Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s work, Americanah, illustrates how the far reaching power of Britain and the United States affect Nigerian people in Nigeria. The novel follows the lives of two Nigerian children, Ifemelu and Obinze, during their childhoods in Nigeria, Ifemelu’s years in the United States, Obinze’s time in the United Kingdom, and their ultimate return to Nigeria. During their time in Nigeria and abroad, and through their interactions with people of different races and nationalities, Ifemelu and Obinze come to realize the powerful effect that predominantly white culture outside of Nigeria has on black Nigerians in Nigeria. As adults, the two become aware of a certain way of thinking in Nigeria, one to which many Nigerians adhere, that places Europe and the United States above Nigeria. This way of thinking values white physical characteristics, language, and elements of general culture. The same way of thinking undermines black physical characteristics, Nigerian English, and Nigerian society. Americanah illustrates how preferences that reflect white supremacy manifest in the predominantly black African country of Nigeria.

Appearance

In the novel, Ifemelu and Obinze often see Nigerian people express a bias in favor of typically white physical features. When Ifemelu and her friend Ginika meet again after several years apart, Ginika remembers a time from their school days together in Nigeria. Ginika says to Ifemelu “…I was voted prettiest girl in school back home. Remember? I should never have won. Zainab should have won. It was just because I was a half-caste” (p. 151). The students at Ifemelu and Ginikia’s school in Nigeria proclaim Ginika the most attractive. Ifemelu’s classmates consider Ginika the obvious choice because she is “half-caste,” or mixed-race - she has a black father and a white mother. Ifemelu relates how she and her family members try to emulate white features. As a girl, Ifemelu develops “…a keloid scar behind her ear, a small enraged swelling of skin, which she got after Aunty Uju straightened her hair with a hot comb in secondary school…Ifemelu would hold her ear, tense and unbreathing, terrified that the red-hot comb fresh from the stove would burn her but also excited by the prospect of straight, swingy hair” (p. 251). Before she embraces her natural hair, and ceases to use the sometimes damaging chemicals and heating methods to change her hair, Ifemelu also tries to obtain a hair texture that more closely matches a white aesthetic. With her Aunty Uju’s encouragement, Ifemelu wants straight hair that hangs down. Years later, Ifemelu begins work at Zoe, a Nigerian women’s magazine. Ifemelu notices of the magazine publisher, Aunty Onenu: “…it was easy to tell that she had not been born with her light complexion, its sheen was too waxy and her knuckles were dark, as though those folds of skin had valiantly resisted her bleaching cream” (p. 482). The wealthy business woman, Aunty Onenu, does not naturally have light skin, but she attempts to lighten her skin. Aunty Onenu’s choice to use bleaching cream reflects her preference for light skin over dark skin, regardless of the cream’s unintended effects. The positive attention Ginika receives as a mixed-race person, and the lengths that Ifemelu and Aunty Onenu go to for straight hair and fair skin, respectively, demonstrate the preference for white physical characteristics.

Language

One way that Nigerian men and women alike show increased respect for predominantly white culture is the way they speak. Ifemelu and her friends remember a schoolmate, Bisi, “…a girl in the form below them, who had come back from a short trip to America with odd affectations, pretending she no longer understood Yoruba, adding a slurred r to every English word she spoke” (p. 78). Bisi briefly visits the United States and returns to Nigeria with a different accent when she speaks English, in an attempt to seem more American. Furthermore, she tries to distance herself from the Yoruba language, to seem less Nigerian. Yinika, another classmate in school with Ifemelu and Obinze, “… went to England often and lived in Ikoyi and spoke with a British accent. She was the most popular girl in their form, her school bag made of thick monogrammed leather, her sandals always different from what anybody else had” (p. 66). Yinika’s frequent trips to England, and her more British English earn her the admiration of her peers. Her close association with England pairs naturally with the exclusive neighborhood in which she lives, and her expensive belongings. As an adult, Obinze attends a party in Nigeria with a Mrs. Akin-Cole. Obinze observes of the older woman: “She spoke with the unplaceable foreign accent, British, American and something else all at once, of the wealthy Nigerian who did not want the world to forget how worldly she was, how her British Airways executive card was choking with miles” (p. 36). As with Yinika, Mrs. Akin-Cole’s accent correlates with her wealth. However, Mrs. Akin-Cole’s accent reflects not only a British influence, but an American influence as well, which suggests that she enjoys exposure to both countries. Throughout the novel, Nigerian people try to hide their knowledge of Nigerian languages such as Yoruba, and try to speak English with a more British or American accent.

Culture

For some Nigerians, the partiality for whiteness goes beyond what they find beautiful or what they believe sounds superior, but affects their major decision making as well. During her university years, Ifemelu remembers: “Sister Ibinabo started the Student Visa Miracle Vigil on Fridays, a gathering of young people, each one holding out an envelope with a visa application form, on which sister Ibinabo laid a hand of blessing. One girl…got an American visa the first time she tried, and gave a tearful, excited testimony in church” (p. 120). A respected adult in the community leads groups of young people in prayer that asks God to allow the young people to leave Nigeria. They consider visas to exit Nigeria and go to school in Britain and the United States a religious blessing, and help communicate this belief - that Nigeria is an undesirable place for students, and Britain and the United States are desirable places for students - during church. When Obinze returns to Nigeria from England, he turns to a local chief for business advice. The Chief tells Obinze: “Find one of your white friends in England. Tell everybody he is your General Manager. You will see how doors will open for you because you have an oyinbo General Manager. Even Chief has some white men that he brings in for show when he needs them. That is how Nigeria works” (p. 32). The Chief tells Obinze to bring a white man to his business meetings in Nigeria, and present him as someone in a position of power. Regardless of the white man’s educational or professional background, the man’s whiteness alone can communicate competence, and earn trust and respect. The Chief - a powerful, wealthy man in his own right - explains to Obinze that he too relies on the presence of white men, (or “oyinbo,” in the Yoruba language), to seem more legitimate in Nigerian society. At a party in Nigeria that Obinze attends with his wife, several ladies advise them to send their young daughter to a French or British school, but definitely not a Nigerian school. One of the ladies says to Obinze and his wife: “You must send her to the French school. They are very good, very rigorous. Of course they teach in French but it can only be good for the child to learn another civilized language…If you decide to disadvantage your child by sending her to one of these schools with half-baked Nigerian teachers, then you only have yourself to blame” (p. 34-36). The woman expresses approval for the French school, and believes French is a “civilized” language, as if there are languages that are “uncivilized.” She speaks disparagingly of Nigerian teachers and proclaims that Obinze and his wife must know better than to allow other Nigerians to educate their child.

In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, two young Nigerian people grow into adults that recognize a pervasive preference for whiteness in their predominantly black country. As adults, they try to resist the way of thinking that disparages their Nigerian heritage. Ifemelu stops chemical treatments for her hair and begins to wear it naturally (p. 257), and she stops “faking an American accent” (p. 213). As a married man, Obinze notices how people regularly ask his wife if she has one white parent, if she is “half-caste.” Obinze’s wife seems to revel in the attention, which “….discomfited him, the pleasure she took in being mistaken for mixed-race” (p. 26). At the party where two women tell Obinze and his wife to send their daughter to a French or British school, Obinze pushes back, and points out that he is a Nigerian curriculum graduate. Ifemelu and Obinze do not come to reject aspects of whiteness. They do not challenge white standards of beauty, language, or culture. Instead, they acknowledge that black physical features, language, and customs are not inherently inferior, as some of their fellow Nigerians might have them believe.

References

Adichie. C.N. (2013). Americanah. Vintage Books.