El-Rayis 1

Amel Osman El-Rayis

Professor Randa Khatab

Literature Written in English

11 May 2015

Blogging, in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, is a Way of Writing

Back

I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself

as black and I only become black when I came to America….But we don't talk

about it. We don't even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off

and the things we wish they understood better, because we're worried they will

say we're overreacting, or we're being too sensitive…But we don't say any of

this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal

dinners like this, we say that race doesn't matter because that's what we're

supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable. (Adichie 290-1)

These daring words are spoken up by Ifemelu, the Nigerian protagonist of

Americanah, who has created a blog entitled "Raceteenth or Curious Observations by

a Non-American Black on the Subject of Blackness in America" to write back to

racist America (296). When she confides in her close Nigerian friend about the

mishaps she has been prone to since she came to America because of being black, her

friend suggests that she needs to blog these experiences so that more people could

read them (296). Consequently, Ifemelu has launched her blog as she "longed for

other listeners, and she longed to hear the stories of others. How many other people

El-Rayis 2

chose silence? How many other people had become black in America? How many

had felt as though their world was wrapped in gauze?" (296).

To begin with, Americanah (Fourth Estate, 2013) is the third novel by the

Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; her first novel is Purple Hibiscus

(2003) which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and her second one is Half of a

Yellow Sun (2006) which won the Orange Prize (Chepkorir 7). Adichie's Americanah

takes place in both America and Nigeria through illustrating Ifemelu's life in Nigeria

before leaving for America. The political and economic conditions in Nigeria are

what drive Ifemelu as well as many other Nigerian youths to leave their country

searching for better opportunities in America. While they are escaping from a class-

conscious Nigeria, they find themselves victims of a color-conscious America.

Ifemelu, who has made it to the top in America, has decided to return home to Nigeria

where she is not black anymore: "Race doesn't really work here. I feel like I got off

the plane in Lagos and stopped being black" (Adichie 476).

What is really noticeable about Adichie's novel is that it takes post-colonial

issues further by not only addressing the trauma of estrangement and exile, but also

pinpointing how race in America is never over as Ifemelu has expressed in her blog:

"the problem of race in America will never be solved" (297). Does it mean that

Ifemelu is Adichie's mouthpiece? Why does Adichie choose blogging as Ifemelu's

way of writing back? Why does she write her blog in English even the one she has

launched in Nigeria after leaving America is written in English although it addresses

Nigerian issues? As long as the title Americanah is a Nigerian expression that

describes a person who becomes Americanized, does it mean that Adichie who

chooses to write in English is Americanah? If she finds American racism unbearable

El-Rayis 3

why does Adichie live there? All these questions need to be illustrated throughout this

paper.

The Black Write Back

According to Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin in their book,

The Empire Writes Back (Routledge, 1989), race-based literature is a model of post-

colonial literatures:

Another grouping which traverses several of the literatures from post-colonial

societies is "Black Writing". This proceeds from the idea of race as a major

feature of economic and political discrimination and draws together writers in

the African diaspora whatever their nationality –African Americans, Afro-

Caribbeans, and writers from African nations. (19)

These writers differentiate between texts written by White Europeans and those

written by "a Black minority in a rich and powerful White country and those produced

by the Black majority population of an independent nation" (19). Whereas the former

group stigmatizes Blacks with deteriorating stereotypes, the latter writes back,

showing the Whites how prejudiced they are (20). That is to say that Adichie belongs

to the second group of writers as she means to look Americans in the eyes, telling

them how racist they are even if Ifemelu, not Adichie is the one who voices this

statement. Sajna P in her essay, "Unmasking Racism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's

Americanah" (2014), believes that "Race-in-America is as much a character as

Ifelmelu and her first love, Obinze" (274). That is to say that unlike other writers who

refer implicitly to racism, Adichie does not use subtle way when addressing racism in

her novel, but she rather voices it explicitly.

El-Rayis 4

Blogging in America as a Way of Writing Back

According to Mary Joyce in her essay, "Blog for a Cause" (2015), "a blog is a great

advocacy tool because it allows any individual with an Internet connection to launch a

campaign for social change with a potentially global reach. It gives ordinary citizens

incredible power to question authority, act as alternative sources of information,

organize supporters, and lobby those in power" (3). Adichie's Ifemelu uses the blog as

a medium to backlash against racism in America after she has encountered personal

experiences through which she realizes that she is black.

