Tag: group 3

Provocation post group 3

In Chapter 27,  Obinze visits a bookshop cafe and started focusing on reading American newspapers and magazines, rather than the British ones. The reason was that these, “stoked panic in his chest,” (Adichie 317). Later, a woman on the train was reading a paper that had a title about immigrants. The interesting aspect of this chapter was how lonely Obinze seems as someone who is trying to obtain citizenship, especially with his sentence that stated, “his existence like an erased pencil sketch,” (Adichie 318). It brought up aspects of past British colonization and current immigration. He goes on to say that, “the influx into Britain of black and brown people from countries created by Britain. Yet he understood. It had to be comforting, this denial of history,” which I thought was particularly powerful and I was able to draw parallels between that and what is currently happening in the U.S. in relation to immigration (Adichie 320).

Question: Do you think countries that have colonization in their past should be working harder to address racism, as well as be more open with their borders towards immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers?

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, et al. Americanah. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, 2017.

Provocation Group 3

In Chapter 31, Ifemelu cheats on Curt because she is overwhelmed by the pressure of being in an interracial relationship. After weeks of asking him to take her back, she finally accepts reality. Years later at a party, she talks with another woman about her interracial relationship and says that race was never an issue, which Ifemelu finds difficult to believe. She thought about her relationship with Curt and how there were certain disparities he clearly could not see, as he was living with the “colorblind” mindset. Her friend, Wambui, suggests to start a blog, and she considers and creates it a few weeks after she breaks up with Curt. The chapter ends with a blog post about how a black woman’s hair is a metaphor for America. She says she is a groupie for Michelle Obama and would like to see once how she or Beyonce would look with their natural hair.
In the book, that portion of the chapter reads, “Imagine if Michelle Obama got tired of all the heat and decided to go natural and appeared on TV with lots of woolly hair, or tight spirally curls…She would totally rock but poor Obama would certainly lose the independent vote, even the undecided Democrat vote.” (Adichie 368).

My question is why do you think society associates something natural for black people with inadequacy?

Sources
“Chapter 31.” Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Anchor Books, A Division of Random House LLC, New York, 2013, pp. 368.

Selling Out?

Obinze is in London on an expired visa and set to marry Cleotilde in a green card marriage. He keeps getting pushed around by the Angolan men because they are asking for more and more money, and Obinze and Cleotilde are not able to leave because the men have her passport. Obinze finally turns to Emenike, an old friend from school who is also living in London. They are not really friends, but they have the commonality of their school to bring them together. Obinze asks for money from Emenike who gives Obinze double what he asks for. Eventually Obinze ends up at dinner with Emenike and his wife Georgina. Obinze watches how Emenike interacts with his wife and the staff at the reasturant and there is this aura around Emenike. Obinze finally figures out it is “Self-satisfaction, that was the difference in him. He was married to a British woman, lived in a British home, worked at a British job, traveled on a British passport, said ‘exercise’ to refer to a mental rather than a physical activity. He had longed for this life, and never quite believed he would have it” (Adichie 330).

Emenike seems different because he has achieved what he wanted. To what degree was he joyful for having certain things such as the British wife and British job, versus having sold himself out to a new culture?

 

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.

Provocation- Group 3

I found the section in chapter 30 about Obinze and his green card wedding particularly intriguing and interesting. Just as Obinze and Cleotilde were about to walk inside for their scheduled ceremony, policemen pulled him to the side and asked him his name and if he knew that his visa had been expired. Following this, the policemen handcuffed him and brought him to a holding cell waiting for an immigration lawyer. What surprised me is that when Obinze talks to the lawyer about his case and the likelihood of winning and not being deported out of the UK, he says, “I’m willing to go back to Nigeria”(Adichie 2017, pg. 345). This shocked me considering the fact that he worked so hard to get this wedding to work out and paid so much money to the Angolans for their expertise. Obinze is taken to the airport in handcuffs and is put in a cell with three other Nigerian men. They are all talking with each other about simple things. In this detention cell, he is visited by many characters such as Iloba, Nicholas, and  Ojiugo. Finally, a Lagos flight arrives, and is taken to the airport in handcuffs along with five other men and two women and are seated at the back of the plane. when he arrives, Obinze’s mother is waiting for him.

Question: How did you feel or what emotions came about on Obinze and his leaving of the UK based on the fact that he had an expired visa and was trying to have a green card wedding but got caught before he was able to do so?

Citation: Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.