Dr. Oji utilizes personal narrative and the collective narrative of Nigerian immigrants to call into question the agency of first and second generation Nigerian in the US. He addresses why Nigerians seek to come to America, stating that America is projected as “Heaven on Earth” through a multitude of propagating western media outlets. The reality, however presents limited self-actualization due to discriminatory policies that favor Americans.

The culture shock of coming to America and the difficulties of assimilation are the focus of much of his literary work.  This is illustrated in the valued ethics in each culture. American sentiments discourage an overt display of discipline, whereas various African cultures view discipline as a community affair, to be meted out promptly. The suggestion that a child would call child protective service on a parent is a ludicrous notion that did not resonate with Dr.Oji.  The disconnect and isolation that is felt by African immigrants derives from the stronger interpersonal relationships in African communities.

The first and second generation individuals tend to embody a bi-cultural identity and endure culture conflict. Dr.Oji contends that children of African parents, are perceived by the general population as African-American and can identify with the larger population of African- American . At home, however, they prescribe to elements of African culture. Due to this shared experience, Oji advocates first generation Africans to consolidate their experiences and push for way to reform existing political infrastructures that deter progress, both at home in America and in Nigeria.  For Nigeria, he hopes for the reform of a failed democracy, the translation of natural resources into community wealth, and the amelioration of the socio-political problems derived from the incongruence.

Hi everyone, my name is Kalo Oju, and I’m originally from Nigeria. Nigeria is in the western part of Africa and I’ve been in the US since 2005. I’m one of the lucky ones that came in through the Diversity program. So many Americans know next to nothing about it, but it’s one of the ways, I believe, that’s my own understanding of it that America provided a means for immigrants to come here from countries all over the world. You know, to come into the U.S. And also–  I don’t know if this is right– to help do some of the jobs that other Americans are not doing. Maybe my own personal opinion,I don’t know about the opinions of others.When I left Nigeria, I had just my Bachelors. Then came to the U.S. I got here in the U.S.—I came with my wife.  But thank God today that it’s no longer myself and my wife alone. We have four kids: two boys and two girls. I’m also a minister of a gospel. And I’m a pastor.

Becoming Marketable

When I came in from the U.S., I found out after two years that for me to make myself kind of marketable, I have to reeducate myself. I graduated from the University of Kalaba back in Nigeria, and I read sociology, but I had to go back to school, and I was working with a program in Germantown, and I discovered that unless I reeducate myself, I’m not going to climb the job ladder in the U.S. And when I came into the U.S., I already had my preconceived notions. I had my expectations of what I wanted because back in Africa, even though most of us don’t like to talk about it, we already have a picture, an idea, of what we believe the U.S. is. And for us as Nigerians we believe that the United States is actually Heaven here on Earth. Until you get here. When you get here, you discover that things are completely different. You know, when some time ago, when you get into some parts of South Philadelphia there are some other parts in North Philadelphia that you get into. You keep asking yourself “never ??? like this” looking at the U.S. there are certain places you go to where you will think you are back in Lagos, but that’s beside the point. So, from the moment we stepped into the United States, everything, the preconceived notions, the ideas that I had started changing.

                                     

Cultural Barriers

Let me go back a little bit. I’m from the eastern part of Nigeria, and in my culture, as a man, you have certain responsibilities. Wherever you are you are taking care of others. Not just your immediate family, you are also thinking about your extended family. This has to do with culture. But here in the U.S. it’s completely different. It’s like, your repsonsibility is toward your immediate family, and after that, that’s it. But back in Africa it’s not like that. Every month, I am expected to send money back home, regardless of the kind of job I’m doing, Okay? And culturally, if I come into a place, I am expected based on cultural training and whatever, I am expected to say “hi” to whoever I meet. The first day I came downstairs in the apartment building that my sister was living in, you know? She was living there, and I came downstairs, I had no job then. I decided to take a walk, I came down and I saw some of the neighbors, and I said, “Good morning,” and everything, and I was ignored. everybody ignored me. That was the first shock for me. I went back upstairs, my wife was there she was asking me why are you back. I told her “Listen, just let me be.” And I sat down for some time thinking about it. I started asking myself, “Are you sure you need to be here, or do you have to go back home. After graduating, after my Masters program, I started thinking about what I was going to write about. There were certain things that I experienced in my job. First of all, the issue of accent. It was a barrier for me to get anywhere to the point that when you are trying to explain something to somebody, the person is acting as if they are not hearing you, as if they are not understanding you. That’s a cultural barrier.

Managing Culture Shock

So I started thinking about that, and I said, you know what? My research is going to about culture shock. Managing culture shock and conflict. And I started looking at creating strategies where someone can not only survive but keep yourself focused on what you came here to do. We have situations where we come over here, so many of us have come here, and ended up not being productive. And another thing that encourages me is that I’m looking at young people that are here. Who are in school, who have a focus. So many of us Africans are not like that.  A whole lot of us are out in the street doing whatever they think is best for them. So when I started working on this paper,  I actually spoke to, I interviewed a certain number of people, bot too many there were about ten from different parts of Africa. And actually what got to me was this: so people, most everybody that I interviewed was talking about , while, even though we are here in the U.S., they are talking about assimilating certain parts of  Western culture, but not allowing it to take over the African Culture.

