Unsettled Identities and Intersections: A Study of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah

International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 131 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 Unsettled Identities and Intersections: A Study of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah Sayima Irshad Research Scholar, Department of English, University of Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir ABSTRACT This paper examines the lead characters of the novel Americanah (2013), Ifemelu and her childhood sweetheart, Obinze, who undergo an identity transformation when they immigrate to the United States and England, respectively. Their once-cohesive identities get altered when they experience racialization in these countries. Through Ifemelu, Adichie highlights the experiences and issues faced by Black women in a white-centric culture. Ifemelu has to experience sexism in Nigeria's patriarchal society, but in America, she also undergoes racism in addition to sexism. Similarly, Obinze experiences discrimination as a Black man in England, while in Nigeria, he is a respected citizen who belongs to an upper-middle-class family. The novel has been analysed through the lens of intersectionality to understand how various social factors interact to produce distinct forms of oppression as they migrate from Nigeria to Western countries and how it alters their identities. This multifaceted complexity of social discrimination has been analysed through Leslie McCall's intracategorical approach, which questions the construction of categories and also the existence of the very same categories. As such, the interaction of gender, race and location will be taken into consideration while examining this novel. Keywords: identity, racialization, sexism, racism, intersectionality, oppression. Introduction The period from the 1980s to the 1990s is marked in the history of post-independence Nigeria by significant academic and economic emigration to Western countries, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom. Adichie is one of the many Nigerian writers who have depicted their migratory experiences to the West in their works. Through these, they highlight the intersectional experiences wrought with cultural and racial conflicts that their immigrant self has to undergo. The experience of emigration as a theme gained new impetus with the publication of Adichie's Americanah. Yogita Goyal believes that "[T]he novel inaugurates an important and long overdue conversation about the specificity of a Nigerian experience of racialization in the US and the UK, tying it firmly to both class and gender" (xi). In this novel, Adichie, through her protagonist, Ifemelu, and other Nigerian youths, depicts how the exigent circumstances of emigration force them to experience the International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 132 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 intersections of race, gender, and migration. These characters, who are middleor high-class Nigerians, must experience a loss of social power due to their race, gender, or other facets of their identities, depending on the "Western version of social categories and power distribution" (Bonivillain 9). As the intersectional theory delineates, changing their geographical location consequently alters their concepts of social categorisations. Gender and Location Intersection This study will first establish the concept of the intersection of gender and geographic location that each character experiences in this novel. As a teenager in Nigeria, Ifemelu is described as bold and brave and does not hesitate to speak her mind. Obinze admires her for being outspoken and different and usually compliments her by saying, "You look like a black American" (Americanah 67). However, during her childhood, her parents would often reinforce the societal concepts of gender. Awokoya comments on the importance of parents in instilling traditional norms of gender expectations in a child, stating, "In doing so, these parents instilled and emphasised the practice of traditional norms, values, and expectations that were in line with Nigerian culture" (Awokoya 101). The world that they shape for her is the one where males are preferred over females. From a very young age, Ifemelu finds women, including her mother, who conform and reinforce the gender stereotype of this patriarchal society. Her mother is a religious woman who, after converting to a new Christian religion, forces her to attend Sunday school. Since Ifemelu does not conform to her mother's religious ideology, her questioning of the nuns and the hypocrisy of the church's doctrines leaves her mother baffled. She tells her, "You must refrain from your natural proclivity towards provocation" (Americanah 63). Her mother wishes she were a boy, as girls were not supposed to be "troublemakers". It is during one such visit that Sister Ibinabo, while lecturing a group of young females, tells them, "Any girl that wears tight trousers wants to sin temptation" (Americanah 61). The responsibility of preventing men from committing any sexual crime is, thus, placed on women. Women like her mother or the nuns teach Ifemelu from a very young age that ideal women are supposed to be quiet and domestic and should not venture outside their preordained feminine characteristics. In such patriarchal societies, men are granted gender privileges over women. Obinze, for example, enjoys prerogatives exclusively for being a male, which Ifemelu does not, despite being from the same race and class. As such, men in such gender-stratified societies do not International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 133 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 accept women in authoritative positions. Ifemelu's father lost his job for ―refusing to call his new boss Mummy‖ and, with a termination letter in his hand, complains ―about the absurdity of a grown man calling a grown woman Mummy because she had decided it was the best way to show her respect‖ (Americanah 46). This shows the deeply ingrained male dominance in Nigerian society, where Ifemelu's father does not want to respect his boss just because