1. The Black are Blackened in America

Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America,

you become black. Stop arguing…So what if you weren't "black" in your

country? You're in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into

the Society of Former Negroes… Admit it –you say "I'm not black" only

because you know black is at the bottom of America's race ladder. (221)

This is Ifemelu's first post on her blog where she shows her anger at the fact that she

becomes black in America. She explains that "watermelon" "racist slur" and "tar

baby" are labels that are used to offend black people (221). She also warns the black

of being suspects if any crime is committed (222). Actually, Ifemelu's perspective

reflects Adichie's attitude as she stated in an interview that after coming to America as

a student, she "was suddenly confronted with what it meant to be a person of color in

the United States" (Adichie NPR). She also recalls that she has been labeled

"watermelon" and at that time she did not understand that it is something offensive

(NPR).

El-Rayis 5

2. Kinky Hair as "Race Metaphor"

One of the things Ifemelu notices about Africans in America is that they try to

relax their hair to assimilate, so she tries to resist this trend by keeping her hair

natural, encouraging others to do likewise by adopting "the coaxing tone of the

proselytizer that she used whenever she was trying to convince other black women

about the merits of wearing their hair natural" (Adichie 12). She even does not mind

the fact that it takes her six hours to braid her hair and she has to travel to a

neighborhood where there is a special hairbraiding saloon for kinky hair (15). That is

why throughout her blog, she ridicules African public figures who relax their hair,

like Byoncé and Michelle Obama: "Imagine if Michelle Obama got tired of all the

heat and decided to go natural and appeared on TV with lots of woolly hair, or tight

spirally curls. She would totally rock but poor Obama would certainly lose the

independent vote, even the undecided Democrat vote" (297). Ifemelu considers hair as

"metaphor for race in America" (297). Ifemelu's stance on the issue of having natural

hair reflects Adichie's view that is expressed in an interview with New African Women

(2013); she states, "there are so many beautiful women with natural hair and that

excites me, and I had to say that because it matters, because there is a new confidence

we have and it's saying, 'this is us, this is what we look like and I'm not going to try

and be what I'm not', and I love that. I think it's fantastic. It's my generation" (Otas

NAW 52). Adichie, herself, wears her hair the African style and dress also in the

African fashion which really stresses how she is proud of her Africanness.

3. Generalization

Adichie stresses how white Americans consider black people homogenous. For

example, Ifemelu's aunt explains that Africans can use each other's identity cards

El-Rayis 6

because "[a]ll of us look alike to white people" (120). When Ifemelu has used

someone else's identity card and she fails to reply to people who call her with the

other one's name, a friend tells her, "You could have just said Ngozi is your tribal

name and Ifemelu is your jungle name and throw in one more as your spiritual name.

They'll believe all kinds of shit about Africa" (131). Ifemelu feels invisible because

name represents identity and she hopes her name to be spelled correctly. Her name is

Ifemelunamma –in Igbo it means "Beautifully-Made" (69). She has been exhilarated

when she has received a letter with her name on it: "That credit card preapproval, with

her name correctly spelled and elegantly italicized, had roused her spirits, made her a

little less invisible, a little more present" (132). What really annoys her and increases

her sense of inferiority is that for white American, Africa is a place that needs charity:

"Ifemelu wanted, suddenly and desperately, to be from the country of people who

gave and not those who received, to be one of those who had and could therefore bask

in the grace of having given to be among those who could afford copious pity and

empathy" (170). That is to say for white Americans, Africans are poor and are

desperate for help. For example, when the carpet cleaner comes to the house where

she babysits and she opens the door, he feels offended because he thinks she is the

owner of the house: "As far as he was concerned I did not fit as the owner of that

stately house because of the way I looked. In America's public discourse, 'blacks' as a

whole are often lumped with 'Poor Whites'. Not Poor Blacks and Poor Whites. But

Blacks and Poor Whites" (167). Therefore, Ifemelu expresses her anger through her

blog under the title, "American Tribalism", classifying American classes according to

race: "There's a ladder of racial hierarchy in America. White is always on top…and

American Black is always on the bottom" (184). She concludes that "Whiteness is the

thing to aspire to" (205). However, she knocks White Americans with the scientific

El-Rayis 7

fact that proves that "race is an invention that there is more genetic variation between

two black people that there is between a black person and a white person" (302).