Fragmented African Society in America

The second generation, call them South African- Americans, call them Nigerian-Americans , Ghanaian-Americans, for them living what I call, you what I call a bi-cultural kind of life. In the sense that in their homes they are Africans. Outside, they are African-American. And that brings about a very serious culture conflict.  They don’t know where they can classify themselves.  You know, so, at the end of my research, what we decided to do- Actually that is what I came up with- is to start an organization. Because one other thing I need to talk about, is that Africans- The African community in the U.S. is fragmented. The South Africans have theirs, the Ghanaians have theirs, people from Guinea they have theirs. And the question is; why can’t Africans come together, set up an organization, that can speak on behalf of Africans. Why do we have to be so fragmented? There is a committee, you know, there is a commission that is set up by the mayor and I think that commission meet once every month. I’ve been to a couple of the meetings there and it is unfortunate to say that most people that are there are there for what they can get out of it. It is not about the good of everyone. It’s about what they can get out of it and for one I have pull out of it, but I still get their emails. But Africans need to come together, we need to develop what I call, you know, kind of, develop a workshop.

A workshop where  African culture, and the African-American culture,  and we can sit down discuss the differences between our cultures, the similarities between our cultures.

Discord within the Black Populations

Because one other thing I discovered is that, African-American believe that Africans are here to take what belongs to them. Which at times, I wonder how that is possible. I brought out paper work that I brought together, but I’m not even going to look at it. I’m just giving you bits and pieces of what I did and I us hope you guys are making some kind of sense out of what I’m saying right now. Africans need to come together.

The Realities of The African Populations in America

 We need to put aside what every differences we have back home, because back home we have differences. We need to put them aside and we need to begin to work together as a group, to find out what can I take back home from here. Am I here in the US to become completely apart from my people back home? We have cases of people who have been in the US for 30 years, and there is nothing to show for it.

Discord in Africa

Take a look at Africa today, there is a lot going on. There are so many problems going on. In all the countries we have Africa, there are very few that have strong democracies today. Everywhere you go, rebel movements are all over that place. People are on the run.  We see what is going on, we see what is happening in Syria. We just heard about happened in Paris. And this is going to continue, as long as it has started, it is not going to stop unless something drastic is done.

Dissatisfied Youth

We need to start thing about what we can do back home. That is the bottom line. What can we do as a people?  I know you guys are young folks. You are very young.  He is from the Niger Delta area, in Nigeria. And the bulk of Nigeria wealth is the Niger Delta Area but they are getting next to nothing. I don’t know whether you have heard about it, the eastern part of Nigeria, the youth there are thinking about taking up arms. We also have family back there. If they take up arms, how many people will be left at the end of the day?

Sensitization Is Key

What are we going to do? What can we do? I was talking with a professor friend of mine from Lincoln University, and he told me “look”, the only thing I can do is to help you sensitize. Sensitize. I will direct you on how to sensitize the youth back home. Sensitize them to understand that coming out of Nigeria. Leaving Nigeria is not the issue. We need to come back home together and build Nigeria as a Nation. What can we do to make sure that tomorrow, there are jobs there. What can we do to make sure that people eat every day. $2 can even… What I heard last time, I heard the last time is that $2 is about… I don’t know whether it is even called the minimum wage in Nigeria. In Nigeria it is about $2. And you can imagine what that is. You cannot live on $2. Just talking about Nigeria. I have not talked about Sudan. I have not talked about the Middle East. I have not talking about what is going on in Egypt, Libya, Somalia. These are war, war zones right now. How long is this going to continue? As the youth, what you people doing? What are you thinking about? You are safe right now, but when you go home, can you comfortable come out of your home,, but I can’t do it in Nigeria.

Insecurity

I went to Nigeria in 2013 I stayed in Lagos. For 2 weeks, I couldn’t go down…event to go down,, when I go down to Owerri. You know Owerri. I went to see my dad. I telling you that the whole time I visited, that I flew into Owerri, that they picked me up from Owerri, I went to see  my parents, in-laws, spent 15 minutes, saw my parent 15 mins, I so timed it, that if there was anybody that was planning anything, by the time they knew, I would be out of Owerri. That’s insecurity for you.

