| Pub. Date | : March, 2022 |
|---|---|
| Product Name | : The IUP Journal of English Studies |
| Product Type | : Article |
| Product Code | : IJES020322 |
| Author Name | : Justy Joseph , Nirmala Menon and Padmanabhan B |
| Availability | : YES |
| Subject/Domain | : Arts & Humanities |
| Download Format | : PDF Format |
| No. of Pages | : 12 |
African immigrants across the world are identified with their ancestors who were oppressed. They create anti-racist racism for themselves with the fear of corresponding to the stereotypes set by the dominant culture. But they end up perceiving their hybrid identities in the certitude of being black in an active state of kinship. The novel Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a tale about being a black immigrant in the 21st century. Adichie disintegrates the promised land myth of America and proposes that the indigenous past is central to the identity of immigrants throughout her novel. This paper aims to analyze the entangled cultural experience associated with dislocation, redefinition of indigenous identity through black consciousness, formation of a hybrid identity through afropolitanism and the 'wound of return' while settling back in the native space in the novel Americanah.
Culture is manifested and transmitted spatially. Land cannot be muddled from the heart
of its indweller. Sense of place serves as pegs on which people hang memories, construct
meaning, establish the notion of community and ratify the arenas of action. Attachment to
a place replenishes the concept of identity and induces a sense of belongingness that
transcribes the experiences of a person.
The rich and diverse culture of Africa is integrated and amalgamated with its social
environment. But the allegiance of Africans to their culture is often conceded where
there is dislocation. Blackness, in a migrant space, is not a definite identity, it is an integrity
that has numerous impugned intersections reconstructed and negotiated in coalition with
shared histories, colonization, slavery, dislocation, trauma and resistance. Identities of
African transnational migrants are framed based on country-specific cultures and
normative beliefs. Their singularity is an amalgamation of multiple identities formed in