she is a female. Adichie, through this particular instance, wants to convey that his boss's class privilege trumps Ifemelu's father's gender privilege. In contrast to this is the case of Ifemelu's aunt, Aunty Uju, with whom she shares a close relationship. Aunty Uju's relationship with The General, a military officer, exemplifies the intersection of gender and class. Aunty Uju, who had been brought to Lagos from rural Nigeria as a teenager for a better prospect, later succumbs to the patriarchal norms of her society when she becomes the mistress of The General. A high-ranking military officer, the General, dominates Aunty Uju as he holds the means of living. Aunty Uju submits herself to the General completely by slaving and shaving herself for him: "The General envisions Aunty Uju as a pliant domestic mistress, and she swiftly undertakes this role" (Bonvillain 18). Aunty Uju is "attracted to his power" (78) as he goes above and beyond to meet her demands; however, in return, he asks for ―details of where she went and how long she stayed" (78). By conforming to the patriarchal norms of the society where a man is always placed in an advantageous position, Aunty Uju not only loses her financial independence and individuality but, as Ifemelu observes, "that relation destroyed" (521) her completely. It is his sudden death that releases Aunty Uju from this tumultuous relationship, but not before she becomes a mother and finds herself at the crossroads, as his death leaves her penniless. She realises that she does not own anything except for the things The General had provided her. To avoid the General's family's wrath, she hastily sells off those things and flees to America with her son, Dike. While women like Ifemelu's mother teach her the expected feminine behaviour, others help her in breaking the gender expectations. It is through Obinze's mother, a university professor, that Ifemelu can enter a more inclusive world. In a fight with her colleague (although fighting is not expected from women who are professors), who slaps her when she comes to know that he has misused school funds and exposes him publicly, the students protest the injustice, citing her widowed state as the reason. However, she gets annoyed and says that "she should International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 134 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 not have been slapped because she is a full human being, not because she doesn't have a husband to speak for her" (59). Ifemelu is mesmerised by Obinze's mother, and in comparison, her mother seems provincial and small. Her fight for gender equality with a male professor at the college, as well as her advice on sexual matters, helped Ifemelu shape her personality later in life. She not only warns her to avoid non-consensual sex but also advises her to "wait until you own yourself a little more" (72). She wants Ifemelu to understand her body before any male could have the privilege of knowing her. Ifemelu can be seen incorporating this advice in all her relationships. Instead of following her docile and religious mother, who taught her to submit to the patriarchal norms of society, Ifemelu embodies a strong and independent version of Nigerian femininity both in Nigeria and in America. In her relationships with Obinze or later with Curt and Blaine, she demands mutual respect. Obinze describes her as a "woman who would make a man easily uproot his life" (Americanah 52). Thus, as an outspoken, independent, and sexually active woman, Ifemelu decides to migrate to America and attend college there. Migration requires Ifemelu to change her perception of beauty and femininity, as evident in her treatment of her hair, body, and sexuality. The notion of beauty that she holds in Nigeria is challenged the moment she arrives in America. Hair becomes a central apparatus of connotation in the novel as the concept of beauty that Ifemelu comes to internalise in America requires her to straighten her hair to the white-centric perception of beauty, which Bell Hooks notes: Within white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the social and the political context in which the custom of black folks straightening our hair emerges, it represents an imitation of the dominant white group's appearance and often indicates internalized racism, self-hatred and /or low self–esteem. ("Straightening Our Hair" 2) In the beginning of the novel, Ifemelu, who has now been in America for several years, takes a train to Trenton to get her hair done, as there are hardly any hair salons available in her city where she can get her African kinky hair braided. This indicates the tendency of American society to alienate black people from the mainstream. When the African parlour girl asks her to straighten her hair by applying a relaxer, she replies, "I like my hair the way God made it" (12). Back in Nigeria, Ifemelu does not associate any socio-political connotation with hair; International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 135 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 rather, it is an instrument of shaping her self-esteem. As a young girl, she was always fascinated by her mother's long black hair that would "flow down behind her back like a celebration" (41) and Ifemelu would imitate her: "Through the years of childhood, Ifemelu would often look in the mirror and pull at her own hair, separate the coils, will it to become like her mother's" (Americanah 41). The imitation signifies her realisation that her hair does not fit the expectations of familiar beauty standards. On migration, she realises that it is not only challenging but also expensive to maintain her hair in America. Her hair care routine undergoes a shift to meet American standards of hair care and beauty. Aunty Uju's first concern about being called for a job interview is her hair. Following American beauty standards, she prefers to use relaxers on her hair to secure her job. Again, before attending an interview in Baltimore, Ifemelu is advised, "Lose the braids and straighten your hair. Nobody says this kind of stuff, but it matters" (202). Initially, Ifemelu falls prey to the expected beauty standards of American society, but later challenges the established norm after associating herself with a web community called HappilyKinkyNappy.com. The complex identity politics are thus highlighted through hair as a recurring element in the novel. In this regard, Adichie, in her book, Dear Ijeawele, pens one of the valuable suggestions for her friend's daughter: Chizalum…will see that whiteness is valued. She will notice that the hair texture that is valued is straight or swingy, and hair that is valued falls down rather than stands up..