Where Are You From?

Posted On May 9, 2020

‘Nigerian by birth, American by Nationality and Global at heart’. Wait. Have I just come up with the perfect answer? Yes! That’s me! That’s me in one sentence. Eureka! They say you sometimes come up with the best ideas while executing the most mundane tasks. Especially a task involving water. In fact, a scientific study found that 72% of people get creative ideas while in the shower or bath. And here I am, brushing my teeth, after the reception at the Consul General’s house, and this comes to me? Fantastic!

It had become a habit to assess my day in my head, right before bed, during my dental hygiene routine – all 2 minutes of it, since flossing hadn’t completely won my heart over, yet. Generally pleased with my performance on this day: my conversation skills, my outfit, poise, and even my local language skills all scored decently. Except for the shoes. Why do I keep picking out high heels in the name of elegance, but end up walking like an ostrich all evening, because the heels keep sinking into the soft earth beneath the lawn with every step I take. Like that wasn’t disappointing enough, I remembered the struggle I endured, to answer a very simple question asked by a guest. One which most people seem to answer so easily. Even toddlers. But one of the worst questions in my book of questions. The dreaded question: “Where are you from?”.

Oh gosh! The conversation started well and I was determined to keep it short and productive. At these cocktail events, we were expected to socialize with host-country professionals who worked with our Embassy or Consulate in various capacities. So I was focused on getting to know this contact and what role he could play in the advancement of my office goals or vice versa. Then I would exchange business cards and tell him it was nice talking to him. But how was I to know I had picked the wrong one when I saw him standing by himself. Who would’ve warned me that his remarkable eyebrows were a sign of his inquisitiveness? Or that he was the kind who wanted to tell you how much of America he knows and all the states he had visited. And people like that often followed pleasantries with “where are you from?”

Once he asked, my system gave the usual reaction and I immediately felt a rush of sadness. Sadness at the realization that my lifespan had once again been shortened. That had to be the case. I mean, it can’t be healthy for one’s heart to skips 2 beats every other day. There had to be something wrong with that. A negative effect somewhere down the line maybe. I meant to Google it, but never got around to actually doing so. So in an attempt to compose myself, before struggling for the 697th time to answer this question, I put my index finger up in the ‘hold on a second’ gesture, and slowly lifted my empty glass to my lips. Then I began waiting for that lone drop of water to make its way to my mouth. But just as I began to feel the discomfort in my neck from holding up my head too long in this unflattering angle, I saw the pearl sized drop of water morph into little beads in a line that wasn’t quite long enough to make it to the brim of the glass. Disappointed, I lowered the glass from my lips to see he had gotten the server’s attention, who was now standing next to me with a platter of drinks. “Thank you” I said, as I took a glass of orange juice.

Did he know that I didn’t particularly enjoy looking silly? Did he know that I’d rather discuss topics on which I had the utmost confidence and could showcase my intellectual prowess? How about asking me if I think Plankton will ever get the secret formula for the Craby Patty. Or how a sponge lives in a pineapple under the sea. Did he know that asking “where are you from”, to me, was comparable to that period in high school math, when alphabets started mingling with numbers, causing me to lose confidence in my mental capacity? I don’t think he meant any harm, though. He seems like a kind man. The way he requested the glass of juice for me, and the way he placed his hand across his chest when he said “merci” to the server as his eyebrows stood up and slowly bowed.

But little did he know that since I was a child growing up in Nigeria, this question always rattled me. Whenever someone asked “Where are you from?” Several memories came flooding through my mind. Reminders of our constant foreignness at ‘home’ and away. Reminders of those who took it upon themselves to challenge our claims to our ethnic origins, because of what they considered to be our inadequacies. 

What does it even mean specifically? Where you were born? Well, I was born in Kano State, but the indigenes of Kano wouldn’t say I’m one of them. I don’t have a Hausa name, don’t speak Hausa, don’t know of any blood lines there and we moved away from Kano when I was a toddler.

Does it mean where you live? I lived most of my life in Lagos, but Lagosians wouldn’t say that makes me an indigene. My parents moved the family to Lagos, because my dad’s nomadic career had him posted there. But even though I acquired the Yoruba language and had my entire primary education in Lagos, I still didn’t qualify as an indigene of Lagos, by local standards.

Does it mean where I have the most ancestral ties? Well, my parents, born and raised, native tongue (Idoma) speakers, qualified as indigenes of Benue State. But we, their children, didn’t speak the language and had never lived there. So when we visited our grandparents in Benue, speaking English, well-meaning individuals would call us “aypu Lagohi” (Lagos children), openly picking a side for us and reminding us it’s where we belonged. Because by their logic, our lack of Idoma language skills had robbed us of the opportunity to confidently claim being from Benue.

I still have memories of some of these individuals. They were usually seated in clusters around the neighborhood, and tended to accost us during our evening strolls. Perhaps our clean shoes, not yet deeply colored by Benue’s red earth, gave us away as the ones who just arrived from the big city. Though we treaded lightly, they always got us to their circle with a holler of “ayi, aa wa” (kids, come) then when they spoke to us in Idoma and we couldn’t respond, they laughed and proceeded to tell everyone who cared to listen “ay pi’doma no” (they don’t understand Idoma). Like that information was some type of currency they could take to the ego market.

