How I Became Black: An African Immigrant Experience with Racial Identity

By Kemi Seriki / August 10, 2020

Until the lion produces its own historian, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter (African Proverb)

When I first migrated to America, I never considered myself black since I came from a country where the idea of skin color was never reflective of my identity. In Nigeria, ethnicity, religion, social class, and gender defines who you are in the society. To be called black has never been part of the conversation since our social construct was not based on race. I can travel to any part of the country without worrying that someone was going to judge me or not afford me the imperative opportunity based on my skin color. When I migrated to America, I realized that my race and my ethnicity as an African immigrant would define the space that society afforded me. As an immigrant, I found myself in a country with unfamiliar rules and racial nuance that was foreign to me. As a black immigrant, nobody will pull you aside to instruct or educate you on racial hierarchy and how it is interwoven in all aspects of American life. Achieving the “American Dream” happens to be the focus of many immigrants without understanding the hidden rules. African immigrants are regularly faced with many challenges as they adapt to their new home.

Colonial Brainwashing:

Some people may question why African immigrants could not have known about whiteness as racial superiority when, in reality, and from a historical perspective, the continent of Africa was colonized by Europe. African nations were indeed colonized and gained its independence from various European countries starting from Ghana independence in 1957 and other countries followed. As I later found out through my reading and research, European colonists granted African nations its freedom with the realization that they do not need physical control of African countries to continue to plunder their resources. The European invaders focus more on mental control through education policy and the importation of Christianity. Our values, culture, beliefs, traditional and social structure were modified to satisfy the European agenda. As a result, African history is taught through European lenses. According to Cagri Tugrul Mart, “The colonizer’s educational goal was to expose Africans to superior culture.” He further said the purpose of this implementation was to strip African nations away from its indigenous educational structures to impose and promote the European way of life in its superiority. Someone can easily verify the European influence on African countries by the national language each nation adopted as its official language. The official languages spoken in many countries are in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Many may not know, but more people speak French on the continent than the whole of Europe. Also, our indigenous system of government and law were dissolved, and the European system was instituted.

The colonized education I received in Nigeria and many African immigrants received in their respective countries may have come from the European perspective in its superiority. Still, many of us have never lived in a racialized system. I never knew what it was to be black in a racialized society or experienced racism due to my skin color. Before migrating to American, I was aware of the black presence in America, but I never could imagine racial discrimination faced by people of color. Growing up in Nigeria, I have seen movies and comedy shows from America in which black people were featured, but I saw them as Americans. Some of the TV shows I used to watch in Nigeria include Different Strokes, Good Times, The Jeffersons, and the most popular show among Nigerian youth at the time, was the Soul Train. Many of us watch Soul Train and learn the latest dance moves or the newest fashion. Even though some may refer to the African Americans on these shows as black America, I could not have imagined the racial inequality and racial hierarchies in a country that supposed to be their home.

My Immigrant Experience in America

When I moved to America to further my education and achieve the American dream, I was exceedingly positive that I was migrating to the most powerful nation in the world with unlimited opportunities, freedom of speech, and equality without racial prejudice. Little did I know that as an African immigrant, I have to continually engage in mental warfare with American citizens concerning the idea that Africa is not what Western media portrays it to be, especially in regards to the exotic images depicted by large corporations such as National Geography. It is rather easy for the Western world to generalize the war & genocide, the hunger & “extreme” famine, climate disasters, or disease epidemics in a specific country in Africa by not specifying the country to which the problem originates. Instead, they report it as if it is a continental-wide issue. I could not believe the obliviousness of many people that I have come across when it comes to their knowledge of Africa. It is often overlooked that Africa is a continent with 54 countries with over 1.3 billion people with over 2000 languages spoken. People have displayed their ignorance of the continent by asking me questions such as: “Do you speak Africa?”; “How does it feel to live in a mud house?”; or “Did you play with wild animals growing up?”

Despite all the negativity and cynicism projected so outwardly due to my heritage, this never dissuaded “my African pride.” If anything, it continues to empower me to this day.

Some perceived my accent as an indication of inadequacy. Unfortunately, this leads to derogatory and demeaning biases. I have been told that I am not black enough since I had no direct connection to the descendants of slavery. A co-worker questioned my citizenship despite being employed at the same job for over two decades. I have been told to go back to Africa. I have experienced a fellow employee feeling very reluctant to sit next to me during meetings or even touch the pen I used. When I complained about this unjust behavior to the management, I was ignored and shunned as a trouble maker. My intelligence and competency are regularly challenged and questioned by people of all races. I not only experienced this treatment because I was black, but also an African immigrant who must carry the negative labels assigned to the continent of my origin. I have to recurrently prove my authenticity to the same individuals who consistently display undertoned microaggressions that surprisingly come off as both subtle and overt discrimination simultaneously. Despite all the negativity and cynicism projected so outwardly due to my heritage, this never dissuaded “my African pride.” If anything, it continues to empower me to this day.