Nevertheless, she believes that in America, racism is a disease, calling it "Racial

Disorder Syndrome. And we could have different categories for sufferers of this

syndrome: mild, medium, and acute" (315).

Nevertheless, I could argue that while Ifemelu accuses Americans of

generalization, considering all blacks to be homogenous, she is doing the same by

accusing all white Americans of being racist. Denying racism is not right, yet calling

all Americans as racist is questionable.

4. A Black President

Ifemelu, like all Africans, has been excited about having Obama as a president.

An old African woman expresses her happiness for having a black man as a

candidate: "I didn't think this would happen even in my grandbaby's lifetime" (355).

However, white Americans have been totally against having a black president and

they post insults on the Internet: "How can a monkey be president? Somebody do us a

favor and put a bullet in this guy. Send him back to the African jungle. A black man

will never be in the white house, dude, it's called the white house for a reason" (353-

4). Ifemelu has been so flabbergasted that she writes back to them: "Many

abolitionists wanted to free the slaves but didn't want black people living nearby. Lots

of folk today don't mind a black nanny or black limo driver. But they sure as hell

mind a black boss" (351).

Although all blacks supported Barack Obama, he let them down through his

speech when he equated black grievance with white fear of blacks (357). That is why

when Ifemelu, like all black people, was disappointed in Obama, she invites black

El-Rayis 8

people to pour their anger through her blog: "This is for the Zipped-Up Negroes, the

upwardly mobile American and Non-American Blacks who don't talk about life

Experiences That Have to Do Exclusively with Being Black. Because they want to

keep everyone comfortable. Tell your story here. Unzip yourself. This is a safe space"

(307).

Needless to say, Ifemelu's blog becomes successful: "The blog had unveiled itself

and shed its milk teeth; by turns, it surprised her, pleased her, left her behind. Its

readers increased, by the thousands from all over the world" (303). She also receives

requests to lead diversity workshop, to lecture and to be hosted on programs to talk

about race (304). As she has been praised, Ifemelu has been criticized by both White

and Black Americans. For example, a white reader accuses her of being racist and

ungrateful to the country that hosted her (305). Besides, one of her African friends,

Shan, declares that Nigerians, like Americans, are racist, reminding her that Nigerians

call black Americans "acata" which means "wild animal" (319). Shan also accuses

Ifemelu of being a hypocrite because she writes about race in America from the

perspective of an outsider: "Because she's African. She's writing from the outside. She

doesn't really feel all the stuff she's writing about…If she were African American,

she'd be labeled angry and shunned" (336). When Ifemelu's African-American

boyfriend asks her to attend a protest that defends the right of a black man who has

been suspected of a crime because he is black, she never shows up. Her friend accuses

her of being biased: "You know, it's not just about writing a blog, you have to live

like you believe it. That blog is a game that you don't really take seriously, it's like

choosing an interesting elective evening class to complete your credits" (345). She

recognizes that he means that she is not interested in what happens to African

Americans as much as she cares about Africans (345).

El-Rayis 9

That is to say that Adichie voices her opinions through Ifemelu and at the same

time she is aware of the criticism she may receive from Africans and African

Americans alike. As for writing the blog in English, it is inevitable since Ifemelu

seeks listeners from all African countries as well as Africans all over the globe. Since

Africans speak diverse languages even within Nigeria itself, the blog has to be written

in a language that unifies all these diverse groups. Besides, despite writing in English,

Ifemelu resists speaking in an American accent (173). She speaks in Nigerian English

where they add an o at the end of the sentence; for example, "I don't even really watch

any o" (388).

Although Ifemelu's blog has succeeded and become lucrative to the extent that she

has bought a condominium, Ifemelu decides to let go of everything and go back to

Nigeria where she is no longer black.

