A Discussion on Immigration and Culture with a Nigerian-American Woman

Interviewee: Ezinne Ugwu

Interview Date: October 28, 2019

Place: Enterprise Plaza (patio)

Interviewer: Cassandra Casados

Transcriber: Cassandra Casados

Keywords: Nigerian-American, American, passport, college, Houston, community, Igbo, food

I will discuss the effects of family ties and education on immigrant identity through the understanding of identity gained in discussion with Ezinne Ugwu.

The immigrant is a person of movement, one who brings their origins and experiences with them. Legal barriers may bar their physical journey between multiple spaces, but this does not affect their pride nor shallow their understanding of their own origins either through personal experience or through those of their families. What becomes critical to our discussion are the ways Ezinne Ugwu processes the evolution of her own identity as a dual citizen who is an African immigrant and the importance of cultural transmission to her children. She emphasizes various cultural aspects such as food and the importance of family connection through travel and education of her children. Her name means good mother in Igbo.

David Livingstone’s ‘Three C’s,’ which were motivations for colonialism, are commerce, civilization and Christianization. Livingstone was a missionary and explorer. There were many figures similar to him who expressed the richness of the African continent through letters and reports which were sent back to their country of origin. In this way, Western nations were able to gain an understanding of the resources which the African continent had to offer, including precious metals and stones, timber, and land. While we cannot blame colonialism for all issues, we can find its lingering touch in more recent events and phenomena such as decolonization and neo-colonialism. Nigeria’s independence from Britain was a 10-year process; from 1953 to 1963 Nigeria went through stages of gaining their independence. It was largely covered by the West as a success story, and “many expect[ed] it to become the foremost Negro state on the continent,” because of it.

Ezinne Ugwu is a Nigerian-American woman with dual citizenship, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1980s, with much of her life having been spent in Nigeria. There is a narrative of back and forth travel in Ezinne’s life. Her father was given a Commonwealth Scholarship to study abroad. The family went first to the University of Toronto and then to the University of Pittsburgh, where Ezinne was born. Her education was in Nigerian school systems, some public and some private. She moved back to the United States in 2002 with her husband and first child. Today, she lives in Houston and works at Total Petrochemicals, a French oil company, as an accountant. Her husband is a professor of Criminal Law at the University of Houston – Downtown. She and her husband are of the Igbo ethnicity and all four of their children, though they understand the language, do not speak Igbo. Ezinne’s mother is a naturalized American citizen, and her father is currently in the process.

The Commonwealth scholarship is available to subjects of the Commonwealth — ex-British colonies. There are currently 46 member governments, including Nigeria. The scholarships available to Nigerian citizens range from medical staff education to PhD and postdoctoral research. The range of scholarships available depend on the status of the country; Nigeria currently qualifies for scholarships for “least developed countries and fragile states,” and “low- and middle-income countries.” The scholarships were created to promote unity within the Commonwealth but have become a way to help developing nations through higher academic opportunities within a Western accepted sphere of academia. This is a reminder of the creation of an African elite which came from missionary schools. While aid to Africa is today thought of in the form of foodstuff and medical aid, it also comes in the form of education, or civilization. The Pan-African Movement is largely the product of the Western-educated African elite. The integration of African people in academia came before that of African Americans in the United States. Many Pan-African leaders in Africa were taught in American schools, such as Azikiwe Nnamdi, the first president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; Nnamdi also attended the University of Pennsylvania and was influenced by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Marcus Garvey.

Compared to the American population, Nigerian immigrants have an all around higher level of educational attainment. According to Migration Policy Institute, 29 percent of Nigerian immigrants aged 25 and hold a masters degree or PhD, in comparison to 11 percent of the overall American population. In relation to positive correlation between educational attainment and earning potential, the median income of Nigerian immigrant households is 2,000 USD more than that of U.S. households. However, Nigerian immigrant households are still “no more likely than other U.S. households to be in the highest quartile or decile of the U.S. income distribution.” This disparity demonstrates the additional efforts that professional immigrants to the U.S. may undertake to be competitive when looking for jobs.

After moving to the U.S., Ezinne and her husband both re-entered school, because they understood that American companies would more easily accept credentials from American schools and so it was important for them to obtain degrees from those establishments. “People are going to go with the known commodity, right?” Ezinne’s experiences speak to this. Her father and husband hold American PhDs along with their Nigerian degrees and Ezinne herself holds a degree in both Nigeria and the U.S. . “Nigerians, when they come here, they’re focused on studying or making a living somehow… You left the country with all the challenges to come here for a better life. You don’t squander that life doing stupid things. When most people come here, first two or three years, they go to school, they get a job, and voila...’ ” Despite this, Ezinne still does not see the American degrees as a necessity to obtain a job, just as a way to be more competitive in a different environment.

After speaking with Ezinne, I was left with the impression that though there are some issues, Nigeria is home. Why leave a country so amazing? For the opportunity, yes, but why not return? The answer may lie in what wasn’t said. We assume that people come to the United States for pull factors such as education, and job opportunity or push factors such as religious or ethnic persecution.