My Experience as a Black Woman in America

I am an African immigrant, specifically a Nigerian immigrant. But I am still black. My blackness is what is visible to the world, and I cannot hide or change it. As a black woman, I am not exempt from racial discrimination faced by people of color. As a black woman in America, I have experienced a store employee following me around in a store because I “definitely” fit the profile of a shoplifter. Once, I was called a nanny when I dropped my child off at school. I have experienced discrimination for a job opportunity and passed over for promotion even though I was well qualified. I have received inadequate medical care, even with medical insurance in place. As a mother, I always worried about my son’s safety. My worries range from, if, or when he comes in contact with the police, how would he be treated? Would he be wrongly accused of a crime he never committed? When my children were in school age, we sometimes have to battle with the racial prejudice in the school community and biases from other people of color within the school community. And as a result, I was consistently apprehensive about my children’s welfare. As my children become older, I worried about their survival in “Corporate America,” which I call the ultimate white space in America. I worried that they would continue to face discrimination based on the color of their skin. How can I help my children navigate the system that is foreign to me while still trying to figure out the dynamics of their nuances?

Historical Black Experience

As an immigrant, I have immigrant experience based on my culture, custom, and the ambition to pursue my education and create a better life. However, as a black woman, can I understand American racial hierarchy and its institutionalized racism without my depth understanding of black experience. The black experience is historical, starting from slavery to Jim Crow, racial terrorism, police brutality, and prison industrial complex. During the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans fought and demanded equal rights, which were granted, but it never eradicates racial inequality and its institutions.

My analysis of racial inequality is better explained in form of a storytelling. When it comes to running the race of achieving and maintaining the American dream in a country that institutionalized racism, a white male is readily provided a cushioned shoe to run his race. Such cushion starts from the color of his skin and the institutions that cater to his whiteness. A black male must run the race barefooted, and if or when the the black male gets to the destination, his feet have suffered from racial pain and emotional bruises. Such racial bruises may include poor health care, poor educational system, poor housing, victimized by police and the criminal justice system, unemployment, overt biases, racial profiling, stereotyping, and many more.

As a result of the racial order, African Americans understand deep-root of the institutionalized oppression within their country. After living in a country dominated by white power for centuries, Blacks accumulated critical knowledge and survival skill to continue their existence in a racially segregated society. Black Americans understand that they must work twice or three times harder in comparison to their white counterpart. Out of concerns for the safety of the younger generations, Blacks developed survival skills and pass it to their descendants. Even though children may be told to be bold and confident, black parents and elders in the community continue to instruct their children to be submissive when they see police, not to argue but comply, etc. Blacks often advise their children to dress properly, speak properly, walk properly, low the tone of voice so that they do not fit the generalized negative stereotype of African Americans, and, most importantly, make white people comfortable. Whiteness is a culture that dominates social normality, and everyone else belongs to ethnicity. The black cultural identity, which was rooted in historical experience, has never been part of the norms or accepted in mainstream society.

The Womb of Mother Africa

Before the continent was chopped into pieces during the Berlin Conference in 1884 by the colonizers, our ancestors were unwillingly forced into slavery and carried across the Atlantic Ocean to build the new world. The story of Africans in the diaspora is similar to the story of a mother giving birth to multiple children, separated at birth and they are placed in different parts of the world. For African Americans, their history did not start from slavery. Our ancestors came from the cradle of the human race and the center of human civilization. Our disconnection from each other is by design. The disconnection was created to continue to exploit African nations of its resources and its manpower. Acknowledging that African immigrants have different historical experiences from African Americans or other people of African descent; racism and the various institutions that perpetuate it do not comprehend the difference. We are all black when it comes to racial inequality as it relates to inadequate health care, poor educational systems, poor housing, victimization by police and criminal justice system, high unemployment rate, overt biases, racial profiling, stereotyping, and many more. African immigrants reside mostly amongst blacks and other people of color. Whatever injustice that occurs within the African American community also affects the African immigrant community and vise versa. Instead of promoting divisiveness and spitting false propaganda created by the system of white supremacy, we should come together to learn about our similarities, our differences and celebrate each other. Most importantly, let us come together to fight the system of oppression all over the world.