…Let her know that slim, white women are beautiful, and that non-slim, nonwhite women are beautiful. Let her know that there are many individuals and many cultures that do not find the narrow mainstream definition of beauty attractive. (Dear Ijeawele 45) After the initial blind submission to the American beauty standards, Ifemelu also comes to terms with various social, political, and racial nuances of American society through hair. Adichie thus highlights the various racial and identity stereotypes associated with hair and beauty throughout this novel. It is imperative to note that it is not only Ifemelu whose identity is impacted by migration. Her friend, Ginika, and her aunt, Aunty Uju—both of whom have migrated to the US before her—help Ifemelu learn the nuances of the new place. It is Ginika who gives Ifemelu a International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 136 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 glimpse into American life and teaches her the first lessons on American beauty standards. Ifemelu realises that her friend, who was "just a sweet girl" and "pretty, pleasant, popular" (60, 64), had drastically adapted herself to the new society's gender standards. Admired for her docile manners and fabulous physique back in Nigeria, Ginika has transformed herself into "half her old size" in compliance with the beauty standards of American society. Similarly, Ifemelu's conception of the body is subverted when she migrates to America. A "curvy or big-boned" girl in Nigeria suddenly becomes "fat" (6) in America. Later, when she adapts to American beauty standards, her body seems right, but once she returns, she is small in size. Floating between two cultural identities, Ifemelu seems to be constantly struggling to define her body. Ginika has also mastered the "codes" and the culture of American society. She warns Ifemelu to sometimes ignore certain things, "Because this is America. You are supposed to pretend that you don't notice certain things" (127). Keeping with American norms of femininity, Ginika is well-versed in how to behave in public gatherings. She is not only conscious of when to speak and when to keep quiet, but is also careful about the comments she makes in the gathering. Ifemelu thus begins to seep into the American culture and the language slowly. Instead of saying "I don't know," they say "I am not sure," and instead of saying "Sorry," they would say "Are you okay?" (134). To use "big" instead of "fat" as "fat" had connotations of being "stupid" or "bastard" (5) instead of referring to physical appearance. In Nigeria, Ginika would label herself as a 'half-caste' because of Nigeria's focus on class. However, in America, it was a derogatory term and she had to use 'bi-racial' to refer to her two heritages. Ginika thus provides an example of the intersection of gender and nationality by adapting herself to the expectations of both societies. In comparison to Ginika, Aunty Aju, as a single mother immigrant, faces many hardships in America. As Ifemelu observes, "There were codes Ginika knew, ways of being that she had mastered. Unlike Aunty Uju, Ginika had come to America with the flexibility and fluidness of youth, the cultural cues had seeped into her skin" (Americanah 125). For women like Aunty Uju, America becomes a place of crisis where she has to adapt to a different set of patriarchal norms. By the time Ifemelu arrives in America, Aunty Uju has changed a lot. With her American accent that she adopted in public, "emerged a new persona, apologetic and self-abasing" (108). This behaviour not only stems from the new gender role that she International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 137 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 takes up but also from her understanding of the race factor that she confronts as an African in America. Her migrant experience is wrought with intersections of race, gender, and class, and she has to face multiple oppressions in America. This experience of race and gender intersection is also evident from her relationship with Bartholomew, a divorced accountant from Eziowelle, whom she met on an online dating site. With the intention of marriage, Aunty Uju once again finds herself slipping into the typical sacrificing gender roles: "She had slipped into the rituals, smiling a smile that promised to be demure to him but not to the world, lunging to pick up his fork when it slipped from his hand, serving him more beer" (Americanah 116). Although by the end of Aunty Uju's story, she had married Bartholomew, his perpetual expectation of assuming the passive gender role leaves her with one option: to part ways. Through these characters, Adichie has thus delineated the conflicting experiences they endure during migration, where they find themselves at the crossroads of migratory and racial experiences. Gender and Race Intersection While Nigeria offers a defined patriarchal stratification that both Ifemelu and Obinze fit into easily, things do not remain the same when they migrate to the White countries, where other intersectional factors come into play. Ifemelu migrates to the US as an independent, outspoken individual who is aware of her sexuality and who knows how to speak her mind. However, in America, she faces different and complex issues as an immigrant. Here, Ifemelu not only has to compromise with her gender identity, but all of a sudden, she realises that she is subject to prejudice based on her race: "I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America" (290). The issue can be connected to Adichie's dislocation and her concern with the problem of identity, as she acknowledges in an interview with Carl Wilkinson in 2005: Before I went to live in the U.S. at the age of nineteen, I was not concerned with the topic of identity. Leaving Nigeria made me much more aware of being Nigerian and what that meant. It also made me aware of race as a concept because I didn't think of myself as black until I left Nigeria … I'm not sure I would have this strong sense of being Nigerian if I had not left Nigeria.