Hyphenated Identity and Negotiated Intersectionality: A Memoir of a First-Generation Nigerian American Male Teacher in an Inner-City Title I Elementary School in Georgia

• In Event: Creative Insubordination Research: Pushing Methodological Boundaries — Performing Dissertation Research — Liberating Academic Writing

Abstract

The researcher illustrates a memoir where the researcher tells his stories of negotiating cultures, races, ethnicities, and identities in Nigeria, and in the United States as a first-generation Nigeria-American teacher in an inner-city Title I elementary school in Georgia. As a labeled African American upon entry into the United States, the researcher did not understand the meaning of being Black because everybody in Nigeria is Black. In becoming Black, he became racialized, marginalized, and lumped into the African American ethnicity. He was rejected for not being Black enough in the United States nor Nigerian enough in Nigeria. Theoretically, he draws upon a wide array of works such as Reframing Blackness and Black Solidarities (Dei, 2017), the Rhizome of Blackness (Ibrahim, 2014), Americana (Adichie, 2014), and critical race psychoanalysis regarding the complexity of Black identities (Fanon, 1952/2008). Methodologically, he draws from A River Forever Flowing (He, 2003), What It Means to An American (Waltzer, 1996), The Education of a British Protected Child (Achebe, 2009), Home and Exile (Achebe, 2000), The Story of a Young South African Martyr and his Struggle to Raise Black Consciousness (Woods, 1978), I Write What I Like (M. Biko, 1978), Between the World and Me (Coates, 2015), and Floating in Most Peculiar Ways (Chude-Sokei, 2012). Five discoveries have emerged from the inquiry. Experiencing triple marginalization--marginalized in Nigeria as an Igbo, in America as Black, being perceived not to be Black enough as an African American nor as an Igbo/Nigerian American, the researcher feels constantly displaced to be “neither here nor there” (He, 2003, 2010, 2022), which characterizes his Igbo/Nigerian cultural and linguistic existence as a 1st Generation Nigeria-American dwelling in-between languages, cultures, and identities ( Baldwin, 2008; Dubois, 2014; Ibrahim, 2014; Imoagene, 2019; Greer, 2013). Although his life experience of the ethnic, political, cultural, religious rivalries and divisive politics in Nigeria did not teach him anything about being Black in the United States, it has shown him that Igbo heritages need to be preserved, protected, and propagated as he struggles to thrive as a Nigeria-America. Linguistic and cultural differences within Black heritages are often obscured, homogenized, or ignored in mainstream curriculum theories, practice, and policies, which colonizes African diasporas as they struggle for racial, linguistic, and social justice. Although composing a memoir to understand the researcher’s life experience in Nigeria, in the United States, and in-between is excruciatingly painful and emotional, it liberates to make meaning out of deep personal experiences which could not be expressed otherwise. There is an increasing need to develop an African diaspora curriculum (Hall, 2022; King 2022) which draws from historical, cultural, and linguistic experiences of Africans as exemplified in literary texts by African authors to “legitimize [African heritages and] epistemologies,” foster the “wellbeing of African-descended people,” flourish “human freedom from dehumanizing” (King, 2022) schooling, and create hopes and dreams for all.

Author

• Gerald Nwachukwu, Georgia Southern University
  Presenting Author