Questions and No Answers

"I am African American—by which I mean, a descendant of slaves, rather than a descendant of immigrants who came here willingly and with lives more or less intact. My ancestors were the unwilling, unintact ones: children torn from parents, parents torn from elders, people torn from roots, stories torn from language. Past a certain point, my family's history just . . . stops. As if there was nothing there." (Jemisin 111)

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When I first read that passage from Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves, I was thrown into a series of memories from fourth grade. All of them were sobering reminders of the differences I will always have when compared to my peers that are not descendants of the enslaved. I didn't then have the language for the complicated feelings rumbling in my heart.

The first memory is on the day that my current best friend (CBF) was visiting the school I was going to. This school is a PWI full of legacies and families with more money than I can even imagine having. Anyway, we were sitting on the rug and my CBF was near me and this other black girl. The two of them were the daughters of first-generation African immigrants, so they had a clear idea of where they came from. CBF asked me where my family/ancestors were from and I had no answer except that I didn't know. The two of them looked at each other and were so confused as to how I didn't know. I felt so ashamed in that moment. Why didn't I know? What was wrong with me that I couldn't pinpoint the place of my heritage? Obviously I got over this sinking feeling because I am super close with CBF now, but this moment also stayed with me since I can remember it so many years later.

The second memory is more of an image. In fourth grade, we had to do a family tree project. I remember being excited to find out about where my family comes from. Despite my enthusiasm, I hit a brick wall very early into my research. There was a sepia picture of this male ancestor in some kind of soldier's uniform, but no one knew his name or any kind of backstory about our family. Yet again I was left with no answers. Not only that but my lack of answers would be put down on the little poster I had to make for this project. There was a time where we were all in the fourth-grade hallway showing off our family trees and I remember that shame coming back when I saw how little was on my poster. The questions seemed to outnumber answers 100 to 1.

The third memory is a class field trip to Ellis Island. I felt a bit disconnected from my non-black classmates because I knew that none of my ancestors came to Ellis Island. Then there was a designated time for everyone to look up their last names in these computers to find records of their ancestors immigrating to America. I remember feeling so conspicuous by not going to the computers and then walking over to them and just hovering to make it look like I was searching myself up. I couldn't wait to leave.

The fourth-grade social studies theme was immigration, which is why it was so full of these memories. There was also an assignment to write an immigration narrative, and while my classmates wrote about actual immigrants, I wrote about a Nigerian girl being sold into slavery. Very dark. The last part was "Abeo never got to make her mark in this world. Will you?" for fuck's sake. Thank goodness I've grown so much since then. I'm learning things about the African diaspora that, while it doesn't answer the specific questions I have about my family history, make me feel less alone and ashamed. The shame should not be on me. It should be on everyone who perpetuated the institution of slavery and continues to oppress black people. The shame isn't mine. I'm so glad that it's turning into pride.

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Jemisin, N. K. "Dreaming Awake."Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves: an Anthology, edited by Glory Edim, New York, Ballantine Books, 2018, pp. 111-20.