So where are you from? (Part 1)

Disclaimer: People have been asking for this post, and I was reluctant to write it. I felt that my ethnic background, and what I aim to achieve with this blog, are totally separate entities and therefore irrelevant. I don’t want to take away from the discourse, but in the end I was convinced to go ahead and write it, to give people an insight as to what shaped my decision to come to Nigeria.

Gorgeous eyes

So I will just say this. Part of the problem with race is that it also forces people to have perceived notions of you, sometimes right, and sometimes wrong, solely based on appearance. The truth is that none of these classifications should matter at all, since humans have been migrating and interbreeding for millennia, and genetics are an insane thing. But this is a long political argument, and not one that I want to have, so, to my main point.

What?

It shouldn't be surprising (but it can be), that although I don't always talk about my ethnic background, I’m Nigerian. My last name is a clearly Nigerian name (in full, not the abbreviation I sometimes use). That awkward pause during role call in school always had me raising my hand to help the teacher out… "that’s me". In college I remember being so impressed when my Anthropology professor recognized my last name. The point is it’s not really something I can hide. And if you've ever asked me where my last name is from, I tell you.

I don't talk about it, not because I am ashamed of it, but because it just doesn't seem to be that important to me. I know of the preconceived notions people can have and I wanted to be known and judged on my own merit, so, I only bring it up only if necessary. Also, this brings into question other issues. I am “Nigerian” by blood, but I have never felt particularly Nigerian, and culturally, I am not. So that’s a whole different complicated issue. But then again, I am a complicated person. I have spent a good majority of my life outside of Nigeria, with not particularly typical traditional Nigerian parents, so that helps. But I also, don’t really identify as American either. Read more about third culture kids.

So now you’re thinking, Nigerian? But you have light skin, hazel eyes and brown hair. This is where challenging preconceived notions come in. Not all Africans are dark. Some are in fact White (aha! -South Africans). Some slaves were able to return a few centuries ago and intermarry, and they were lighter thanks to intermingling with slave masters. Many of the colonialists, and even people who arrived prior to them, married or had children with local women and left behind lighter offspring.

light-skinned African

But since many people have predefined notions of Africans and blackness, I have been assumed to be Hispanic (people coming up to me speaking in Spanish in NYC used to freak me out), Caribbean (thanks Rihanna), Louisiana Creole (thanks Beyoncé) or Biracial, but almost never Nigerian.  Sometimes I just get asked "what are ya?" (Thanks hillbilly South) to which I answer "Human." (Hopefully you know why this is a stupid question).

So where did the light skin and hazel eyes come from?  I feel like I still need to explain the chunks floating in my stew so to speak, since everyone – Nigerian and non-Nigerian alike- keep insisting there must be something I am not telling. Well I know and I don't know. My parents are both darker than I am, yet my sister and I have light skin and hazel eyes, while my middle sister, same mom and dad, is about the same shade as my parents.

My family

OK so I guess I should first try to explain my family history. My mother is 100% Nigerian. She grew up in an upper middle class family. Her dad went to school in London, which way back then was a big deal. She attended Secondary (middle and high school to Americans) school run by British Nuns. For some of her vacations she would go to London. Therefore she didn't grow up like the average Nigerian in her day. She was actually supposed to move to London after she graduated from college for graduate school, but she met a handsome young diplomat, and they moved to Spain instead.

That diplomat was my father. Ok, so my father was born to a Nigerian father and an American mother in Syracuse, New York. His parents met while his dad was in college in the States. They fell in love and were married there. Then they left the States at first for London, but eventually moved back to Nigeria. You see back then Nigeria was newly independent and corruption had not yet hit. Meanwhile in the US at the time he barely had any rights at all as a black man. In Nigeria he could live like a first class citizen with his wife,  he becomes a professor at a prestigious university (Nsukka), his wife owns a successful travel agency and live happily.

My father and his siblings were privileged enough to be able to visit their American grandparents often, and have their cousins visit them here as well. My dad even started college in the US but he hated it. It was smack dab in the middle of the civil rights movement and after growing up in a country where he was revered being a second class citizen didn’t seem so appealing, so he withdrew from University of Michigan to study at the University of Ife. And the rest they say is history.

My parents aren't super light

He met my mother at a party and they were soon going strong. They both studied law, but he decided to become a diplomat. They were married and eventually ended up in Spain. Then they moved to Turkey, and their first child was born, me. 

Baby me

 I don’t think they were expecting a particularly light baby, much less one with bright hazel eyes. My mom says the Turkish doctors actually gave me shots to “change my color” and people came to ooh and ah at the “white baby” born to black parents. Then my middle sister was born and she "normal". Then there was more controversy when my baby sister came out even lighter than I had been, and something about blood tests to confirm my parents were actually her parents were involved.

Us three... the 80s, That hair

Ah some might say, "oh, well your father’s mother must be white right? That would explain everything". She’s not. We have to go all the way back to my great-grandparents, to find anyone White in the family. My great-grandfather (American side) is pretty dark. But his wife was either white (or passing which is more likely). From what I know, my sister and I can thank her for our hazel eyes. But that’s not really enough to explain it all.

<<End of Part One Here - Stay tuned for Part Two>>