₦airaland Forum

yeah I could so relate to that.
I went to Nigeria when I was eight.
As soon as I got there, they all just looked at me kinda funny or whatever.
Then they would all kinda mock me in a weird way and they would talk about how I did my hair and the clothes I would wear and how I sounded funny.
But we were only supposed to stay there over the summer, but we ended up staying for six months and me and my mom came back just in time for Christmas.
Anyways, the whole time that I stayed there, I kinda adopted their customs and ways of doin things so when I had came back to the US I kinda had to readjust to everything back here and also explain why I had started to school here in the States like four months late.
Just being there had opened my eyes to a whole nother side of my ethnic background.
But just thinking about the whole thing about my family over there kinda saracastically making fun of the way I said things or the way I acted, it kinda makes me laugh!
But it was then that I realized that I'm not just an Amercian, but I'm also of Nigerian descent, so therefore that makes me a Nigerian.

Ooh
And you know what else I hate.
Like lets say that you was just prank callin 911 or whatever
They'll come to ya house as soon as you hang up the phone.
But when when you gotta actual[i] emergency[/i], they wanna take[i] forever[/i]!
I hate that shit!

Itorobong - Glory to God/Praise God
Linda - Beautiful
Eduok - The abandoned/Forgotten
oh and I'm not even sure about my last name, but that's what it said on that GeoCities website or whatever, so if I'm wrong, then feel free to correct me.

Itorobong.
Glory to God or praise God.

Well lets put it this way.  Here in America or not just in America, but all over the world, if you are lighter-skinned then you will be perceived as being more beautiful or more mainstream.  Me being a Nigerian and being just a little bit darker and I don't even think I'm that dark, but anyways it hurts me to think and know that people still think that way and sometimes I think it's true.  The lighter skinned girls nowadays in our mainstream culture well here in America they're always y'know the love interest or the beauty and meanwhile the dark-skinned person whether it be male or female is always almost there for comedic interest and so forth or they're portrayed as the dirty poor black person; this also happens in such countries as in Mexico or for Mexican-Americans, whereas the darker-skinned Mexican is called a "Mujao" or dirty wetback.  Also this occurs in many Middle Eastern countries. For example, there was a certain contestant on famous African-American model, Tyra Banks model search show, "America's Next Top Model", there was a girl of Ski Lankan descent and she felt that she had to wear hazel colored eye contacts so that her eyes would appear to be lighter colored, which in their eyes, think is beautiful.  My point to all of this is that our mainstream perception is that lighter is beautiful and at one time I even considered skin lightening, whereas you apply a cream to lighten your skin, but anyways beauty[i] is[/i] in the eye of the beholder, well at least it is to me.  The thing is people we are all people of color and we will always struggle to make our place in society if we continue to hold each other down with this so called "color spectrum" issue!

Well let me start off by saying that my parents are both from Nigeria and they are Ibibio I guess and I was born and raised in New Orleans, LA (Katrina sound familar to anyone), but I currently reside in Texas. It sucks.  Anyways growing up has always been quite difficult for me. Between my abusive father and my stuggling mother its no wonder I have lots of issues with self-esteem 16 years later (that's how old i am as of the time of this post or whatever). I guess you could say i have a pretty strained relationship with both of my parents, especially my mom being that it is just the two of us cause my dad is still in Louisiana. Most of the time my father was going in out of jail for domestic violence and if my mom wasnt there, he would take it out on me. I remember the first day of school we all had to say our names and it was was my turn and I was like, "My name is Itoro Eduok", and everyone just laughed their asses off, even my own cousin; her names Ekemini. So I guess you could say that I was always being made fun of. I mean the insults were just so humiliating. They called me everything from "bush baby" to stupid questions like "did you swim in a river to get here"? even though I'm an American citizen and othere stuff like "did you live in mud hut and you yall walk around naked"? I would tell my mother, but she wouldnt do anything neither would my father. Even till this day I still think they didnt really care and what made it even more embarrasing for me was that my dad was a cavb driver and he would come pick me up in a nasty ragedy ass trilfin looking cab and they would make fun of me because of that; y'know it just never really stopped. I also constantly had people telling me that I was ugly or that I looked like a man y'know just because I was tall for my age and just stupid ridiculous stuff like that. So almost everyday, I would go home crying y'know cause its just really depressing and it still at times even while I'm writing or typing this rather, it makes me want to cry y'know like I mean I know you''re supposed to move on from the past and just forgive people but I honestly don't really think I ever will maybe its just me and saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" and that is so untrue because they do hurt and they last a lifetime and I will always remember how awful they  treated me till the day I die.
Now about friends I guess you could say I never really had true friends cause they just didnt understand me and my culture at all and they would always judge me so I kind of just had school associates but never really close friends even now its really hard for me to trust people because I don't want them to judge me or my family, so I rarely bring people over to my house.
As for family i guess you could say that I don't really know my family outside of the US. I guess they just don't really get me. Like when I went to Nigeria when I was eight like at first they was like y'know, "she thinks she's all that", and they would be like, "she is so American" or they would tell my mom, "your daughter is so Americanized" and so forth and so on. And sometimes they didnt even understand what I would say because I guess I had and accent which is understandable now that I think about it, but back then I was like whatever I don't really understand what you're saying either so it kind of just went both ways I guess. It was such a culture shock to me and now I really know that Nigeria is just as good as America with the exception of a few things but the same stuff that we have, they have it also, so that whole steroype of people thinking that Africa as a whole is a poor country is so not true; its a continent with several different countries in it.
My whole point of all this is it doesnt matter if you are a child of African, Asian, or whatever ethnicity. If you are living in America with parents that are immigrants you are never truely execpted in this so called "Amercianized" culture. So sorry about this post being so long its just that I had a lot to get off my mind, I would greatly appreciate the feedback whether it be positive or negative. Thanks.