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  • My Nigerian Accent

    This piece is inspired by Lupita Nyongo, who is now my newfound role model, especially for this recently cultivated dream of being an Actress, or as I will tell people who I am extremely comfortable with, “a Superstar”

    When I was much younger I had filled my head excessively with the contents of anything on the TV screen, Nigerian, Indian, Korean, Yoruba, American, and even to Arabic, especially with contents of MBC 3 as a TV station, at first it started with just it as TV and I then slowly progressed to CDs and an everlasting affection for K-dramas, but what was more shocking to me now as I write this piece is to what extent it took me to watch anything on the screen.

     I was  voracious, because as little as I was, I was already sneaking into the living room at midnight to watch the TV and when I would  hear the voices from my parent’s room, I would put the TV off and pretend like I was asleep, I even got caned for it, because I just couldn’t settle for not watching Nickelodeon as a child. Which is very surprising because I was very much a coward when I was growing up, and more of a by the book kind of girl.

    So believe me when I say that by the time I could speak in an American accent, I wasn’t taken aback actually, which was strange because I had never even been to America in the first place, what I also didn’t realize was that I wasn’t aware that it was an American accent until people at Secondary school told me I sounded like cartoons, and then I would speak it at little gatherings where my hostel or class mates were, basically just for laughs and awe

    Coming to America was very comfortable, what was also more comfortable was the ignorance of the effect of my skin color and my accent in an environment of majorly white people. In my attempt to blend in, I applauded myself internally that I had experience with an American accent, and this was the time to showcase those honed skills,  so I set about talking first to the staffs at the airlines ,to the cashier at the grocery store, to someone at the beach, and to someone at the Library, My siblings even applauded me as well, the only place I felt accent sane was at church, and I wasn’t even conscious of it, because immediately I got to church my Nigerian accent would slip out ,and I wouldn’t even care if I used American or Nigerian at all

    Fast forward a little bit further to when I had to go for a job interview at a Recycling company, which I got ready for properly, I even got to the location on time so I was exact that I made a good first impression. I walk into the interview room and I began the interview, they all ask questions but most in particular “where are you from”. shit. I’ve been caught, my accent was breaking, I go ahead to tell them that I am Nigerian, and the gray and black long haired man says “you speak really good English”. My Dad had made it a National anthem at home that most of the white people here pretended like they didn’t understand what we were saying because we spoke with a different accent, so I wasn’t surprised, but what was more surprising after I had answered him “yes” was that he didn’t know, “He didn’t know?”, now that is more outrageous than a common lie. Surely he must have known or heard of Fela kuti, or Okocha or even Wizkid.(This was 2024 as I write), Americans and Nigerians have passed through the borders before and after the Biafra War. Slightly offended I focused on my main goal, the interview, after I was done I went home, silently still commending myself that I did a good job, that even if I was discovered, I had done a good job. I begin my evening routine scrolling on social media and decided to take a break from looking at Lupita nyongo’s Instagram page but to actually listen to her podcast ,and I am astonished when she begins to talk about her own story with her accent, A wonderful podcast by the way, but I begin to reflect on myself and my little commendatory ceremonies held in the inner crevices of my mind, about how silly I was to be proud of an accent that was clearly not mine, about how shameful it was that “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie” may hear me speak and be a little bit disappointed that I couldn’t be proud of my natural born voice, how embarrassed I now felt that speaking in an American accent was something that I commended myself for instead of seeing it as a tool to materialize myself into the culture temporarily. And to think that I had told my friends that I was practicing amidst while speaking to them in that accent, they must have thought me ridiculous.

    Now Writing and typing away at my brother’s laptop, I have come to the silent resolution to work hard to make my Nigerian accent shine even better and more brighter, and even if some of them  go to the far pathetic  lengths of pretending that  they do not  understand me speaking English ,It is my job to repeat and educate such “sorry people” on accentual knowledge concerning Nigeria in a way that they come to the realization or are even educated conciously or unconsciously.

    October 31st 2024

  • First Observations

    Immigration is a word that I had known but never knew. It was a word I didn’t know carried immense depth and sometimes a hint of shame. But it was an exciting thing to be an immigrant, to leave a country with so much beauty and fruitfulness, yet barren of opportunities. To squeal at so much ice cream and fast food yet bedridden with the worry of being obese, To anticipate the things that could all be possible and move towards working on them, It was all exciting.
    How oblivious, How ignorant, How innocently expectant.
    The man at the driver’s license office was making smart remarks at us while discussing with a supposed colleague, and we had only known because my Dad had reprimanded him. The people you see often at work continue to ask where you’re from faces distorted with forgetfulness, and when it continues after weeks, you know you have arrived at a place that is unwelcoming of you, upon this realization is to hasten adjustments, a contrast conscious anxiousness of being caught, you laugh at jokes that you do not understand and do unfamiliar things to make yourself known in silent desperate pleas of acceptance. I thought that coming to America would cause a shift in the air, a dawning of bliss, but it wasn’t like that. There is no magic here, and hardly is there any occasional kindness, and to experience one even in supposed flickers is to doubt its honesty constantly.
    There was also the unnecessary gratitude that threatened to come out from underneath the skin. Receiving an absolute bare minimum becomes a gift of Gold in a swift wave of the hand. The looks and remarks of people who hardly know most things, but wish to glow and bask in your ignorance, asking questions with already prepared answers, how cowardly I thought, but also sad, to need to enjoy one’s ignorance to be truly fulfilled.
    On days I let them have fun, extremely pretentious of common knowledge, to also have little ceremonies of glee as I watch them explain things already known, wondering if they can figure out what the smirk on my face is for, other days I laugh, an extended cackling that makes them uncomfortable and suddenly conscious of their absurdity, and then I fake wipe my tears and when they have questions about my place, I too explain, so slowly, asking them if they understand what I mean.
    America is a wonderful place, and there are reasons why that is general knowledge, but you see, it is no heaven. All the people who live here seem to be getting by, somehow looking soul-sunken, their lives occupied with work and scheduled Adult assignments.
    To truly know and experience America, I believe, is to read the books of the Ancient Founders, amazed at their thirst for growth, and dreams of a place built on with dedication and might.
    I hope and wish to see America, the founding dreams old yet so beautiful at the forefront, still and basking in the morning sunlight, of abounding glory.