Coming To America
I have been skeptical about race infiltrating my work. It's almost a month since I switched career paths and moved my life to America, and my experiences are already good material to sit with and create from. But. I don't want to be one of those writers who leave their country and start engaging with Western issues. There are enough concerns back home, and how else do I hone a distinct voice? While that back and forth is going on, I will ramble here.
Coming to America (1988) is a film about many things and I'm using the title/phrase to denote the culture shock I am experiencing while I live here, and all the things nobody ever told me. To be honest, maybe I knew some things, but there is no knowledge like living it. My experience transcends race. I must also mention that my experience is not universal. It might be, but I am making a case for myself and myself alone here. Forgive my snarky self, but here are a few pointers I'd give anybody treading my path:
- You are an immigrant. Immigrant. It doesn't matter that you were a lawyer or doctor in your home country. It doesn't matter that an American who didn't finish the sixth form and can only lay asphalt is referred to as an expatriate in your country and awarded the perks. You are an immigrant here.
- You cannot speak English. It doesn't matter that your first words were yaay and mummy and daddy and yellow. God help you if the color of your skin is different. I mean, the only reason you asked them to repeat themselves is that they stress their syllables very differently and you need them to go slower. But no, you cannot speak English. After some time you begin to lose your confidence, and when you hear yourself stuttering, or your cerebrum is slower than usual, you'd start to wonder—can I actually speak this language? It doesn't matter that who you are communicating with can't write a paper without help and doesn't know how to use a or an properly. You are not American, so you cannot speak English. If you are lucky enough to meet a speaker who understands you, be proud that they express surprise at your fluency. Say yes when they ask you if you spoke English back home. Don't mention the 250 languages the different tribes of your country speak. Stand tall. You are in the Sacred Club of Immigrants Who Speak Good English.
- You cannot compete with those who have been living here when it is cold. Or even when it is not. Their hot is not your hot. Wear your jacket and socks in peace. Buy gloves if you need to. And when they walk past you in the cold with little or no clothing, remember that Russia and Nordic countries (used to) wrap their babies and leave them to nap outside in the winter to strengthen their immune systems. You just cannot compete.
- Nobody cares what you wear. If you like, wear a bra or don't. Or short shorts. Or 20 nose rings. Nobody cares. Unless you wear an Afro. Or the Ankara pants you thought not to leave behind.
- If you make American friends, nod excitedly when they tell you about the new set of teacups they just bought. Slowly bop your head to metal music even though it feels like fingernails scratching against a
board in your ears. They won't engage with your Afrobreats, or, they might and dance offbeat and tell you that the artiste is speaking incorrect English. Do not, I repeat, do not try to explain the concept of Pidgin English. Or that language and its many uses is not a one-way street. They have probably not watched the American movies you are crazy about. When they gift you a $50 Welcome to America plant, do not calculate what $50 could have put in your fridge and pantry. Do not imagine how many pairs of sweaters or jeans you could have bought, or what percentage it could knock off your utility bill. Every time you have to water the plant, just think of it as one of those American things you would get used to soon.
- White people don't wash their shoes. Maybe you would stop washing yours too. In boarding house, you learned to use a toothbrush to keep the whites of your Dunlop slippers white. You applied polish to your black shoes and left them on the windowsill so that the harsh sun could melt the polish into the leather the way an applier can never do. You carried a shining brush in your school bag so you can buff those shoes when someone steps on you on the assembly ground. But here, it is dirty to touch your shoes. Throwing it in the machine is not an option for many. It is inconceivable. It is for me too. Laundry costs $3 for each load, and maybe when I'm not calculating my coins, I'd do my normal thing and throw them in the washer. Till then.
- If you are Nigerian like me, you go to a party hungry, expecting to be fed. In fact, you might decide to hire a caterer for you and your guests. Because party food is different. It is a highlight. When you start going to American parties in America, expect a lot of bread. Cheese. Goat cheese that smells like your
grandmother's animal shed in her village. Pizza. The meat will probably have some pink left. Cooked food is cold. So your options are: carry salt and pepper (because even if your host provides pepper, it is not that peppery and chili sauce is more sugary than chili) or do not just go to an American party hungry.
- Wearing identity and belief systems like a badge is a thing. You are divided by it, boxed by it. You must understand the word salad of identity politics and stick by it. So you can be a trans disabled queer black vegan non-spiritual liberal feminist and you get to introduce yourself like that. You must know. Intersectionality is not as fluid, and when it is, you must pick your subset. You must know.
- Have I mentioned that Americans ask personal questions? They want to know who you are sleeping with and how you are sleeping with them. When they come to your apartment they expect to be shown around. Yes, your bathroom and bedroom are inclusive. Also, why and who are you hiding your age from?
- If whatever you are doing is getting too hard, you are doing wrong. Unless you are dismantling capitalism. But if you need information, or need a new ID, or are putting together furniture for your apartment, or even tackling a course assignment—if it is getting too hard—you are doing it wrong. Take a step back. Drop the screwdriver. Breathe. Read the manual. Make a phone call or send an email. Americans don't believe in stupid questions. Ask. Ask where to put the bowl. Your (African) mother is not here to say put it on my head.
- If you used to look left and right and run across the road to get to the other side, stop it. There are crosswalks with buttons. And no, you are not stupid if you are waiting and no car is coming and the traffic lights are red. Jaywalking is a crime. Use the crosswalks. Americans can break the rules. You can too if you are white-passing. But if you are not, you cannot. You give everyone else in your minority a bad name. When you do something good, you are an exception to the rule, the rule being that your minority is an antithesis to everything American. But when you do something bad, that is the way it is always done in your minority group.
- When somebody flips you off at the traffic light, don't stand there shocked, wondering what you did to this person. You can rise above and look away, or you can play dirty and flip them off too. Whatever you do, do not stand there shocked. When you are walking on a beautiful sunny afternoon and you hear (fucking) niggaaaaa wiz past you, you heard it. You really heard it. Your ears are not playing tricks on you. You can stop to ponder on what just happened, but that car is already gone and you didn't even get a glimpse of a face. You can cry the first time it happens. Or the first time you are somehow responsible for a white woman's hysteria when you did absolutely nothing. It is not you, it is them. Again, you can cry the first time it happens. But the second time? Did you expect to be the exception to the rule? America is a racist country. So why are you crying?
Ayotola Tehingbola is a Nigerian graduate student in Creative Writing at Boise State University, Idaho. Her cache of drafts is of traumatic or political fiction and photo essays.