I love America.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to live and work in a country with uninterrupted power supply, free speech, and lots of girl power compared to the rest of the world.
However I’d be lying if I said there are no difficulties. Specifically for immigrants; in my case Africans, and sometimes it’s a double whammy being black and a woman.
So whenever I’m the token African in a group (which is quite often) my entire being clenches with trepidation and anxiety at the inevitable ‘let’s get to know an African’ questions.
In my early years in the US, I worked as an accounting intern for a lawyer. One day he randomly decided to chit chat.
As usual it starts with; “You’re from Nigeria right?”
I’d nod and smile.
He said; “The Super eagles are great!”
My face shone with excitement that he actually knew our football team.
Then he continued; “…so I was trying to buy some furniture from Craigslist. It was a Nigerian guy trying to scam me!”
“Oh, sorry about that,” I said dejected.
And so it continued over the years.
One time I told a Caribbean-American friend 500 people were attending a wedding in Lagos.
She said; “Wow is that the whole village?”
She assumed a city of 120 million people was a dusty ass village, because that’s how they portray a whole continent on American TV.
At a work dinner – I said I was Nigerian and out of the blue, a Director I just met decided to tell the whole table about Niger-Delta militants who sprayed his car with bullets on his way back from work at an energy company over a decade ago.
Then he finished by saying; “I told them to get me outta that place!”
I said; “Well not everywhere is like that. There are dangerous areas in the U.S. too.”
And I thought; “Besides the militant issue is complicated. Foreigners like you come to take their oil, make millions from ‘poor’ Africa and pollute their land, how won’t they be angry?”
My words fell on deaf ears.
A very nice white guy once asked -no twice asked, “What type of animals do you guys have there?”
There, meaning Lagos.
It’s like asking a New Yorker what animals they have in Manhattan.
My brain jumbled, and I said something that didn’t make sense or snapped an exasperated response, which I immediately regretted and felt unhappy about for days.
I shouldn’t take out my frustration with colonialism and western portrayals of Africa on him. He was just trying to get to know me – an African, and now he probably thinks I’m an angry black woman.
But sometimes these things build up, especially if you get asked questions based on assumptions over and over and over again. Or you can’t relax because someone is going to say something potentially ignorant and you’ll have to be an encyclopedia again and again or answer them in your mind over and over again….
I don’t live on the set of lion king. I live in a big house with domestic staff. I’ve only seen animals at the zoo. I speak better English than you. I have seen a swimming pool before. I was not poor. I was never hungry.
On my honeymoon in Italy, we were having a fabulous dinner when a lovely lady said; “You’re from Nigeria? Wonderful. I went to Ghana last year. We did some charity work at a school. Those poor children.”
“Oh, great.” I responded with a tight lipped smile.
I thought: Ugh, but I can afford the same honeymoon as you. I am in my twenties, you are almost fifty, yet you want to talk to me about ‘poor Africans’.
I wonder when a westerner will ever tell me they went to Africa to see museums, art, concerts, fashion shows or plays – because we have them, so many of them. We welcome humanitarian efforts but Africa isn’t just about poverty and safaris.
Only SOME African countries are tourist destinations for safaris. West African countries are not.
It bothers some Africans that the only thing tourists want to do is see animals, seemingly wanting to have nothing to do with the people who live in Africa – except for ‘volun-tourism’…a topic for another day.
Lastly – somebody I had known for over three years asked me, “Are there swimming pools in Nigeria?” Mind you, this is an ‘educated’ person.
I said “Um….Yeah. There are pools in hotels and rich peoples homes, just like here.”
Granted it was no secret that I couldn’t swim at the time, but so what? Lot’s of people that have seen swimming pools can’t swim. Everyone else in my family CAN SWIM.
I really wondered if she was just messing with me or she really thought there were no pools? Now I know people say there’s no such thing as a stupid question, but that was a stupid question, especially in 2015 (that was when she asked me).
I thought to myself for weeks; Wow. So despite my eloquence, intelligent conversations, my career and my level of education, this American thought I’d never seen a swimming pool before arriving in the US?
How depressing.
I bet these questions will continue; and instead of being extremely irritated, I’ll keep learning to take deep breaths and answer as politely as possible…
Or respectfully tell some of these repeat enquirers to get lost and watch a Nollywood movie on Netflix….they can see what Nigeria looks like if they really care to.