In the New Diaspora

Maik Nwosu

One of the questions that I get asked – on both sides of the Atlantic – is “Why are you going to Nigeria” or “Why are you coming to Nigeria?” As if the fact that Nigeria is my home country is not reason enough. The question gets asked in America (the US) not only because of the travel cost but also because of the way in which distance amplifies all the sad stories about Nigeria, such that going to Nigeria sounds like a descent into hell. In Nigeria, the question is sometimes asked because some people don’t seem to understand why anyone living in America would visit often. Today, many Nigerians of course know that America is no paradise, if it ever was, but the fiction persists nevertheless. That fiction about America is a line of escape charted by the imagination. The possibility that there could be better spheres within our world lessens the bleakness of our mortal universe. Besides, with its dream factories such as Hollywood, America isn’t necessarily a better world but a hyperbole that revolves around image and spirit. And this is in part why it probably has the largest number of diasporas in the world – including the new African diaspora that goes back to the twentieth century. There are those who argue that the voluntary migration of people does not qualify as a diaspora, but that is an argument we will leave for another time.
This new diaspora, from New York to Los Angeles, teems with African migrants who have come to the so-called “new world” mostly in search of opportunities. There are the success stories, of course, but for many America only turns out to be the beginning of another kind of search, this time involving a journey into the self. If I call a cab from my apartment in Denver, it is almost certain that the cabdriver will be someone from North Africa. If I see Africans mopping floors at the Denver airport, many of them are likely to be East Africans. And if I hear of African conmen busted somewhere in the US, many of those arrested or cited are likely to be West Africans – Nigerians in particular. Not only are Africans pouring into the US, they seem to be creating niches. One of those niches is in healthcare delivery. Many Africans who can’t become doctors, because of qualification criteria or other considerations, hurry to become registered nurses or medical assistants. Not only is a diaspora mapped by movement and memory, labor and profit are often important calculations. But, regardless of their status in the US, many of these Africans make comparable interior journeys and often speak passionately about the same thing: their lives on the margins or in the nothingness of America. When I was in hospital recently, my Ghanaian nurse kept saying “You know how they are” every time she spoke about the white doctors and nurses. It was an apt pointer to that sense of “how they are” and “how we are” that America reinforces.
Meanwhile, the motive that drove many of these migrants to America in the first place, to make money and live a better life, remains rather unfulfilled. Many live in greater comfort than they were used to in Africa, but there are too many forces that work against their becoming wealthy in America – the lean paychecks, the sizeable tax deductions, the bills for everything, the seductive credit cards, the plethora of emails and phone calls from home that necessitate a journey to the Western Union Money Transfer centres. According to a recent BBC news report on African migration, migrants sent back home billions of US dollars in 2006. In one sense, the exodus out of Africa to America (and to Europe and Asia) has created an economic corridor of sorts between Africans at home and Africans abroad, a corridor marked both by ghost stories and haunting pain. Behind almost every dollar or euro or yen that makes that crossing, there is an untold story of sacrifice. So, gradually, many of those who left Africa hoping to return soon begin to rethink their plans. Going home once in three or five years becomes a substitute for a permanent return. For those whose children grow up in America, it is even harder.
But those at home still count those who left better off, regardless. And they are not altogether wrong. Living in the poorest state in America – Mississippi, according to the US Census Bureau – probably provides easier and more even access to a better living standard than living in Africa’s richest state. Travelling also opens up the world in a personal way and enriches our humanity, hopefully. In the world of the day after being signaled by all the talk about globalisation, it will be less uncommon for people to live and work in more than one or two continents, and perhaps that will aid greater understanding between people and nations. But, sometimes, the farther we travel, the wider the world becomes. And it is important then to maintain a rooted sense of home. Which is why many of the Africans who have come to terms with the fact that they will never fully live in Africa again do not wholly let go of their connection to their home countries. Because they know that it takes more than the colour of a passport to belong to a country. Because they know that, in this lifetime, Africa will always be their home continent – whether they return or not.