on diaspora
Over the summer, beauty influencer and ex-YouTuber Jackie Aina released a line of candles. Each was meant to reflect and celebrate her paternal Yorùbá heritage. Candles had names like “No Wahala” and “Jaiye,” but the one that caught the most attention was “Sóró Sóké.” Sóró sóké means speak up in Yorùbá, but in more recent years has been affiliated with Nigeria’s #EndSARS movement; the same year that millions of Black Diaporeans hit the streets to protest police brutality, young Nigerians protested forces on their own soil.
Understandably, a lot of Nigerians questioned how she could be so done deaf to the struggles of the very people she wanted to celebrate. This spurred discourse around how diasporeans cosplay at being Nigerian, how we can’t just celebrate jollof and parties and let the buck stop there. How we’re disconnected from what’s actually happening in the country and on the continent.
I think about diaspora frequently. I’ve always tousled with and examined my relationship to cultural identity. Nigerians are as prideful as they are ubiquitous. You’d be hard-pressed to stumble upon social media accounts without the green and white flag emojis about. But I’ve never been one to wear any of my identities on my sleeve. And while it’s true that we all perform our identities, I never wanted to feel like I was performing Nigerianness. A whole me, with my American accent, with the trace amounts of Yorùbá I can speak, with my insistence on being fiercely individual.
I’m never reminded of how American I am more than when I visit Nigeria. I came back from a trip in late August and my Americanness hit me in the face, constantly. We’re all products of our environment, and the material and societal conditions of said environments wholly shape our social mores. Nigeria and Nigerians move on an entirely different frequency. Nigerians are also family-oriented, God-fearing and cunning like you couldn’t imagine.
Language aside, my Americanism is evident in my mannerisms, in the way I view systems, in the way I expect things to function and get impatient when they don’t. I am American but it’s complicated. For all my Americanness I think about legacies often. Family is tantamount, even when I don’t always feel as if I belong in mine.
The fun thing about adulthood is leaning further into who you are and picking & choosing the elements of culture you want to enjoy. I am gradually reclaiming my native language, which I never learned. Which I’ve stopped faulting my parents for, because being a Black immigrant is an intense thing. When you’re diasporic and show any knowledge or appreciation of culture, other Nigerians will say Your parents tried, sha. With the inverse, it’s Ah, why don’t you know/understand ______?
A friend recently introduced me to the term “third culture kid.” In a lot of ways I don’t squarely fit into the label, but I’ve found few terms that sum up the ways I feel pulled by two very different cultures, and the ways I choose to accept pieces of both, or neither in favor of molding something entirely new.