“Where are you from?”
I’ve heard this question a million times. What presents itself as a simplistic question leaves me consistently dumbfounded and bewildered. Where am I from? I could say that I am from Ohio since I was born there, or maybe Oregon since I spent most of my childhood there. I could say that I am from Nigerian heritage by virtue of my father’s side, or that I am Black American through my mother’s ancestors who were forced into slavery. I could offer all these answers and relay complex descriptions of my family ancestry, pointing out the different locations of genealogy. And still, for some reason, I would not be satisfied.
Where am I from?
When people ask me that question, they usually aren’t referring to where I was born, or where I currently live. When they hear my unique and supposedly “exotic” name, they begin to speculate the roots of it and the harsh syllables that my name is composed of.
When I visited Nigeria the summer before my freshman year of high school, I believed that it was there where I could truly find belonging. Nigeria was the homeland that my father had talked about on a variety of occasions, his wondrous stories enchanting me with fascination and delight. Along the horizons of the green lush countryside, children persuaded buyers for the earthy tones of tree nuts and peas. Women held woven baskets of ingredients on their heads, overfilled with unripe plantains, golden-colored yams and sweet-smelling papaya. The humid, hot air swirled with the scent of fresh rainfall, and mosquitoes and flies made their vicious attacks on us.
I’ve assumed my identity as Nigerian because that is what I’ve consistently been influenced by. The savory smell of egusi and fufu remind me of the comfort of home, the spicy, red goat stew, sweet plantains and puff puff allow me to reminisce about childhood memories in my grandparents house, playing with my cousins upstairs while the adults argued about politics downstairs. The Nigerian beats and rhythmic dancing deeply connect me to the music, persuading me believe that I belong. So, when people hear my Nigerian name and see my Nigerian features, the question of where I am from is easily defined.
When I arrived in Nigeria during that formative period of my life, I realized over the duration of my trip that although my identity rested on a foundation of my Nigerian heritage, perhaps I was so much more than that. While I resonated more with my Nigerian identity in the way that it was so closely intertwined with my childhood, the half of me that was Nigerian seemed to be in conflict with the other part that was not.
Where am I from?
Whenever I hear that question that I have been asked numerous times, each time my answer is a bit different. Everybody wants to belong. They want to be a part of something, whether that something is a community, a culture, a group of friends. I add a little bit more information, or sometimes only offer one word in response. However, with each of my answers there remains a bit of longing, as if I am still searching for that place. Maybe we’re always searching.
The pot over the stove bubbled and hissed with steam, the heat of the ghost peppers and chili irritating the whites of my eyes, inducing tears. The stifling heat of the village air held the perfume of stockfish and fresh goat, the type that made one’s nose curl up and the hairs inside their nostrils to quiver. For the newcomer, this smell may have been overwhelming and strong, but for me, it reminded me of a warm blanket in the cold of a winter storm.
Three days I spent in the village. Adjusting to no running water, electricity or internet resulted in sleepless nights, only abated by the company of the melody of crickets and the croaking of roosters in the early dawn with the orange sunlight radiating on the temples of my face. I’m here, I thought. Perhaps this is where I belong, in the stark quiet and unassuming tranquility of my ancestors’ homeland.
One day, while looking for dresses to wear for my grandpa’s upcoming 80th birthday celebration, we found a small dress shop near the side of the road; its overhead plastic paneling was ripped and the amber-colored bricks were weathered with age.
“Hello!” said the young man behind the counter, one of his hands occupied with thread and the other holding a white rolled-up measuring tape. My family sent a “hi” back, and my father began talking about the plans for the dresses my sister and I would wear to the celebration.
“What are your names — oh!” the young man, whose name I later learned to be Emmanuel, asked while scribbling away in his notebook.
“Chinwe!” I exclaimed, smiling widely with my face flushed from the heat. The man looked questioningly at me, face wrinkled in confusion.
“Eh? Do you mean Ch-ee-n-way?” he stated, the syllables deliberately pronounced in their Nigerian entirety.
Huh? Ch-ee-n-way? What in the world is he talking about?
Perhaps it was at that time that I reflected on who I was. The Nigerian heritage that I had always tried to embrace, the idealistic fairy tales and stories my father told me, seemingly disappeared at that moment. Who was I if I couldn’t correctly pronounce my own name? I always prided myself of being in tune with my “heritage,” embracing a culture and a land that I was never born in. However, perhaps the mispronunciation was not a direct reflection of my lack of identity, but rather a telling of the complexity of my origin. Where was I from?
We often think of names as tell-tale signs of where someone belongs. It is an integral part of our identity, the addressing and calling of one’s name. Yet, in that moment at the dress shop, I realized it wasn’t only my name that contributed to my individuality, or my sense of self. Did I pronounce my name wrong in the traditional way? Maybe. Perhaps at the moment, I felt like my definition of myself as Nigerian was not adequate enough, that there was another word, another adjective to describe where I belonged. And as I looked outside the dress shop window and glanced at the hustling street, busy with the engines that hummed and the sellers shouting to sell their products, I knew that this was not my home. It wasn’t my home, but rather, a place that could offer that belonging. But that didn’t change who I was, or where I am from, or who I would become.
Origin: the place or thing which someone or something is derived from.
Black. Nigerian. American. Human. All those words are what I am. But my origin lies deeper than the birthplaces of my ancestors, the cities I grew up in or the city that I will live the rest of my life in. Origin can never be manufactured by other people, can never be a “name” or an “identity” that is given to you. Maybe it is the complexity of origin and the inability to understand it that makes it so revealing to one’s nature. And for me, I’ve come to believe that my origin is encompassed in everywhere and everything that I’ve been through. It is present in the states I have lived in, the history of my ancestors, the relationships I have formed, the promises I have kept and have broken. Whenever I scoop the fufu in my hands and dip it into the egusi or savor the warm cornbread that my mother makes, each one of those things feels like home. And although I might not be able to pinpoint a specific location to the essence of my being, all the experiences I have gone through have a piece to play in shaping my own self. Maybe it is the mere fact that all of us are a part of something larger than ourselves —we all come from something or someone.
Perhaps my origin cannot be defined, pinpointed or articulated to one singular location or place in time. And maybe that’s okay.
Statement Columnist Chinwe Onwere can be reached at chinweo@umich.edu.