My mother taught me that silence is a virtue in my culture. A respectful Nigerian-American Igbo girl is seen but not heard. I remember times when curious guests in our home would ask how school was going. If I answered with more than the expected “good”, my mother would dart a glare at me, face tense and lips pursed, willing me to stop speaking and excuse myself from the room. I learned early to not only become silent, but inconspicuous, even in the face of immense pain and abuse. 

I knew at a young age that my mother did not plan to become pregnant with me. Her pregnancy was a circumstance of her marriage to my father. My mother, Joy, was the 5th born of 7 children and 3rd of 4 daughters. She often exclaimed in sadness that she was the only arranged marriage among her siblings, though the first to leave Nigeria for the coveted United States of America. She was 16 or 17 years old when she arrived in the US; a petite, fair-skinned, beautiful woman with prominent cheekbones and personality. At 5 feet 5 inches, she towered mulishly over my 5 foot father; a forgettable, dark-skinned nerd with beady eyes.They were oil and water; an unsuited pair. Yet, at age 19, my mother found herself pregnant. Trying to find her way into career success on a new continent, she was alone with a husband who was determined to have a submissive housewife. By the time I was 2 years old, they were separated. 

She regularly detailed the trauma she endured because of my father: how she was physically and emotionally abused and forced to live in squalor in American housing projects, constantly fearing deportation for years because of the precarious filings of her immigration paperwork and falsely reported legal wrongdoings; how she faced increasing isolation from the surrounding Nigerian community because of the gossip about her divorce. 

My mother was a child forced to grow up quickly and brutally. The few people in the community who supported her revered her for her perseverance and eventual successes. She became a registered nurse (a coveted position among Nigerians for its respectability, attainability, and a source of economic stability). She bought a house in America and financially supported her family in Nigeria. Above all, she raised her daughters as a single mother. My sister (born of a second, failed marriage) and I always had immaculately braided hair, nice clothing, were well fed, and attended the best public schools available. My mother had survived and thrived, by all standards. 

At every Nigerian party I attended growing up, they played the highlife classic, “Sweet Mother” by Prince Nico Mbarga. The mothers in attendance would fix their jewel-adorned wrappas and steady their high-rising geles to gleam their 10 minutes of glory on the dancefloor; bending at the waist in rhythmic movements as the men showered dollar bills. I always sat behind the banquet hall table, dispassionate, watching my mother dance alongside the aunties. My only concern was ensuring my younger sister did not embarrass her all-female family unit by sitting with legs wide open, her PowerPuff panties showing while she ate plates of Jollof rice and fried plantain. Passively, I wished my mother were as sweet and nurturing as the song detailed. 

“If I no sleep, my mother no go sleep

If I no chop, my mother no go chop

She no dey tire ooo

Sweet mother,  I no go forget dey suffer wey you suffer for me yeh yeh”

My mother never let me forget that she, alone, raised me. With any small infraction (an unwashed cup in the sink or imperfectly ironed crease in her uniform trousers) she shouted loudly of my due gratitude for her kindness. The threat of parentlessness and homelessness was an ominous cloud that constantly loomed above me in my teenage years. “Just be respectful (hush) and everything will be okay,” my aunties and uncles would whisper to me as they left our home. But no matter how perfectly I tried to behave or how quiet I was, things were never okay. 

In my mother’s eyes, I was an operative of an enemy army, guilty of numerous war crimes. At ages 4-6, I was charged with espousing family secrets to curious aunties and uncles inquiring of my mother’s dating habits and, at age 7, was sentenced to live in Nigeria for over a year. At age 9, I was convicted of speaking on the phone to my estranged father and at age 12, sat in front of an actual judge and jury, detailing my father’s sexual abuse in the 2 years I spent living with him. My family life was an eggshell-trigger minefield I failed at navigating, yet to outsiders it seemed I was unscathed. By the time I was 14 years old, I had resolved to be a model Igbo girl and refrain from further shaming my mother; becoming withdrawn and, ultimately, socially invisible.