[qtd in Companion 187] International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 138 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 Through this novel, Adichie thus reflects on her own experiences in America as a migrant. Through Ifemelu and Obinze, she presents her acute observations on issues of race, identity loss, and loneliness. In Nigeria, both characters do not seem to be acquainted with the discrimination that the concept of race brings with it. For them and other youngsters, America is a mystical land full of promise, and thus they idealise American society. For Obinze, ―'You look like a black American‘ was his ultimate compliment, which he told [Ifemelu] when she wore a nice dress, or when her hair was done in large braids‖ (80). Unfamiliar with the racial prejudice in Nigeria, the social category of race is constructed for them when they migrate to whitecentric countries. Ezekiel Ette observes: ―Nearly all the Nigerians I have spoken with mention racism as a barrier to adjustment. Some reported that they were not familiar with racism before coming to the United States. Some mentioned that they read about racism but did not experience it at home before coming here‖ (129). Ifemelu and Obinze must undergo a similar experience as they migrate to foreign countries, being students who are more vulnerable than mature individuals. To establish their transnational identity, they have to encompass other discriminatory factors like gender, class, and nationality along with racial prejudices. The process of encountering the multifaceted complexities of social discrimination simultaneously is so challenging that maintaining their individuality becomes a struggle for them. Ifemelu arrives in the U.S. as a young undergraduate who is unaware and uninformed about racial stratification in America. When she arrives at Princeton College for her orientation and registration, Christina Tomas, a professional staff member, immediately makes assumptions about her values and abilities based on her physical and auditory differences. After asking her if she was at the right place for freshman registration, Cristina tells her: ‗You. Will. First. Need. To. Get A. Letter, From. The. International. Students. Office.‘ / Ifemelu half smiled in sympathy because Cristina Tomas had to have some sort of illness that made her speak so slowly, lips scrunching and puckering, as she gave directions to the international students' office. But when Ifemelu returned with the letter, Cristina Tomas said, ‗I. Need. You. To. Fill. Out. A. Couple. Of. Forms. Do. You. Understand. How. To. Fill. These. Out?‖ and she realized that Cristina Tomas International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 139 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 was speaking like that because of her, her foreign accent, and she felt for a moment like a small child, lazy-limbed and drooling. (133 italics in original) Ifemelu is bewildered by Cristina‘s reaction when she realizes it was because of her foreign accent. She feels embarrassed and demeaned in front of Cristina. This shows how language and accent are used to propagate overt racism for immigrants. Although Ifemelu has been speaking English throughout her life, she still experiences Othering due to her skin colour and accent. Obinze, who has enjoyed class and gender privilege in his home country, experiences similar discrimination based on race and his immigration status in England. Having initially failed to secure a visa for failing to ‗qualify‘ for it several times, he finally manages to get one because of his mother‘s astuteness. However, after securing entry into the warehouse delivery job, he is assigned the lowest-status work of a labourer. Here, Obinze‘s life is shadowed by his coworkers‘ emphasis on race. His fall from social power because of race and gender intersection makes him realise the social positions women in Nigeria are relegated to. After living an undocumented life for a few years, he decides to leave the country that refuses to see him beyond his physical appearance. Ifemelu‘s difficulty in finding a job can be attributed to the intersection of gender and race. Having failed to acquire a job initially, Ifemelu gets frustrated and is forced to use her sexuality. While an employer crudely tells her, ―You can work for me in another way‖ (178), later, she almost enters a sex act when employed as a relaxer for a tennis coach for one hundred dollars per sitting. Reduced to a mere object, she feels, ―The world was a big, big place and she was so tiny, so insignificant, rattling around emptily‖ (154). Overwhelmed by frustration, she contemplates resorting to extreme measures, even contemplating the idea of murdering the tennis coach: She would hit him on the head over and over with an axe. She would plunge a knife into his muscled chest [….] She would leave the knife sunk in his chest and then search his drawers for his bundle of one-hundred-dollar bills, so that she could pay her rent and her tuition. (155) It is because of her gender and race intersection that Ifemelu realizes the sudden hypersexualization of her body. These experiences shake the once strong-willed, independent, and International Journal of Research (IJR) e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Vol. 12 Issue 13 October 2025 Received: 12 October 2025 n 146 Revised: 25 October 2025 Accepted: 30 October 2025 Copyright  authors 2025 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.5281/ZENODO.17502543 McCall, Leslie. ―The Complexity of Intersectionality.‖ Signs, vol. 30, no. 3, 2005, pp. 1771– 800. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/426800. Wilkinson, Carl. ―An Interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‖ in A Companion to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Ed. Ernest N. Emenyonu. James Currey, 2017.