A Quick Dive Into Americanah

As a follow-up from Purple Hibiscus, I decided to read another novel by Chimamanda N. Adichie, Americanah. Winning the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in its year of publication (2013), Americanah proves its literary and social value with an immersive narrative and a direct tone that makes the readers feel as though they know exactly what the characters are feeling.

The main character, Ifemelu, opens the story as she makes a long-debated decision to return to Nigeria, her home country, after thirteen years of living in America. First time in several years, Ifemelu emails her previous lover from Nigeria, Obinze, who had married another woman several years ago. As Ifemelu and Obinze reflect on their love fifteen years ago, the story travels back to their years at high school and college, filled with romance and personal development of the two persons as they learn from one another. Throughout the first half of the novel, the author switches between the scenes from the present and past that center around Ifemelu, each scene reflecting how Ifemelu assimilates to the American culture and her relationship with her home country, Nigeria, shifts respectively. 

Teenager Ifemelu is very self-assured and is never afraid to let out her opinion, even when others would oppose her. However, she often self-consciously views her skin color and economic status as unfit for her boyfriend, Obinze, who comes from a relatively rich and well-educated family. Even as Ifemelu holds views of American culture as inferior to the English, the perpetuating strikes at her university leads her to pursue the American Dream and move to America for education. Here, Ifemelu unwillingly separates from Obinze, who promises to join her in the States for graduate school. As Ifemelu is thrown onto a foreign country that immediately classifies her as a black foreigner, she realizes that she must be Americanized to shun the degrading gazes of others in her foreign manner. In this process, Ifemelu learns about racism and what it is like to be black, especially with the frequent remarks of cultural stereotypes tossed at her.

The instances of racial and cultural discrimination in Ifemelu’s journey are often very specific and bestow a unique vividness to the story. In fact, Adichie seems to indirectly insert some of her personal experience into Ifemelu’s story. For example, Adichie sets her middle name, Ngozi, as Ifemelu’s temporary name in America: “Ifemelu repeated ‘I’m Ngozi Okonkwo’ in front of the mirror before her next interview, at the Seaview restaurant. ‘Can I call you Goz?’ the manager asked after they shook hands…but before she said yes, she paused,” (220). The author’s portrayal of America in the perspective of a new immigrant effectively captures the tensions between social groups and lack of cultural acceptance in the country that others may not notice.

Other than Ifemelu, the story features the development of characters around her. Among these characters, I found the changes in Aunty Uju, a cousin of Ifemelu’s father, extremely striking. A life-long mentor of Ifemelu, Aunty Uju is dramatically changed by her yearning for power and money, and later by the pressures of finding her standing in the US with a baby under her arms and no help available. Her experiences as a woman born in poverty highlights the power dynamics that exists between the social figures in Nigeria and America--from a man to woman, a military leader to a commoner, and an American citizen to an immigrant. As Aunty Uju grows submissive to the desire for objective wealth rather than her internal well being, the readers learn of the tragic consequences of an economically stratified society on an individual. 

I would encourage everyone to read Americanah, as it is more than a well-known fiction, but defines the value of love, equality, and nonuniformity.

- Yelim