I was an exuberant writer as a pre-teen. I doodled made-up nursery rhymes and poems, wrote alternative endings to my favorite young adult novels, and shared spiral notebooks with coded music lyrics for my friends to translate rather than the traditional gossip “slam books.” Through all my early adversity, I found relief in writing. Around the time I pledged quietude, at age 14, my mother began a regular practice of ripping through my bedroom in anger, tearing secretly-acquired boy band posters off the walls, breaking meticulously recorded VHS tapes of said boy bands’ tv appearances, and shredding the notebooks with my writings. I quickly learned that my only refuge was inside the walls of my mind. Nothing tangible was safe, sacred, or my own. 

A muffled scream rose from the depths of my brain after years of being selectively mute. My mind was no longer a safe vessel, as it submerged in the false sanctuary of obsessive cleaning thoughts emersed only in violent nightmares of the worst of my childhood traumas.  In medical school, I attempted to control my unsteady mind by mounting meaningless compulsions atop the limitless literature I was presumed to memorize. I bleached my countertops, doorknobs, and light fixtures twice daily. I vacuumed as soon as I noticed the perfect diagonal lines on the carpet had disappeared from my constant ruminative pacing. I ensured I opened each set of window blinds at the exact same angle, allowing just enough light to enter but not enough for any passerby to witness me crying within. It wasn’t long before I gave in under the weight of it all. 

Failing classes, depressed, and near suicide, I was forced to speak up and ask for help. First, I called my mother detailing my despair and longing for lifelessness, but her only response was, “Suicide is a sin. Pray for God to help you.” That didn’t work. It was prolonged exposure therapy and medication that helped me regain the balance between my physical, mental, and emotional self. I felt alive, visible, and worthy, for the first time. I noticed the vastness of my beautiful, dark skin and began decorating it with taboo tattoos and piercings. I played with my facial features; accentuating and deemphasizing them with makeup, dying my hair and wearing wigs. I grew comfortable with the inflections of my voice, arguing about philosophy, politics, and sexuality in dingy bars. I began to openly question my identity as a Nigerian-American woman. 

*

I remember Igbo Evangelical churchgoers in my hometown in Florida laughing at a 20-something-year-old spry, newly immigrated man whose car had a Biafran flag license plate. I didn’t understand what was so comical about the gesture but attributed my misunderstanding to an Igbo joke I wasn’t privy to. I realize now that those elders were giggling in secondhand embarrassment (and fear). This was a small part of that man’s bold personality, but his inaudible cultural self-confidence and pride was uniquely memorable to me, more so than his name.

I am, in many ways, a culturally dichotomous person, which caused dissonance growing up. I am Black and American but not African-American. I am not a descendant of enslaved people. I am a Nigerian without a Nigerian passport. I am undeniably Igbo but felt the need to confirm the 98% certainty through a random over-the-counter DNA test. I had this pervasive, inescapable feeling that I had fallen from an ancient tree and was grasping at the lowest, greenest branches. I depended on the few Nigerians closest in proximity to teach me who I was. There was my beautiful-yet-vitriolic immigrant mother, who taught me to be enduringly ashamed of myself by screaming at every perceived wrongdoing. I learned very young  that Nigerian men, including family and religious community figures, were voracious sexual beings who I was to sit nowhere near or ever be alone with, though they were not to be labeled as predators. I deduced that other Nigerian women, even those who were nice and seemed sincere, were not to be trusted, as my mother spoke of “jealous” aunties who constantly gossiped about her because they wished their cooking was as good as hers or their skin as fair. Distant family in Nigeria were considered beggars for their continuous series of unfortunate events that could only be fixed by American dollars. I formed the rest of my identity as a Nigerian-American by eavesdropping on phone conversations and deciphering half-told adages by visiting elders. I knew violence, mistrust, and half-truths shrouded in imported beaded clothing smelling of egusi and ogbono couldn’t be the summation of my heritage.There had to be more.

*

I revived my passion for writing cautiously, concurrent to my increasing cultural curiosity. At first, I wrote paid online medical articles, scouring peer-reviewed journals for medical statistics and information about the Igbo people. Then, I spoke at local storytelling events of the instances that led me away from organized Western religion, and secretly sparked my interest in Odinani (Igbo spirituality). I published articles and, subsequently, a book detailing some of my childhood abuse, while diligently relearning how to speak, read, and write fluently in Igbo. I began to feel like an Igbo woman. I was rooted and my voice found its depth and echoed. Like the Igbo women I studied who organized the Women’s War of 1929, protesting the restriction of women in government under colonial rule, I felt the urge to use my ancestral heritage to prudently examine new diminutive norms. How could a tribe of people defined historically by maternal lineage and sisterhood become one where women were defined by subservience to men and distrust for one another? When did my people transition from communitarian justice for publicly-recognized wrongdoing to egoistic ideas of “that’s not my business”?  I want to become the modern day Madam Mary Okezie, weaving education, writing, and cultural reverence for change. 

