Americanah Essay - Grade: A+ PDF

Preview

Summary

Mandatory essay for Americanah...

Description

1 Anonymous Dr. Hamzat Koriko Honors 101 9A.M. 15 October 2019 Americanah Americanah is a story that gave me a little insight into what culture is like in a part of Africa. Even so, Africa is full of many cultures and we often characterize Africa as a whole continent instead of all the different countries and cultures inside Africa. In Americanah, the main character Imefelu, compares both her life and culture between Nigeria and the United States throughout the book. Therefore, some important differences I noticed in Americanah were based off race and cultural identity. Often throughout Americanah, what Ifemelu respects most is her cultural identity. The book begins with Ifemelu in her hometown in Princeton, New Jersey and how she must travel to another city to get her hair braided by native African hairdressers. African hair is an important symbol in staying true to African culture to Ifemelu, so she sticks to getting loose braids when she gets to the hair salon. When she arrives, the hairdresser Aisha is distraught when she finds that Ifemelu doesn’t use product on her curly hair. However, Ifemelu wants to stick close to her culture and that’s why she never used product so that she could embrace her natural crazy curls. During the process of doing Ifemelu’s hair, Aisha talks to her about two gentlemen that she likes but she prefers the man that is Igbo. Unfortunately, the Igbo man’s mother would not approve unless Aisha was Igbo too and she was torn apart after hearing that news. Also, throughout the book, there are other culture differences that I found interesting. After Ifemelu broke up with her current boyfriend Blaine, she began imagining her old life back in Nigeria with Obinze and shoots him an email after not reaching out to him for three years. Back in Nigeria, Obinze tells us about his beautiful wife Kosi, except they are only married

2 because they both share the same cultural ranking status, not because they are in love. This is another way the cultures are different in America than Africa. In America, marriages aren’t arranged and typically Americans can marry anyone they want despite their ranking as a culture. Another important difference I noticed was based on race. Back in Nigeria, race isn’t even considered to be a type of color until you came to America. In America, people from all over Africa are labeled as “black”. For instance, Ifemelu starts to truly discover race and considers herself as “black” only after she is forced to adjust to America’s racial politics, which she writes about immensely throughout the blog she runs. To continue, another way race is different is the way Nigerians and Americans value skin tone. In Nigeria, the lighter the skin is, the better. Likewise, if a Nigerian was mixed, they were considered beautiful too. On the other hand, in the United States we prefer to be tanner. Therefore, both instances conclude a difference in race between Nigeria and the United States. In my opinion, I wonder why everyone always wants to be the opposite of what they are born with. The people that are born with fair skin want to be darker, while those that are born with a darker skin color want to be lighter. It is our idea of beauty in society that one shade is better than the other when we should be embracing the way we were created. It is like those with curly hair who are constantly straightening it with relaxer to get rid of their natural curly hair. Similarly, some people with straight hair get perms to make their hair curlier. As you’ve seen in Americanah and in our world, cultural identity and race play an important role in how we function as a society.

3 Works Cited Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 1977- author. Americanah. New York, New York: Anchor Books, a division of Random House LLC, 2014....