Americanah: America, Where The Sun, Being Neither Half Nor Yellow, Always Shines

Monday, December 29, 2014

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Americanah, a story by a non American Black, a story about the American life of a non American Black, a story about America, where the sun always shines (and that sun, a full sun, with stars and stripes to boot, is white, not yellow, not colored, definitely not black); yes, America where the white sun always shines, casting whites in the light, non-American Blacks in shadow, and American Blacks oscillating someplace in-between...

America, where American Blacks from their assigned spot on the verandah, peer through the window for glimpses of the American Dream, and then gleefully recount their "personal experiences" of that Dream to the non American Blacks outside the gates, being sure to leave out the inconsequential little detail that they were themselves bystanders who, far from being allowed into the room, had to peer at goings-on from the only window that opened to the verandah - a toilet window (or bathroom window, as they call it), positioned so high and with an aperture so small that they had to climb all over themselves in order to see the silhouettes on the walls cast by the people in the brightly lit room...

Americanah, where returnee non-American Blacks forget how to eat eba with their fingers, like their fathers did; where these members of the new "elite" wonder why "bush" Nigerians do not drink coffee more often, out of paper cups, like the civilized do elsewhere, why they don't teach their children "self-expression", why Nigerian children do not know to sing along when tunes of that Star Spangled Banner rent the air, why they don't recognise Nigerian winter for what it is, and instead refer to it by the Third World name of "harmattan", why...