As my modes of self-expression expanded, the familiar rumblings of disapproval rang around me. Maternal family smiled uneasily and congratulated their Dr. Ekeanya for her newfound emotional growth and freedom but hinted worriedly at what other people (Nigerians) might think. “Has your mother said anything to you about your book?” a cousin inquired. “Why must you make family issues public?” an auntie asked rhetorically. A beloved great uncle, who often saved me from sudden homelessness and financial ruin at the hands of my mother during my adolescent and young adult years, refused to speak to me, stating he was remaining neutral. My younger sister gradually evaded conversation and visits so as to not be too closely associated with me. Though no one in my family challenged my accounts of my chaotic childhood and abuse, they increasingly distanced themselves from me. It surprised me. I had never felt emotionally close to my family, but I believed they would intrinsically always be present for me. I am a branch of an extensive family tree whose ancestors can be traced back to the beginning of time. I am no celebrity, but villages of people I have never met know my name and remember my birth. Above all, as a first-generation Nigerian-American, I had accomplished all the life achievements asked of me: respecting my parent(s), completing my education to become a physician, marrying into an honorable family at a “reasonable” age, and bearing a male child. I never considered frank family discussions and forthright writings would make me worthy of outcasting. 

Mournfully pacing around the patio furniture in my backyard one day while talking about my family situation on the phone to a friend, she chided, “You know, that generation of Igbos (our parents) are carrying trauma from the Biafran war.” It made me think. She was right. My mother was born a year after the civil war in Nigeria began. As a child, I passively heard relatives speak of the starvation they endured and years of paternal absence and fear, but they never discussed the war openly. Since 1970, Igbos have sought to leave Nigeria and the tribal pain behind. Every Igbo person I knew growing up had an English first name they were raised answering, saving their ethnic middle name for relatives. Most of our parents never made an effort to teach us our language, opting for Western educational accolades instead. Nigeria was a place we were taught we were from, sometimes visited, threatened to be abandoned in, but were not bound to. In talking to other first-generation Igbo-American friends, I was comforted in the realization I was not the only one disillusioned.

Following the 2023 Nigerian presidential elections, for the first time in my life, I witnessed Igbo youth speaking out about the continued discrimination and hardship they have endured. People tweet frequently now about the long practice of being denied housing, transportation, and other necessities for having Igbo names or even Igbo-appearing facial features. Reports of missing and murdered Igbo men and those falsely accused of crimes and imprisoned are met with uproar. Formerly forbidden discussions about the attempted decimation of our ethnic group and the acquiescence of our parents are no longer met with resounding comments of “complaining.” There is a new, resounding call for the economic development of southeastern Nigeria, where most Igbos are located, if not a Biafran countrystate. Quietly, in a nondescript suburb in the midwestern United States, I fight abusive ideals labeled as my culture, through writing other artistic media. I still sometimes find myself feeling alienated. I log into virtual spaces and listen to strangers speak in Igbo for a sense of home. I wish my husband and in-laws shared my cravings for Nigerian food. Even with this, I have a newfound pride and understanding of what it means to be Igbo and I know that silence is not a virtue of my culture.

About the Author:

Dr. Nora Ekeanya (Nora Nneka) is a board certified adult psychiatrist, writer, and multidisciplinary artist. Nora began publicly writing with articles detailing her experiences as a Black physician and has been published in the popular physician blog, KevinMD. Her first visual poem, Identity, won 2nd place at the Queens Underground International Black and Brown Film Festival in October 2021. Her essay, Sense of Touch, won Isele magazine’s inaugural Isele Prize for nonfiction in 2022. In October 2022, she self-published her first chapbook, Swallowed Words, after being shortlisted for C&R Press’ Summer Tide Pool Chapbook Awards in 2021. She has been featured in The Pitch KC and The Kansas City Defender.

*Feature image by LT Ngema on Unsplash