Cultural Shock and Assimilation

We talk about guns here in the US. If guns are made available to everybody back in Africa, you know, we would just, all of us would be dead. So what are we going to do? Back to culture shock. Every immigrant that comes into this place. Into the US, is going the face the issue of culture shock and conflict. Regardless of your culture, American culture is completely different. America is far advanced, that most us, you know, most of us in Africa. So there are certain things that I can take. Thank God, I have not laid hands on any of my kids, because I don’t what anybody to take my kids away. I’ve tried to talk to them and I have prayed a whole lot for them, because it doesn’t matter what you do at the age of, from around the age of 16,15,16,17, they are trying to find their own, trying to discover their own identity and they are going through a lot of things. But when we lay the correct foundation, they will be able to run with it. And this is again what I’m saying to us. What are going to take home? What are going to take home? The sky is your limit. America is country is country where you can achieve anything. You can be anybody you want to be, as long as you work hard. That’s about it. The issue of culture shock and culture conflict is actually what I consider the virgin territory. Nothing much has been done about it. Nothing much has been written about it. You know, I still intend to go more into it, write more about it. But we have to showcase what God has given to us. If we don’t, within the next 20 years, our culture will be dead. The way things are going; we need to maintain our culture. We are in the US but we still have to maintain our culture, remember our culture,. I’m not saying get into child abuse. We I told them about the kind of discipline I got as I was growing up, people were like “what”?! I said yes. But all you parent is trying to do is to make sure that you end up becoming somebody useful. If I had listened to half, or taken in half of what my dad was trying to teach me, I would have been a better person today and I saying, I’m just being honest, about it. You know. You can imagine… do we know what a razor blade is?  <Razor blade yeah, a razor blade> Do we? So can you imagine somebody using it to just cut your legs a little bit, to make you stay home all the time? That is discipline, but here it is child abuse. Try that on any child here and you are going to jail. So the most important thing is to look at our second generation that is here. So that they know where they are from. Most of us, who have been here for a long time, have not gone home. I know it takes a lot of costs.

Dreams of going home to Africa

Trying to set up proposal to send to Nigeria to set up Juvenile system. Someone just looked at me and told me don’t bother, just don’t bother. Just don’t waste your time.  It is not winning the war. Here in the US juveniles are not sent to correctional facilities they are set to juvenile detention centers. But, in Nigeria that is not the case. Doesn’t matter if you are 12, if you commit a crime you are probably waiting trail and that is for the prison system. Those are things that we need to change. These are things that I was talking about. What can we take home to improve what we have over there in Africa. It is not just about coming here and going to school doing what ever it is you need to do.  But what are you going to take home to change things over there. There are so many areas in Africa where the girls don’t go to school. So what can we, how can we change those things? , Western education that’s, when you get into western education that gives you some level of exposure, it gives you some level of knowledge and change. Change is your mind set. You start thinking differently, and until we get ourselves to the point where it becomes available to everyone back home things are not going to change. Things are not going to change. Thank god that female mutilation is no longer there, they are working on changing that. I saw your facial expression, the way she looks. But, that’s culture. Those are parts of our culture that needs to be changed. When you talk about it they tell you that there is room for it. And that is not right. Part of one of things that we regret we are doing, please don’t ignore us.

Home going from bad to good

There is a level of conflict, but at the same time having a western education doesn’t mean you have to carry off. Your cultural foundation in saying there are 7 things that we do as a group of people that we do that is no longer necessary today. Let me give you an example. I come from abrava. I bring back as a group of people in Nigeria in Eastern Nigeria. In Eastern Nigeria they are into trading. They do business and that is all they know. They both do legal and illegal business. The ones that I call Professional smugglers that is what they do. How ever, with education coming in so many people from my area have been able to go out and get their education and now are changing the kind of business that they do. They are moving away from smuggling and moving into manufacturing. Am I making any sense to you? There is a change that I study at my place. Now some of them are buying shares and bonds. That is the area they are also getting into. They are also getting into oil industry. It is no longer all about going to smuggle, illegal stuff and bringing them back. You know what I am saying? They are now looking at other areas of businesses. They are not doing business as a militant, someone who is uneducated. Doing business where now they have an influence, not just in their community.  But influence on the state as well as the nation itself.

Change over time

It is not going to happen in a day, it is going to take some time. But, it is about changing our mindset. When I came to the US, I came here all I had in my head is out to make myself prosper. But right now that is far from what I am thinking about. All I think about is what can I bring to Nigeria that will make a difference, not just in my community but also the state and country itself. I have proposals I have sent back, I am still waiting for the, but I have talked about this non-profit that we have here. Already registered one in Nigeria, it is just everyone willing to see their focus. But the issue now is those people who are trying to come out to leave Nigeria, what can we do to make them stay back. And those are already people outside. What can we do, cause if we stay back Africa will remain the way it is right now. Nothing is going to happen. But if we come back with what ever we have then we can help the place. I keep using Nigeria as an example, but I believe you know what is going in Nigeria and you know the type of democracy we have. And you know the when we talk about the house of revs you and I know that 90% of the people their are criminals. Lets be real. How long are they going to remain there? When is change ever going to come? And people are getting it right now. The ML he said that if Nigeria doesn’t stick together and decide how they can move forward Nigeria is going to break up. And it is not going to be funny. Somalia. Do you know what is going on in Somalia? It will be small compared to what can happen to Nigeria. Think about it. Think about other parts of Africa, look at what is going on in Sierra. South Africa, thank god for you guys. You guys, I mean your father and mother moved a lot of places.  Even though there are some parts of South Africa that still needs development. We just sit down and think of ourselves out here, there we will not be surprised that our families back home out there will be wiped out completely. There is no body in government that has kids not schooling. They are schooling abroad. Families are abroad

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