Blogging in Nigeria as A Way of Educating Americans

Adichie presents the demeaning economic and social conditions in Nigeria which

cause many Nigerians to leave for America or England. For example, Ifemelu's aunt,

Aunty Uju expresses her agony before leaving for America:

You know, we live in an ass-licking economy. The biggest problem in this

country is not corruption. The problem is that there are many qualified people

who are not where they are not where they are supposed to be because they

won't lick anybody's ass, or they don't know which ass to lick or they don't

even know how to lick an ass. (Adichie 77)

El-Rayis 10

Nigerian instable conditions are expressed through demonstrations, demanding

essential things, like water and light (91). As a result, everyone is leaving the country

behind:

Strikes now were common. In the newspapers, university lecturers listed their

complaints, the agreements that were trampled in the dust by government men

whose own children were schooling abroad. Campuses were emptied,

classrooms drained of life. Students hoped for short strikes, because they

could not hope to have no strike at all. Everyone was talking about leaving.

(98)

Hoping to find better life in America or England, young people head there: "Nigeria is

chasing away its best resources" (100). These young people have long been obsessed

with the American dream; for example, Ifemelu mistakenly thinks that America is

what she watches in movies and commercials:

[B]ut it was the commercials that captivated her. She ached for the lives they

showed, lives full of bliss, where all problems had sparkling solutions in

shampoos and cars and packaged foods, and in her mind they become the real

America, the America she would only see when she moved to school in the

autumn. (113)

Hypnotized by this ideal image, once in America, this image gets shattered when

Ifemelu and others sense their inferiority which is brought forward by Americans who

take it upon themselves to alienate Africans through racism and through urging them

to be grateful to the west for helping them. For example, Obinze –Ifemelu's true love

–explains that westerners, who show that they understand that people from restless

El-Rayis 11

and poor countries take refuge in the west, do not really understand the real situation

in these countries:

[A]ll understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed

human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the

oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people

like him, who were raised well-fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction,

conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced

that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do

dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped

or from burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty. (276)

Regardless of all these conditions, Adichie gives her characters the choice between

the class-based society and the race-based society and both Obinze and Ifemelu

choose Nigeria:

I think class in this country is in the air that people breathe. Everyone knows

their place. Even the people who are angry about class have somehow

accepted their place. A white boy and a black girl who grow up in the same

working-class town in this country can get together and race will be

secondary, but in America, even if the white boy and black girl grow up in the

same neighborhood, race would be primary. (275)

Therefore, Ifemelu comes back to Nigeria after being in America for thirteen years.

She decides to continue her blog, but she wants to write about Nigeria, promoting her

culture. She ridicules exiles who use the Internet to write nostalgically about their

hometown after a short visit: "they would return to America to fight on the Internet

over their mythologies of home, because home was now a blurred place between here

El-Rayis 12

and there, and at least online they could ignore the awareness of how inconsequential

they had become" (117).

Thus, she decides to launch a blog about Nigeria, calling it "The Small Redemption of

Lagos" (418). She writes about positive and negative things. For example, she

describes how unfair it is for the government to demolish the hawkers' shacks:

They destroy the shacks, reduce them to flat pieces of wood. They are doing

their job, wearing "demolish" like crisp business suits. They themselves eat in

shacks like these, and if all the shacks like these disappeared in Lagos, they

will go lunchless, unable to afford anything else. But they are smashing,

trampling, hitting…But now the shacks are gone. They are erased, and nothing

is left, not a stray biscuit wrapper, not a bottle that once held water, nothing to

suggest that they were once there. (475)

Proud of the African costume, Ifemelu has written about a fashion show where "the

model had twirled around in an Ankara skirt, a vibrant swish of blues and greens,

looking like a haughty butterfly" (474-5). Her blog is immersed in Nigerian culture:

She wrote about the announcers on radio stations, with their accents so fake

and so funny. She wrote about the tendency of Nigerian women to give

advice, sincere advice dense with sanctimony. She wrote about the

waterlogged neighborhood crammed with zinc houses, their roofs like

squashed hats, and of the young women who lived there…Still, she was at

peace: to be home, to be writing her blog, to have discovered Lagos again. She

had, finally, spun herself fully into being. (475)

El-Rayis 13

Does it mean that Ifemelu becomes Americanah? Instead of addressing the problems

of Nigerians, she idealizes her culture, showing what makes it her "home". She writes

from the point of view of an outsider who appreciates the exotic nature of the

Nigerian culture. If she is a Nigerian, like the ones who have never left home, she

would be able to see the conditions which drive people to leave. There is a difference

between how Ifemelu has seen her country before leaving for America and after

coming back, rich and famous.