The movement which characterizes Ezinne is part of a larger narrative of movement to and from the African Continent. Since 1990, the net migration of Nigeria has been in the negatives. Between 2010 and 2018 there is a -300 thousand net migration of people. Clearly Ezinne is not the only one with goals of emigration. The largest boom of Nigerian immigrants in the U.S. is in the 1980s. In 1980 there were 25 thousand Nigerian immigrants in the U.S. and 55 thousand by 1990; there is no available information for Nigerian immigrants in the U.S. before 1980.

As an American citizen by birth and a Nigerian citizen via her parent’s status’ as Nigerians, she sees that a strategic use of those status’ is beneficial when traveling between the two countries and beyond. Her connection to her self-proclaimed ‘home’ is largely a construct by her parents. When asking about travel, Ezinne has only traveled outside of Nigeria in her married life. “… it was always my dad’s plan that we would take advantage of what those countries had to offer… the purpose of moving back [to Nigeria], at least the way my dad saw it, was to be immersed in your culture.”

It is apparent that Ezinne is rooted in Nigeria via her family. She calls home once a week, using Whatsapp. More than one billion people use Whatsapp, according to the company website, in over 180 countries. The app has become the tool of immigrants. Some cellular service providers add free international calling for certain countries, but using cellular calls can still be expensive, especially to overseas countries. Families who split up and live in different areas, such as Ezinne’s, have found Whatsapp to be a helpful and useful alternative to cell phone calls and charges, to stay connected. “You can have family internationally. In the past, before Whatsapp,” Ezinne said, holding up her phone, “we would have to buy minutes to be able to make an international call, and it was expensive! Now it’s easier.”

Family has framed Ezinne’s definition of home. Many older people buy a house where they plan to retire, which is often where they grew up. Though both her husband and her parents own homes in Nigeria, Ezinne, shockingly, does not plan to retire there. “… now that I have all of my kids here,” she pondered, “I’ll be where my family, well, where my kids are.” In this way she is similar to her parents. Ezinne and her brother live in the U.S., and Ezinne has recently filed for her father’s citizenship, as her mother already has hers. Though she cites this decision as a way around the possible instability of current immigrant relations in the U.S., it speaks to a larger choice about family. That it is not the citizenship which matters, or where you spend your time, but where your family is.

The decision to come to the U.S. was not economic or asylum based; it was one of a prophecy becoming realized. Her plan, handed down by her father, was to come to the U.S. after graduating college. Even so, the problem remained of where the newlyweds and their first-born would move within the U.S.. This too had narrowed options as Ezinne says, “that was the only consideration—where we had family. That’s why we moved to Houston.” Their only two options were Maryland -because Ezinne has an aunt there- and Houston -because Ezinne’s husband’s family lived there. In the end they chose Houston and lived with her husband’s family for a couple of months before the two returned to school and got jobs. Coincidentally, the largest Nigerian populations in the U.S. are in Texas, Maryland and New York.

After doing only minimal research on the history of Nigeria, I understood that getting Ezinne’s perspective on the Biafran war would be essential to understanding both her identity and the modern history of Nigeria as she and her husband are both Igbo. In Nigeria there are three main ethnic groups. They are the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo. During the government transition period, the three groups had three distinct political parties and operated as separate states, similar to the British governmental structure. Because the Hausa had the largest population, when the three groups came together after independence from Britain, they gained the most power in the government. In 1963, Nnamdi was elected President. Nnamdi was from the Eastern portion of Nigeria, which is predominantly Igbo. From 1967 to 1970, Biafra- the Igbo portion of the country- seceded and was then attacked by the remaining country led by, then, President Gowon. One million died in the fighting, and many Nigerian writers have compared the killing of Biafran secessionists to that of the Jewish people in the Holocaust.

When asking Ezinne about Biafra, I asked mainly for clarification on the Igbo and Biafran identities and their relationship from her perspective. This lead to the most animated portion of the interview wherein Ezinne explained the host of differences between the ethnic groups, including language, history and even food. She explained the inequality against the Igbo people in political representation despite their being an economic force of the country, as their land is used for oil production.

“The oil is drilled in the East, so the resources and power of that country come from your side of the country. You have the economic wealth of the country and you have no power.”

The Biafran movement continues today. According to Amnesty International, between August 2015 and August 2016 there were “at least 150 deaths,” of pro-Biafra protesters by Nigerian security forces. “By far the largest number of pro-Biafra activists were killed on Biafra Remembrance Day on 30 May 2016 when an estimated 1,000 [Indigenous People of Biafra] members and supporters gathered for a rally in Onitsha, Anambra State. The night before the rally, the security forces raided homes and a church where IPOB members were sleeping.”

Africanness in the United States. “When I’m talking to a non-African it’s okay to just identify as an African, but in the African community, by all means, I want to be identified as a Nigerian and even in the Nigerian community, I want to be identified as Igbo.”

Notes

Photos used are taken from - https://biafran.org/biafra-maps/ . You can reach the site by clicking on any of the photos.

Bibliography

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