A little over a month ago, after watching an episode of Bob Hearts Abishola, my older daughter and I went into a conversation about Generation 1.5 of African immigrants in the US, that is, those whose parents (the .5) were born in another country. (By the way, the show is worth watching for the generally sensitive way--Uncle and Aunti often come close to the edge--it makes fun of the pressure of alienation, assimilation, and other matters of precarious immigrant life. The Yorùbá code-mixing is consistently good, and the same goes for the English subtitling. The near total exclusion of racism is troubling, I must admit. But this is not a full review of Bob Hearts Abishola.)
The episode I am referring to here deals with the unnoticed considerable stress that the very young Délé (Travis Wolfe, Jr) suffers internally from the extent he goes to conceal his talents and interests in choreography from his mother who seems hell bent on shoehorning the boy’s future into a life in lucrative medical practice. Medicine or nothing!
The discussion with my daughter turns towards immigrant parenting. I reminded her of how I used to tell (more appropriately: ask without waiting for an answer) her and her siblings “you know we love you dearly, even if we don’t say it”? She smiled. After all, she’s still a “well brought up” Nigerian, her PhD notwithstanding! But she said something that I was not expecting: “And you guys don’t wonder why many immigrant kids have issues despite their successes?”
I could not answer her right away. I am writing and posting this a month after that conversation. The gist of her question, I came to convince myself, is that African immigrant parents are proud of the outward, professional accomplishment of their kids but fail to pause for a moment and ask, “at what cost?” The question is about why we never stopped to ask them how they feel? We are proud of them. Duh. The whole world knows. College admissions officers know. Even the US Census Bureau knows we are. But are they proud of themselves the way we do? The question I could not answer makes me wonder why my generation finds it difficult to express feelings genuinely. I still have no answer. But I have started questioning myself.
I shall take the opportunity of this era of social distancing to ask: Ọmọ́táyọ̀, how do you feel? Bọ́lájí, how do you feel? Diméjì, how do you feel? Ọmọ́tárá, how do you feel? I should also ask Táyé, how do you feel. I love each and every one of you! There, I wrote it.
I know all the kids are laughing at me now telling themselves, we’ll know when he says it. Họ́wú. Guys, let’s take it one step at a time!
Go ask your own generation 1.5 migrant, how do you feel?
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