Ifemelu refutes being labeled "Americanah"; she claims being a hybrid, having

features of both cultures:

I like America. It's really the only place else where I could live apart from

here. But one day a bunch of Blain's friends and I were talking about kids and

I realized that if I ever have children, I don't want them to have American

childhoods…I don't want a child who feeds on praise and expects a star for

effort and talks back to adults in the name of self-expression. (458)

Besides, she writes her blog in English, not in Igbo which raises a question mark. She

writes to address American readers, not Nigerians. She aims at educating the west

about Nigeria, showing them that even if her hometown is not perfect, it defines her;

it is part of her Africanness. It is a way of resisting the fact that Nigerians leave their

countries and take refuge in the west; Ifemelu reverses this image by taking refuge in

her own country with all its defects and she chooses to write positively about her

culture. If she writes a blog for Nigerians, she would certainly write it in Igbo and she

would address the problems that hinder Nigeria from developing.

El-Rayis 14

This could be Adichie's belief as, like Ifemelu, she was "born in Nigeria but now

living both in her homeland and in the United States" (Peed 11). Does it mean that

Adichie aims at mediating between both cultures?

Adichie as a Translator between Two Cultures

Needless to say, in Americanah, Adichie acts as a mediator or translator to

bridge the gap between two different cultures: America and Nigeria, explaining one to

the other. According to Eva C. Karpinski, in her book, Borrowed Tongues (Wilfred

Laurier University Press, 2012), "Translation has become reconceived as part of the

process of cultural representation and interchange, an interactive textual practice of

transcoding and constructing meanings and selves cross-culturally…[It] opens up a

'third space' between the extremes of pure difference and universal sameness" (11).

Translation here does not mean linguistic translation from one language into another,

but Karpinski means cultural translation through narrative. For Kathy Mezei, writing

is considered a translation –"the translation of thoughts, images, concepts, silence into

words" (qtd. in Karpinski 4).

For Adichie to act as a cultural mediator, she needs to "construct her

difference as transmissible, making it accessible to her readers from 'mainstream' and

ethnic communities alike" (24). That explains why Adichie uses Standard English,

non-standard english and Nigerian english. The whole novel is written into English,

yet she transliterates some Igbo words and expressions into non-standard english,

providing translation. For example, "kedo ebe I no?" means where are you (21). A

Nigerian proverb that says in Igbo, "E gbuo dike n'ogu uno, e luo na ogu agu, e lote

ya" means "If you kill a worrier in a local fight, you'll remember him when fighting

enemies" (62). As for the title, it is Nigerian english –Nigeria was colonized by

El-Rayis 15

Britain and thus English was the official language, yet as a form of resistance, they

speak Nigerian english; therefore, they say "Americanah" instead of "Americanized"

when they describe a person who becomes uprooted.

In addition to linguistic translation, Adichie provides cultural translation. For

example, she pinpoints the difference between giving someone money as a gift in the

Nigerian and Western ways; in the western way, the person who gives money asks the

receiver to count it and "watch[es] with power in his gaze" (266). However, "To be

given money in the Nigerian manner was to have it pushed into your hands, fists

closed, eyes averted from yours, your effusive thanks –and it had to be effusive –

waved away, and you certainly did not count the money, sometimes did not even look

at it until you were alone" (266). Another example that shows the difference between

cultures is the dress code. Being invited to a party, Ifemelu dresses up, but she is

taken aback when she sees her classmates dressing down: "When it comes to dressing

well, American culture is so self-fulfilled that it has not only disregarded this courtesy

of self-presentation, but has turned that disregard into a virtue. 'We are too

superior/busy/cool/not-uptight to bother about how we look to other people" (129).

Losing weight also highlights the difference between both cultures: "You know at

home when somebody tells you that you lost weight, it means something bad. But

here somebody tells you that you lost weight and you say thank you" (124).

