the failings of a surgically healed heart | a collection

4 | americanah

this is the paradox:

the homeland of my parents; a nation synonymous with a faith colonisers forced on them – is more obsessed with the decedents of west indie slave masters and british merchants. than they are with a god the ancestors of said countries "revealed" to them.

to the extent that upon hearing:

my aunts and uncles. 
mother and father. 
cousins and grandparents– 

talk about the west and all it has to offer. it is as if they are talking about a reimagined eden. (we were in made in god's image and so was the land, it seems).

as if, america and britain (2/3 of the atlantic slave trade) were the false idols my ancestors worshiped, before white missionaries came and saved/enslaved them. as if, the immigrant experience isn't one strife with -

difficulty. shame. regret.

even more so depending how obvious an "immigrant" you are.

translation: it doesn't matter how good your english is when your skin is as dark as your (peoples) history

yet, we pretend it is easy -
my parents included

despite not wanting to be here in the first place. yet stayed because my sickness demands to be treated like her royal highness (i guess you could say they were enslaved after all).

and so have continued this pretence for seventeen years. so good at acting i didn't realise it was all a (reality) show --

until my grandma, two aunts, uncle, three first cousins, and two, second cousins all crammed into our council house falling apart at the seams. over-heard my aunt complaining to my mama about how she wasn't given money by one (out of ten) of her brothers, who she visited in america and found myself very confused;

weeks later, after they all left our house in varying degrees of ecstasy (my aunt, fuming because my mum didn't led her a pair of shoes a size too-small for her feet).

my mother and i stood in our kitchen, freezing to death. winter in scotland bitter but the cost of heating our then hovel of a home even more so.

asked her about my aunt; her complaints, on a re-occurring loop, in my mind.

to which my mama said:

it is not that we have money or space or time you and i know this. (**she and my father fight about our savings a moment later, as if to remind me**) but there is so much guilt to be felt, if we do not (pretend to) appreciate this country. or do not give money when we do not  have it. you see, so many back home are tricked into thinking, once you are here all your problems are solved.

success is imminent – 
that is the truth, for (american) dreamers like my sister.

it is why so many boys return home with forgotten mother tongues and  white woman who they call their wives; it is why fools, like your father, sends his brother money in the thousands  yet turns off the hot water because it is too expensive; it is why i work two jobs, doing 12hr shifts (at least) six days a week. yet, have nothing to show for it.

- translation: the immigrant experience is a lonely one. and that is the only reality that exists