These clusters always had an older one in the bunch who spoke some English, and before we walked away from yet another reminder of our foreignness in our ancestral ‘home’, he would step up to us, pinching the tip of one of his ear lobes between his thumb and index finger – a gesture to lay emphasis on what he was about to say – and go: “Idoma is ya moda tongue o. You cannot call yasef an Idoma pesin from Benue when you cannot speak dey language o”. Then little Miss Chief would barge into my head and tell me to give a sassy response in Yoruba, the Lagos language that I was proficient in. She would say “look at this one with his missing teeth, feeling like the gate keeper of Benue State. Go and close the gate in your mouth before you come and start closing the gate of Benue to us”. I would really consider saying all that in Yoruba, just to show him my expertise in another language, and enjoy the look on his face. But the naughty giggles Lil Miss Chief and I traded in my head, would give me so much satisfaction; knowing that no matter how skilled he was in Idoma, he wasn’t smart enough to match my innocent countenance to the roast I had just made of him in my head. And that was my super power!

In a country as culturally diverse as Nigeria, often, language is a simple way of identifying a person’s ancestral origin. Before or after English, many people spoke the native language of their parents, and it sealed their identity as Yoruba, Idoma, Igbo or any other of the 250+ ethnic groups in Nigeria. Generally, most people learned the language from parents who spoke it at home or acquired it environmentally by living in a state where it was spoken.

But we never lived in Benue State and our parents only spoke English to us. English was also the language of education at school. So Yoruba being the native language of Lagos State, was the one I acquired environmentally. But with a last name like ‘Idoko’, commonly shared by Idomas, Igbos and Igalas, I could never fit in the Yoruba identity spectrum, despite my language skills. As such, there was technically no category for the identity of we non-ancestral language speaking unfortunate souls.

And therein lies the dilemma of a domestic Third Culture Kid. One who neither grows up or acquires language in the state they were born in, nor the state of their parents’ origin, but acquires culture and language from a 3rd state. Basically, we had ties in many places, but were tied to none. Even so, why were we expected to trade such a colorfully diverse and enriching part of our identity for the monolithic experience of being from just one place?

Now here I am, at a US-American independence Day celebration, not as a guest, but as a US-American host, born in Nigeria and lived in many countries around the world. Places where significant chapters of my life’s story have, and continue to be written. Like a floating tree, our roots are not planted in one location, but our branches extend far across borders, dropping seeds from our hearts and bearing fruit from our experiences, around the globe. And what is life, but a collection of experiences. So being asked to pick one place, to me, is being asked to rip out several pages in the book of me. It’s being asked to ignore all the relationships, cultures, languages and experiences I’ve acquired from so many other places. These have made me who I am and trading them for the convenience of a short answer, to me, is experiential injustice.

So I sip my orange juice thinking, you know what, I’ve managed to carry my self with the elegance of a flightless bird all evening, so I’m just going to let it go, and enjoy the eyebrow show I’m about to witness. “So by where are you from, erm… do you mean where I was born? Or where I live now? Or where I last moved from? You know, what would you like to know specifically? Because the answers are all different” I said. He then gave a smile that sent his eyebrows high and far away from each other. He hugged his glass with both hands as if trying to warm himself with a hot cup of coffee on a cold morning. 

Then his eyebrows slowly descended for a meeting in the middle of his forehead, before he said “Oh, I mean, where is home?” “Hmm… Home? According to Peter Pan, home is not where you come from, it’s where you make it” I said. Then I sipped my juice again, smiling with one side of my face, letting him digest those words of wisdom. He slowly nodded and smiled warmly. I almost winked at him in pride. That kind of wink that comes with a tilted head nod and an open mouth smile. The type you give your spouse when you’ve just dropped a science fact on them. But Lil Miss Chief told me to act professional. So I eloquently added, “So does that mean I’m from Morocco? Because this is where home has been for my family and I, for the last 2 years. Before this, home was about 5 different countries, where we added new layers of bricks to the forever homes we carry in our hearts.”

He looked at me in a soul searching way and his eye brows must have ended their meeting, because they now shook hands and slowly parted as he smiled saying, “you have just summarized my life experience! I was born in Morocco, schooled in France and became a French citizen. France is the life I know. The culture I most identify with. The language I speak with the least effort. But to some French, I am Moroccan. And to some Moroccans, I am French. To me, I am both. But when I enter a debate about French politics, some French tell me to go home and complain about my government in Morocco. When I enter a debate about Moroccan politics, some Moroccans tell me I have no right to speak about the government, when I pay my taxes in France. When asked where I’m from, if I say France, people say I don’t look French. If I say Morocco, they say my accent is not Moroccan. If I say I’m Moroccan-French some even say, I wasn’t born in France and that title is only for French-born citizens with Moroccan born parents. I honestly don’t like that question, either. It makes me feel the need to belong somewhere, yet with each attempt, I see how impossible that is.”

I wanted to hug him. I didn’t. I just smiled and looked around to find that the lawn was almost empty at this point. Then I sipped the last bit of my orange juice, shook his hand real tight, said “it was a pleasure talking to you!” And I ostritch-walked away.

It took a while, but I finally did it. I discovered the phrase that best describes me. Who’s next? I need someone to ask me “where are you from?”. After many years of stumbling, I now know my lines. I just wish I could have my audience all sit in together on my next performance: I’m Nigerian by birth, American by nationality and Global by heart!