Furthermore, throughout the novel, the use of Nigerian names makes the

readers feel the presence of the Nigerian culture: Ifemelu, Obinze, Ginika, Aunty Uju,

Ranyinudo, Emenike, Bartholomew, etc. At the beginning, the names are

unpronounceable, yet, eventually, they become familiar. By using Nigerian names,

she forces the western readers to get used to these names, making these names

pronounceable and visible. Adichie shows how her characters consume western and

El-Rayis 16

national literature alike. For example, Obinze's mother is interested in Graham

Greene's The Heart of the Matter; young Ifemelu has been interested in Jean Toomer's

Cane (11). She also refers to Nigerian authors and singers, like Kelechi Garuba and

Onyeka Onwenu (69-318). She mentions Nigerian songs, "Yori, Yori" and "Obi Mu

O" (441-3).

That is to say that Adichie tries to translate both ways, explaining the Nigerian

culture to American readers and deciphering the American culture to Nigerian

readers. That is to say that Adichie "domesticates" rather than "foreignizes" her text:

"A domesticating translation increases the appeal of the foreign text to a target

audience…Its goal is to produce a translated text that is immediately intelligible to the

receiving readership and that can be easily consumed in the cultural marketplace"

(Karpinski 70). However, other writers prefer to "foreignize" their text to force the

American readers to admit the presence of other cultures, respecting their richness,

exoticism and individuality. For example, Gloria Anzaldua expresses her resistance to

translate her culture:

Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself…Until I

am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having to translate,

while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak

Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather

than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate. (Quoted in

Karpinski 25)

While Adichie prefers translating foreign words and Anzaldua refutes it, the Nigerian

academic Francis Abiola Irele is totally against writing in English; he believes that

El-Rayis 17

authors who write in English address the western readers and the elite of their own

culture while ignoring the majority of their own people:

How does the writer reach this audience if he or she writes in a language

foreign to them? Because few Africans can read English or French or

Portugese. That is what Ngugi means when he advocates the use of African

languages for our literature. He is thinking primarily of the revolutionary

potential of literature and the urgency of getting the message across, making it

accessible in the language of the people. (Quoted in Rorigues 10)

Nevertheless, Chinua Achebe disagrees with both Ngugi and Irele; he believes that in

Nigeria, three different languages are spoken, so using English is the better solution

for this plurality:

English is a world language in a way that Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo are not. There

is no way we can change that. Now that is not to say that we should therefore

send these other languages to sleep. That's not what I'm saying. I am saying

that we have a very, very complex and dynamic multilingual situation, which

we cannot run away from but contain and control. (15)

Besides, Achebe stresses the point that most Nigerian people are illiterate and do not

read; he explains his point further by using the metaphor of a singer who finds out that

the majority of his audience is deaf; this singer is left with two options: either to sing

to the minority or to dance: "Now, although our performer may have the voice of an

angel, his feet are as heavy as concrete. So what should he do? Should he proceed to

sing beautifully to only a quarter or less of the auditorium or dance atrociously to a

full house?" (20). Nevertheless, it is argued that if Nigerian authors write in English,

does it make them Nigerian or Westernized: "If writers continue to ignore the deaf,

El-Rayis 18

will they ever be part of the community? Is it fair for the deaf to be permanently

excluded? If not, who is thus responsible for their inclusion in a community that

'shares a destiny, and moves towards the future?'" (21).

This argument is endless, but I believe that what is being narrated entails the use of

certain language more than the other. If the subject is to write back to the west,

foregrounding issues like racism, English is the language needed to advocate this

message. To put it in other words, language is a mere means of communication, yet I

agree with the Moroccan author, Abdelfatah Kilito in his book, I Speak All Languages

But in Arabic (2013), who believes that the author could use any language but he/she

could not efface the traces of their mother tongue from the text (29). The fact that

Adichie writes in English, does not make her Westernized and does not make her less

African either. Besides, she dedicates her novel to the new generation, not to the old

generation who were colonial subjects: "This book is for our next generation, ndi na-

abia n'iru" (1). That is why Ifemelu criticizes her father when he speaks English; she

would rather have him speak Igbo: "Sometimes Ifemelu imagined him in a classroom

in the fifties, an overzealous colonial subject wearing an ill-fitting school uniform of

cheap cotton, jostling to impress his missionary teachers…She preferred it when he

spoke Igbo; it was the only time he seemed unconscious of his own anxieties" (47-8).

