The polite term for the black American citizens who used to be called Negroes is “African-American.” This term is intended to put them on a par with white ethnic groups, such as Italian-Americans and Polish-Americans.
However “African-Americans,” unlike white ethnics, are not immigrants, but the descendants of slaves, whose ancestors were all brought to this country before the Civil War, and most before the Revolution.
The USA now has a significant African immigrant population, who are the product of a different history than old-stock black Americans. But the term “African-American” doesn’t really apply either, because it obscures the fact that Africa is not all one country. African nations have national characters as distinct as Italy or Poland.
Recently I got a glimpse of the African immigrant experience by reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Americanah (2013).
“Americanah” is a Nigerian slang word for someone who has lived so long in the United States that they no longer fit into life in Nigeria.
Adichie’s heroine, Ifemelu, grows up in Nigeria, immigrates to the United States as a young woman and, after initial hardships, achieves success and fame. But, after 13 years, decides to return to her native land.
Ifemelu, like her creator, is intelligent and outspoken, with many shrewd observations about American culture and racial attitudes. I don’t find her likeable; that’s an observation, not a criticism.
The early chapters show the frustrations of Ifemelu and her educated, middle-class family, in life under the repressive Nigerian dictatorship. She and her fiance, Obinze, who is handsome, sensitive and good in bed, dream of the United States as the big time where real things are happening—the way some small-town Americans in Kansas or Nebraska may think of New York and Los Angeles.
Ifemelu gets a scholarship to study at an American university, but quickly finds that the USA is not the paradise she imagined.
Her family taught her certain standards of good housekeeping, good grooming, good manners and good grammar, and she is taken aback by the slovenliness, permissiveness and vulgarity of the many Americans whose attitudes are formed by the mass entertainment and advertising media.
She has to struggle to earn a living and is sexually abused by a white employer. This is so traumatic that she feels unable to keep in touch with Obinze.
This clears the way for her to begin a love affair with Curt, a handsome rich white jet-setter, who is good in bed. Curt gets her a lucrative job in public relations, and her financial worries end.
Eventually she tires both of Curt and the PR job. She starts a blog about racial attitudes in America, which is not only an overnight success, but an unexpected source of income that guarantees her financial independence. She begins a love affair with Blaine, a handsome black intellectual idealist, who is good in bed.
Blaine, a Yale professor, spends time talking to an uneducated black security guard. Ifemelu can’t bring herself to like him. She and Blaine break up temporarily when the security guard is unjustly arrested, Blaine organizes a protest demonstration and she can’t be bothered to take.
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