an inherent problem with this because it ascribes a very inactive role to the immigrant. You must sacrifice your principles, your very essence that made you, you, as a token of your gratitude. Except, more often than not, immigrants do find home in their new country and they try to find their place in this new society and so you see many carry a different aura in the presence of those they perceive to embody America. This takes many forms: Aunty Uju switching up her accent when she goes to the checkout aisle; children too embarrassed to introduce their parents to their teachers at PTC so they try to do really well just so their parents don't have to attend PTC and speak in the little English they have mastered; my first sentence to my fifth-grade teacher when he seated me next to a fellow Desi student and I piped up, “I speak English, too”, as though every reason we may be treated differently might reveal our un-American-ness. We are quick to declare we are Americans, to enjoin the elitism that the word affords both here and ‘back home’. But not quick enough to grasp the ideals that embody America. We forgo our promised rights for promising lives, as though we can have one without the other. We remain eternally silent, sulking in this nonexistent virtue, just so we can be doctors, engineers, lawyers and help people in an acceptable way. But God forbid we become storytellers, activists, writers, artists and for once, talk about ideas that held us back as we tried to help others, thunderous ideas capable of jolting the society we live in.
And so, I am overcome with grief at vague reminders to not take risks and speak up because it could be detrimental to my future. At the same time, I am fearful of the consequences because I have seen what happens to friends and fellow classmates when you do dare to speak up, when you are blacklisted because of your political views, because you tried to expose oppression, because you didn’t self-censor…like I do. These are the kinds of incidents immigrants, especially immigrant parents, are afraid of. And the immigrant children, like me, are confused because your boldness is so awe-inspiring because you're doing the work that speaks to my struggle but you are punished for it. And I am filled with guilt for not standing by you, instead wallowing in my own privilege, losing my American-ness to become more American. I’m crushed that our sense of ourselves as Americans can be at odds with the world, and from every direction, we are deterred. Oh America, which of their tired, their poor, their huddled masses do you wish were Americans, real Americans? Please, be specific, lest our enthusiastic pronouncements, “I, too, am an American” are just reveries of a time gone by.