How can we blame a new generation that has been raised by a colonial subject who

believes in the superiority of the west and western culture?

Nevertheless, it is undeniable that Adichie's main characters: Obinze and

Ifemelu decide to come back to Nigeria to help reform the country; Ifemelu tries to

promote her culture through her blog and Obinze decides to help his own people: " I

do what rich people are supposed to do. I pay school fees for a hundred students in my

village and my mum's village" (438).

El-Rayis 19

All in all, Adichie's Americanah goes beyond post-colonial issues; it is a novel

that resists racism in America. The subject of the text assigns the language used to

convey the salient message in a clear-cut way.

Conclusion

There are few of us who are not protected from the keenest pain by our

inability to see what it is that we have done, what we are suffering, and what

we truly are. Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance

only. (Butler 34)

This quote is excerpted from Samuel Butler's novel Erewhon (1872) in which

he criticizes the Victorians with all their follies. One of their follies is their belief in

the White Man's Burden to civilize "the other", dividing the World into "us" and "the

rest of the world". Butler aims at mirroring their follies, pinpointing how they have

caused the suffering of the colonized nations while exploiting them. That is why

Butler criticizes the Erewhonians (Victorians): "they were really a very difficult

people to understand" (6). Likewise, Adichie aims to show Americans that they are

not living in a democratic country as they claim. Injustice towards the Black is one of

the things that deflate the American Dream.

An example of racism is the latest incident of what happened to the twenty-

five black Freddie Gray who was suspected to be a criminal just because he is black:

Gray, 25, was taken into police custody in Baltimore on April 12, [2015] and

sustained a spinal injury during that time that required medical attention. He

went into a coma several days later and died a week after his apprehension.

Police have never said why they took him into custody in the first place,

El-Rayis 20

noting only that he ran from officers, and they have not publicly explained

how Gray received the spinal injury. (Keneally ABC News)

While reading Americanah, I felt that Adichie is exaggerating as racism is a past, but

Gray's case acts as an eye-opener to those who think that America is a superior

country where democracy prevails. What adds insult to the injury is that America has

a black president, Barak Obama who lets down the black people's expectation as he

does not want to be biased in favor of blacks: "if he wins, he will no longer be black,

just as Oprah is no longer black, she's Oprah. So she can go where black people are

loathed and be fine. He'll no longer be black, he'll just be Obama" (Adichie 357).

All in all, instead of pigeonholing Adichie, to prove whether she is

Americanized or not because of the use of her language, it is rather more important to

evaluate the message she means to convey through her writing.

El-Rayis 21

Works Cited

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. "Americanah's Author Explains Learning To Be Black

In the U.S.". Interview with Chimamando Ngozi by NPR. United States: NPR,

2013. Web. 2015.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. London: Fourth Estate, 2013. Print.

Ashcroft, Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and practice in

post-colonial literatures. London: Routledge, 1989. Print.

Butler, Samuel. Erewhon. RHYW, 2008. Print.

Chepkorir, Koskei Margaret. Representation of Female African Immigrant Experience

in the West: A Case Study of Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah. Diss.

University of Nairobi, 2014. Print.

Joyce, Mary. "Blog for a Cause: The Global Voices Guide to Blog Advocacy". Global

Voices Advocacy. Weblog. Hivos. 2015. Web.

Karpinski, Eva C. Borrowed Tongues: Life Writing, Migration, and Translation.

Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012. Print.

Keneally, Meghan. " Freddie Gray's Death Ruled a Homicide, Officers Face

Charges". ABC News: May 1st, 2015. Web. May 6

th 2015.

Kilito, Abdelfatah. I Speak All Languages But in Arabic. Trans. Abdelsalam Bin

Abdelaly. Morocco: Toubkal, 2013. Print.

Otas, Belinda. "Africa Needs Feminism". New African Women. March. (2013): 49-52.

Web. 2015.

P, Sajna. "Unmasking Racism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah". Kannur

University: Kerala State (2014): vol 4, issue 11. Web. 2015.

Peed, Mike. Rev. of Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Balance March

2014: 11. Web.

Rodrigues, Ângela Lamas. "The Trauma of a Diminshed Existence: Chinua Achebe

Revisited". Postcolonial Text:University of São Paulo(2007): Vol 3, No 4.

Web. 2015.